Free Gifts for Premium Members? This may answer why the MP relevance has been changed.

[Chelsea Malibu]

We have all been complaining about how relevancy has changed for MP search where free and low cost items show up first.  One of the biggest complaints I see about SL is that users feel that though it's free to be a member, they nickel and dime you to death trying to get you to buy more, more, more.

I do see the point with that as marketing in SL requires you have stores all over which comes across like miles of spam but what most don't realize is that those sales are what keeps land sales up and therefore, provides the experience of SL.

However, now I see that LL is providing free gifts including free furniture if you are a premium member. I don't recall this ever being posted anywhere or where a merchant can get in on this which makes me wonder.  Is this another strategy to push premium memberships at the cost of SL merchants?  Is this why Free or Low cost items now show first in relevance?  To let users know it's not that expensive to belong to SL as long as you pay for a premium membership?

One can only ponder what this means or perhaps nothing at all but I am curious to hear everyone else's thoughts.

Ref: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/New-Premium-Membership-Features/bc-p/1077063#M6653

 

[Mylar]

You forgot to mention that, in order to get your free swag, you have to go to a "premium only" region. Makes me wonder if SL is going to start being separated into high class servers, and low performance ghettos.

[Josh Susanto]

Social stratification already exists in SL, but there is both tokenism and "slumming".

I accept this because I'm not a Utopian, and I think it's a more complete simulated experience if SL has at least some of everything people dislike about RL.

[Claireschen Hesten]

with so much free stuff around i don't see why LL should be bribing people with free gifts from SL stores to get them to go premium the idea of exclusive sandboxes is good as part of premium so you don't have to mix with us riff-raff who can't or won't upgrade

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

 

 

[Chelsea Malibu]

I actually can appreciate the art of slumming as the old Shady Grove trailer park (I think that's the name) and Hobo Junction where really cool spots.  Realizing that this too could be a chosen lifestyle and not one mandated makes it more of an adventure then a disadvantages.

I too am not a Utopian and have no fear of isolation or anything else in SL as I can simply log out anytime I choose.

On Claires point, that too is interesting in that if we already have so much for free as it is, why use this to bribe residents into paying premium?  Qwalyphi makes a validation of this too as they can market upgrades to new houses, but where and from whom?

When you look at their Q2 report, you see that anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 new residents sign up a day and though we know many are alts, I also must assume that at least 10% are not.  If 1,000 are uniques, that would increase the resident base by 300,000 or more a year which would drive up concurrencies but we see that that is either flat or down.

The reality of it is that they got away from paid accounts to build SL to attract corporate America.  It failed and now they need to recover.

As Philip said in the recent documentary Life 2.0, they only built the platform and we the users made the world.  If this is such a strong talking point for LL, why wont they let us in on their marketing strategy?  If it's us who creates and drives the economy of SL but more, the retention, why not be more open about these strategies and let us assist since we all want to see SL grow.

[Madeliefste Oh]

I'm a premium member, but these new advantages don't offer me anything. I have my own land to build, I have no need for freebies, and I don't like unfair competition.

I think LL should make a better analyse of her customerbase, and offer several packages for premium members, that are attractive to different kind of users.

A more attractive package for creators and merchants could be one that contains things like:

- 5 free mesh uploads and 20 free texture uploads per week
or
- pay only 2,5% commission on your marketplace sales
or
- 50% discount on one 'featured item advertisement' on the marketplace



[Pamela Galli]

I am thrilled that now in addition to free houses and land, LL is giving away free furniture!

On top of the free skin and clothing everyone gets in the Library.

 

[amarock Amat]

SL is a typical Free to play method

 

You can login and do waht you wish, but you need to buy things to enhance your expeirnce..

 

 

It' is the new style for games now 

[Melita Magic]

---

Claireschen Hesten wrote:

with so much free stuff around i don't see why LL should be bribing people with free gifts from SL stores to get them to go premium the idea of exclusive sandboxes is good as part of premium so you don't have to mix with us riff-raff who can't or won't upgrade

---

Dunno but I'll take it...it's free!

The free sandboxes will REALLY be nice, and will get people back into the social aspect of building, I hope. 

Currently, sandboxes are griefer hell.

[Poenald Palen]

Looks like they are trying to get the interior designers hooked lol

[Poenald Palen]

---

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote:

Maybe it's a balancing kinda thing. 

Some premium members buy land or extra land to have a peaceful place to build. The premium sandbox is an incentive to buy less land since the "protected sandbox"  is available.

The free furniture is an incentive to buy more land.  Like - where am I going to put this free furniture?

 

 

---

I think the whole thing creates an incentive to stay. People who can not buy land llarge enough will only build small things. If youget them building a huge house, they will want to place it somwhere! Simple sort of way to help people dream? Dunno, just seems this way to me. It is about getting people hooked, get them seeing the possibilities and understand what SL has to offer. A peson who is into interior design will love SL! They can spend a fraction of what they would in real life on a whole room here! I mean, tiny amounts compared to real life redecorating, interior designing ect.

Plus, you realise many people are getting payment info on file and might look to that sim and a small linden home plot of 1024 and think it is better than building above the store because not only can they use the linden home to smooze in, or at least hold parties in, and not lag customers like they did when they partied above the store!  IMHO, but I am not thier marketing staff lol.

Plus, they to get free access to a good sim to build in where less trouble will be! It is all to tip over users who like to make things and get them hooked with a dream of something big...so, maybe they will expand thier store faster with faster building, easier workflow and happier times expanding the store. Oops, they need more floor space, time ot expand and up the tier fees into LL's pockets! So, this helps people work faster.

Now, if you are a poorer person...youget up early because you know some areas are very quite and things work faster lol. Get up, work and then go to bed again. Maybe adopt combat sleep or '[ower' sleeping and work when SL is free and not laggy, contact folks ect. Poor usually ='s more free time. Surely not all the time, I know some can work 60 hours and still end up with little at the end of the week but bills and worry. But, usually you don't have much of a social life when you are poor, it is to expensive and makes bills on your CC or at least means you have to bum money or a ride lol. Easier to stay at home, use SL at work or forums at work.

[Chronometria]

Premium Sandboxes is a good start.

Freebie furniture really is not, however. What i would suggest is raising the weekly stipend, especially as it is lowest for new signups. I get 300 a week, for example, whereas signups earlier than me get 400 or 500. It's bad enough i dont get a surname, but this financial imbalance further reminds me that i`m some sort of unworthy newcomer and that my money isnt as good as that of older accounts.

[Lasher Oh]

Tokenism for those of us who have been premium for years.

It might look like a deal to newbies but old bears like me  will see right through it. What premium members really really need are some guaranteed service standards and quick access to support.

As it stands the only real benefit of premium membership is the paltry stipend which  could do with being increased to say L$500.

I won't be holding my breath for that though. In fact I wouldn't  be surprise if these latest baubbles are the first step towards increasing the cost of Premium or cutting back on the size of the stipend.

Afterall, during his keynote talk Rodvik went out of his way several times to tell us that he would not comment on pricing.

I can feel a price hike coming in my digital bones.

^L^

 

 

[Ziggy21 Slade]

---

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

A more attractive package for creators and merchants could be one that contains things like:

- 5 free mesh uploads and 20 free texture uploads per week

or

- pay only 2,5% commission on your marketplace sales

or

- 50% discount on one 'featured item advertisement' on the marketplace

 

---

 

Great Idea!

[Chelsea Malibu]

---

amarock Amat wrote:

SL is a typical Free to play method

 You can login and do what you wish, but you need to buy things to enhance your experience..

 It' is the new style for games now 

---

Actually it was not originally a free game and for the most part, it's not free now.  In fact, it is the most expensive game online today when you look at it's economy. 

They opened it up to free to boost their member numbers so that they could show better numbers to attract corporate America which then backfired so now they are back peddling to make up for it at the cost of the businesses in SL.  But that's nothing new to LL as they will gladly give away the shirt off YOUR back to anyone they want.

When I bought my first set of sims, we purchases 9 at $2,000 each and $295 a month. Within two months, without any advanced notice, they lowered the cost from $2,000 to $1,000.  The impact for current sim owners meant that we not only just wasted $1,000 per sim but that the value of those sims all went down by $1,000 should you decide to sell them.

[Lyra Blackthorne]

Maybe because I have been here awhile and I have my own land I do not care about free gifts nor premium sandboxes. Gifts in general do not work well, even in RL...any gift you can think of will only appeal to a small percentage of recipients others wont need it, wont like it or both. Also "free" rarely generates any long term loyalty.  I would rather have some cost savings like tier reduction, reduced advertising costs for Premium member merchants or some such

But even more I would be happiest if they upgraded the support staff with people who are SL experienced so our service is better/broader and then spent their time and money fixing what is broken in the world like inworld search and the Marketplace

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

My guess is that the free furniture is primarily about retention.

A few months ago, a friend introduced me to a friend he'd met somewhere. She was brand new, had a linden house, and was putting a lot of effort into slogging through freebie places. She was happy enough with the furniture she'd found - she didn't yet know enough to realize how very 2006 it looked - but it was chewing through her allotted prims at a furious pace without filling the space.

I don't know what's happened to her, but I haven't seen her logged in since her first month in SL.

So my guess is that the new free furniture will damage the market for obsolete pre-menu pre-sculpt prim monsters first and foremost. If it is decent qualtiy, then it will teach noobs a bit about what to look for. And some of them will want to get better stuff to go alongside their linden sofa and later to replace it.

SL's learning curve is immense. If making the beginning easier means more people enjoy their first month and get hooked, that''s going to benefit everyone.

Furniture creators especially - cause that sofa is going to make the pre-sculpt bed from the easy-to-find freebie place look a bit shabby.

[Ciaran Laval]

---

amarock Amat wrote:

SL is a typical Free to play method

 

You can login and do waht you wish, but you need to buy things to enhance your expeirnce..

 

 

It' is the new style for games now 

---

Indeed, LL were way ahead of the curve on this one.

[VonGklugelstein Alter]

LoL at giving away free chandeliers .. I cannot wait to claim mine because I only made one so far and need more of those for my many unfinished houses. I wonder if they are Copy Mod Transfer as such items should be?

 

Maybe they are doing this to eliminate the Drama ? If everything is free who cares which breedable rat system is sueing the other breedable Lag bomb makers and other IP drama tat results whenever a money value is associated..

 

[Eio Tuqiri]

Another bad idea from Linden Labs. First it was a free house, now it's free furniture for premium members.   And more freebies to come?  Wonder how many inworld creators will suffer or be put out of business...

I see the free furniture is created by an inworld creator.  How did they get that gig?  Guess at least these creators will have a chance to stay in business. 

Where are the creative thinkers at LL?  How about coming up with something that will boost premium membership sign-ups without taking away business from residents?  This kind of thinking can provide solutions without harming or further alienating a growing number of residents.



 

[Jaylin Wytchwood]

.

I build on a nice small virually unknwen quite sandbox, or on m land... so i dont realy need the premium one..

 

But im seriously pissed about free furniture cause i build & sell them myself....

The crap furniture set is what.. i think i did read 45 prims... Perfect to full up close to half of that Freebie house... lol

 

I would LOVE to get tier reductions, Free texture uploads.. something that helps creators, who already own land, and noncrappy furniture.

 

[Cudaboy Lockjaw]

Free 512 to full members with an empty house, Ok not a great idea but a good way to use up all the extra land since people  dumping off main land.  Bad idea (don't know if anyone tried this, or if it was just said but not fact ) Supposedly no market place boxes allowed on the free lot.

Good idea sandboxes for premium members and reg members can't access.  Should hopefully stop griefing in the boxes. Yet most Paid members already own land so they wont be using the sand boxes anyhow.

 

Giving free furniture, well I call that a dbl edge sword. It kills the furniture makers in sl , prevents people from  exploring in turn that hurts other retailers and in my opinion stops people from learning and maby staying in sl.

But it will make LL money because of the membership fee and IF a person stays they will have used up all there prims so they will need to buy a larger lot so land gets sold and monthly fees go up.

Now if they were really creator content conscious they would offer a creator membership and give 200L$  worth of uploads a month and a creator only  sandboxes.

[Edie Shoreland]

---

Madeliefste Oh wrote:

- 5 free mesh uploads and 20 free texture uploads per week

or

- pay only 2,5% commission on your marketplace sales

or

- 50% discount on one 'featured item advertisement' on the marketplace

 

---

I went premium because I like SL.  The sandboxes and freebies don't offer me any advantage over building at home, even my free SL house has become a toolshed/mainland testing ground when I occasionally have issues on the homestead I rent.

The one thing LL could offer me that would really make premium a value is invisible log-ins.   Not the "let everyone know you're online while you're checking off the boxes on your contact list" kind of invisible, or the web based method that requires you enter URLs for each chatty cathy on your friends list kind of invisible, or the "I'm invisible to everyone except you (unless you have a spy-HUD)" kind of invisible, but an invisibility that SL treats in the same way as if you hadn't logged in at all.  That way I could actually relax while I'm creating instead of having to try and balance conversations with people I like, but who tend to really disrupt any kind of concentration when I'm trying to finish a project.  And it would prevent contacts from randomly IMing me from Phoenix to ask me why I clicked off the box preventing them from seeing me online.

SL is a great place to meet nice, but socially inept people with fragile egos.  Rather than spending my building time humoring them or explaining the concepts of boundaries, it'd be nice to have one checkbox I can click in preferences that cloaks the time I need to be on SL to get things done.

[Eio Tuqiri]

Madeliefste, Great Idea!!  A setting that allows you to be truly invisible.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was suggesting when I asked where the creative minds are at LL, and why not think of things that would entice people to become premium members while at the same time NOT competing with and taking away business from creator residents, as well as alienating your existing user base.

THIS is the kind of idea that would not only attract new users, but make those who are already residents want to become premium members.