The Future of SL Business

[Persephone Emerald]

I thought this was a good video on the recent concerns about TOS enforcement on business owners sharing their accounts. There's more to be discussed though. How might the recent focus on a SL mobile app affect SL businesses?

[brodiac90]

Have I missed something? 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

31 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

Have I missed something? 

The MP for a pretty well known and well established SL business, DRD, was shut down recently and the owner's account temporarily suspended because they were using a shared account to run the business -- a practice pretty common in larger groups and businesses, and apparently sort of permitted according to the old SL wiki page on running a business.

ETA:

 

Edited June 17 by Scylla Rhiadra

[animats]

How was this handled when SL had large businesses such as IBM with in-world presences?

The groups system has a long list of "abilities" that can be assigned to roles in the group. None of them, though, relate to Marketplace. Perhaps store management should be added through the groups system.

This needs design work, but there's a potential solution.

[Bree Giffen]

DRD has been restored per the video above. Looking into the marketplace I see DRD exists with 1756 items.

Does this mean LL has backed down and allows accounts to be shareable between real life users? Will this be changed in the TOS or will separate business accounts be made available? Has LL put enforcement of account sharing on hold? 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, animats said:

How was this handled when SL had large businesses such as IBM with in-world presences?

The groups system has a long list of "abilities" that can be assigned to roles in the group. None of them, though, relate to Marketplace. Perhaps store management should be added through the groups system.

This needs design work, but there's a potential solution.

It's totally fixable. LL just needs to put a workable system in place -- something they have bizarrely neglected to do to this point.

And, as this video would suggest, they need to do it FAST. And in consultation with the merchant community.

It also needs to account for the needs of other types of large groups too.

[Jaylinbridges]

I share an account with one other person that is part of the business.  If she is gone for two days or just oversleeps or is sick, I must gain access to keep things running smoothly.  Of course I have alts too, but somehow my alts are extremely lazy and get nothing done when I am working on other things.   I need sharing of other accounts as well, but I can't talk about that.  LL needs a realistic policy for account sharing.  Not some paranoid idea that all your trusted friends are thieves.  Think of joint checking accounts at banks for a couple.  LL should realize not everyone works or lives alone.

 

Edited June 17 by Jaylinbridges

[Rick Nightingale]

4 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

DRD has been restored per the video above. Looking into the marketplace I see DRD exists with 1756 items.

Does this mean LL has backed down and allows accounts to be shareable between real life users?

As far as I recall, LL didn't back down on the shared account issue, just restored access to the main DRD owner's account after suspending it. Hence the store. After all, LL doesn't want to lose out on that sales commission I guess.

Edited June 17 by Rick Nightingale

[CaMeRoN Messinez]

Store owners can add managers to their MP stores. Maybe something like it can be done for inworld accounts.

Like Amazon's house-wholes accounts that can be shared within the family members.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

6 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

How might the recent focus on a SL mobile app affect SL businesses?

I suppose it would help if you could buy things from the mobile app. There's only "Touch" and "Sit", no dialog support the last time I looked, or ways to "Pay an Object".

SL business are irrelevant in the mobile app if you cannot pay using it, in my opinion. Maybe support for that is planned. 

[Cristiano Midnight]

50 minutes ago, CaMeRoN Messinez said:

Store owners can add managers to their MP stores. Maybe something like it can be done for inworld accounts.

Like Amazon's house-wholes accounts that can be shared within the family members.

 

Where it starts to get complex is when you get to inventory issues. Not sure how that part can be easily solved, as there is no shared inventory concept between accounts.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 hours ago, animats said:

How was this handled when SL had large businesses such as IBM with in-world presences?

Maddy quoted WayBack information in a previous thread, showing that Corporations were advised on sharing accounts; the obvious meaning of that information was that Corporations were expected to share accounts at that time (for administrative reasons, etc.).

[stlshayne]

56 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

As far as I recall, LL didn't back down on the shared account issue, just restored access to the main DRD owner's account after suspending it. Hence the store. After all, LL doesn't want to lose out on that sales commission I guess.

That and this has been (and could turn into even more) bad PR. DRD is a very large and respected store. 

 

Not sure I've ever seen that many pages of people all agreeing on this forum. 

Edited June 17 by stlshayne

[Rick Nightingale]

1 minute ago, stlshayne said:

Not sure I've ever seen that many pages of people all agreeing on this forum. 

Ain't that the truth!

[Jaimy Hancroft]

6 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I thought this was a good video on the recent concerns about TOS enforcement on business owners sharing their accounts. There's more to be discussed though. How might the recent focus on a SL mobile app affect SL businesses?

Great video. i've said all i can say on the matter i think. It's upto Linden Labs now to come up with a solution.
just keep upvoting this https://feedback.secondlife.com/feature-requests/p/allow-business-accounts-to-share-access-responsibly

so the tech team get get behind this and we actually get it implemented asap.

Edited June 17 by Jaimy Hancroft
typos

[Sid Nagy]

9 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

DRD has been restored per the video above. Looking into the marketplace I see DRD exists with 1756 items.

Does this mean LL has backed down and allows accounts to be shareable between real life users? Will this be changed in the TOS or will separate business accounts be made available? Has LL put enforcement of account sharing on hold? 

i'm renting from a huge land company in SL. The estate holder is 24/7 online and responding. Now either she never sleeps or it is a shared account.
Account sharing is not unique in Second Life's businesses.

I can see, that LL is no big fan of account sharing. because of the possible drama involved, when partners split up.
But there are possibilities IMHO by creating business account that get options just like inworld groups have, with different specific roles for each member.
Problem is, it takes most likely some serious coding from the Lab, without any real gain for them, so that will not happen anytime soon IMHO.

The fancy mirrors are conversation pieces for the press and potential new users, no?

Edited June 17 by Sid Nagy

[Jaimy Hancroft]

9 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

Where it starts to get complex is when you get to inventory issues. Not sure how that part can be easily solved, as there is no shared inventory concept between accounts.

event avatars and store avatars are basically shells that hold the vendor system and all the products/notecards/info , when creating with more then one person its just easier  then having to do stuff full perm , hand it over pass it foreward with multiple creators attached , everything on one avatar makes sense.
the same as it does for event avatars that people can contact for such event so all the contacts are on one avatar and not anyones personal avatar to avoid chaos.

Plus they used to advise it as states many times now in the feedback portal

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Managing_business_projects_in_Second_Life
        "Again, if an employee leaves, make sure to immediately change passwords of any accounts to which they've had access. And ensure their account is removed from all appropriate groups and land access, so they have no access to your business' content and accounts in Second Life."
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Permitting_Others_to_Access_or_Transferring_Second_Life_Accounts
        "Should you give another person access to your account, you do so at your own risk; that is, if you permit someone to access your account, you are responsible for what that individual does while using your account."

[Cristiano Midnight]

26 minutes ago, Jaimy Hancroft said:

event avatars and store avatars are basically shells that hold the vendor system and all the products/notecards/info , when creating with more then one person its just easier  then having to do stuff full perm , hand it over pass it foreward with multiple creators attached , everything on one avatar makes sense.
the same as it does for event avatars that people can contact for such event so all the contacts are on one avatar and not anyones personal avatar to avoid chaos.

Plus they used to advise it as states many times now in the feedback portal

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Managing_business_projects_in_Second_Life
        "Again, if an employee leaves, make sure to immediately change passwords of any accounts to which they've had access. And ensure their account is removed from all appropriate groups and land access, so they have no access to your business' content and accounts in Second Life."
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Permitting_Others_to_Access_or_Transferring_Second_Life_Accounts
        "Should you give another person access to your account, you do so at your own risk; that is, if you permit someone to access your account, you are responsible for what that individual does while using your account."

How does this solve inventory issues in terms of multiple people needing to access an account?

[xDancingStarx]

The only thing I find blatantly ridiculous is how names of uninvolved 3rd parties are dropped, speculating and fingerpointing at them.

Quote from the video: "meanwhile residents are speculating about Jessica Chung who runs the largest estate in Second Life. despite allegedly being online 24/7 it doesn't appear to concern Linden Lab maybe she's a superhero who never needs sleep or perhaps more realistically she's sharing her account as everyone suspects"

What residents are speculating? Looking at the feedback thread the name of Anshe/Jessica was dropped by who? Deathrowdesigns Resident. That's the only person in that thread claiming/speculating that Anshe/Jessica is sharing her account. lol.

Edited June 17 by xDancingStarx

[AmeliaJ08]

Not really sure I agree with the whole trying to get Jessica Chung in trouble...

I dunno, seems petty. I'd also assume that people running businesses that apparently require multiple managers on one account in SL (why?) have realised the best (TOS compliant) way to do this is to run on one machine and virtual desktop into it if you need to use it.

It's a clunky solution but sharing account details has always been known to be problematic as far as the rules and we've all heard of punishments being handed out for doing so so just work around the rule if you need to do this for your business, it's not exactly difficult.

 

 

Edited June 17 by AmeliaJ08

[Modulated]

I don't really understand why Chung's business is being dragged into this. Obviously they haven't done anything to seemingly violate the rules and DRD needs to focus on what DRD has done or didn't do. Stop dragging others into this IMO.

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

7 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

The MP for a pretty well known and well established SL business, DRD, was shut down recently and the owner's account temporarily suspended because they were using a shared account to run the business -- a practice pretty common in larger groups and businesses, and apparently sort of permitted according to the old SL wiki page on running a business.

ETA:

 

That's against TOS?  WTF?  We used a shared account, back when I ran Whitmyre Island for my RL university, when I was a student at the honors college at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  We were the most trafficked RL university sim on the grid for almost 5 years.  If you don't have an account that is controlled by an organization, not by an individual, then your organization arguably doesn't own the things it needs to own to be present in SL.  Also if the things in SL were owned by me, then our hit by a bus ratio would be one.  If I drop out or leave or get hit by a bus, then all the stuff I built for my university would disappear, which is wrong.  I considered the stuff I made on that job to be work for hire.  If LL didn't drive all the academics away, eventually causing the project to end, then my build should have persisted after I left IUP.

Either some knucklehead wrote the TOS wrong, or some knucklehead read the TOS wrong.  On some level, this is a huge mistake.

[MBeatrix]

7 hours ago, animats said:

How was this handled when SL had large businesses such as IBM with in-world presences?

The groups system has a long list of "abilities" that can be assigned to roles in the group. None of them, though, relate to Marketplace. Perhaps store management should be added through the groups system.

This needs design work, but there's a potential solution.

It's complicated, as it will require everything to be deeded to a group.

[MBeatrix]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

i'm renting from a huge land company in SL. The estate holder is 24/7 online and responding. Now either she never sleeps or it is a shared account.
Account sharing is not unique in Second Life's businesses.

I can see, that LL is no big fan of account sharing. because of the possible drama involved, when partners split up.
But there are possibilities IMHO by creating business account that get option just like inworld groups have, with different specific roles for each member.
Problem is. it takes most likely some serious coding from the Lab, without any real gain for them, so that will not happen anytime soon IMHO.

The fancy mirrors are conversation pieces for the press and potential new users, no?

No code needed if they reformulate the ToS a bit.

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

I reviewed the relevant parts of TOS, and the more I think about this, the more I realize the shared account violation is a red herring.  There is no reading of TOS that makes it a violation to share accounts.

This is happening because LL employees have their own private SL accounts, where they have SL businesses.  They use their power as LL employees to hurt their competition, by giving out suspensions for invented violations, like sharing accounts.  I personally believe we already see LL employees throwing their weight around by using Bellisseria's birthday as an excuse to build a massive mall to advertise their 'favorite vendors.'  I assume their favorite vendors are Linden alts.