Toysoldier Thor Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 LOL... now thats the Mickey we know and love. Pull of the gun from the gun rack in the back window and start shooting at all that moves... thinking about what your shooting at is for sissys! Yeeeee HAaaaa!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 ok, Now I might get grumpy. Who the F do you think that you are talking to? How dare you judge how people use their money. Do you realize that you are talking to customers? Do you ask that question of everyone who purchases from you? Now this part is hilarious, because I see a hell of a lot more tears from Merchants in this thread, than from those who are having fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Excuse me? What does that mean pull the gun from the gun rack in the back window? Expand please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 It's bedtime everyone.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 But Momma Luna! I gotta leave the front porch of the river shack and go out to my pick-up truck, get my gun off that rack, and sit on the porch and clean it with my hound dog before bedtime! Good Grief. He is so far off, it's just freakin' hilarious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 I figure Mickey... that more than one of us can be so far off base on logic.... so I am joining you. You do whateve suits your fancy "next week". see now its me sitting back here an laughing as you will be busy next week doing whatever you plan to prove to the rest of us merchants that we need to be afraid. NiNi... I am going into SL and do some singing as my business keep making money without me... EEEK! OMG! I am making a profit in SL. I should have a freebie sale on all my stuff - to help the poor in SL who cant afford a decent rock. Nite all this thread has become a comedy fest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Night Billy Bob Bubba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snow Frostwych Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Toysoldier Thor wrote: Ohh and one final thought on all those POOR AVATARS in SL that freebie creators are helping. They are poor for all the reasons that were mentioned... how bad the real life economy is and they cant afford to buy that $1000L nice ballroom dress for the ball, or afford a nice skin to look good, or the better sculpted parts for their home.... If these Avatars / people behind the avatars are so poor not to pay the high gouged prices by all those eveil Merchants of SL, how are they paying for their ISP to be on SL? Or the computer that gets them on SL? Or heck even the power to run the computer that gets them on SL? IF life is so hard in their RL world - which I am sure it is - then forget about shedding a tear because you cannot get a decent avatar skin for free. You should be wondering why you are on SL in the first place. As someone here seems to call SL.... Why are they even playing a game as opposed to saving it to keep their RL going? So as much as some of you are throwing this "ohhh dont shed a tear for the SL businesses that are losing profits or even going under because of the impacts of the SL freebie economy"... you should also stop using the lame excuse that "I create freebies to help the poor troddened Avatars that cant afford to buy things in SL". Really? I sometimes wonder the same when a merchant cries about freebie creators taking away from their food bill for their kids. You either adapt to the current economy or you die, it's that simple. I do not care how, what or why another merchant do with their stores & products. I don't go around demanding they lower their prices for the "poor troddened avatars" of SL. However they conduct their business is excatly that, THEIR business, not mine. How I conduct my business, is MY business, not yours. I'll be damned if anyone dictates to me what I should be doing in SL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Snow Frostwych wrote: Question for Rene..... Does IMVU sell land & have tier? I have no idea about IMVU. The only thing I remember about it were ads for it at a pixel doll site I used to make pixel dolls for & moderate. Nope...it's a different set up. You get like your own environment where you can place a house, furniture, garden etc...they are called Rooms i think and not linked. You just click into that area. IMVU derives most of it's income from their Catalog shopping site, and subscriptions to upgrade to VIP status (you can select your own name then and not "Guest"...plus you're allowed to be a Developer and use their creation tools.) There...you spotted it......their adverts.!!! That's why they grew so big, they ran massive non-stop media campaigns since 2008. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Rene Erlanger wrote: I recently wrote some numbers down in a General Discussions thread ....and through some rough calculations provided from LL data which was publically available until Sept 2010......that about 25% of the monthly logins support (financially or creatively) the rest of the grid who play for free and not contribute towards the SL economy. I'm happy to pay my part of the costs so others have the oppertunity to play for free. My analyses is that they don't harm the SL economy at all, as long as the number of residents that do spend money in SL is stable enough to keep the economy going. Nobody has real basic needs in SL, avatars don't need money to survive, we don't have to feed our avatar. People buy virtual goods because they want virtual goods, not because they need them.As long as the demand for this luxury is high while the production is low, the prices will be high. But when the tide turns and the offering on the market is bigger then the demand the prices will start to fall. We have no meganismes to lower the production when we see the demand falling. We don't destroy our stocks, not only because we are just individuals in a large and cluttered system we cannot oversee, but also because it is our own 'creative sweat and blood'. We are simply not prepared to kill our darlings. So to keep the system running in a way that is satisfying for the merchant community as a whole the only solution is grow of demand. The longer this growth stays out, the more we will be forced to eat from each others piece of the cake. I think SL has still a lot of potential to grow, LL missed a big part of potential customers. It is still not to late, but they must hurry up a bit. Growth can safe us for a pretty good time... but after a certain time we wil end up in a comparable situation as we are now. First some of us and in the end most of us will become victims of our own eager to create. Because virtual goods are not consumed, once made they can exist forever. Even when we grow a lot one day we will reach the point of saturnation again. And then, what then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Not sure how it's getting personal - you made a great plug for IMVU - I told you to get your azz over there, so you can start making some money before heavy competition sets in. Sounds like some competition rattles you a bit. I downsized in physical world, when the web commerce started. It would have been incredibly stupid, not to. Everyone started shopping on the web. The folks that thought they could keep a fancy little downtown store with outrageous overhead, well I think most went under big time. I love SL because it's like an incubator. Much less financial risk here, to test things out. I'm testing now, and it's working great - had an awesome weekend in the store. It's not a plug for IMVU...although i have an account overthere (for recon purposes)...it's very much an inferior product. IMO it doesn't begin to compare to Second Life.....plus it's very much a younger crowd but not exclusively. There's more Developers and products listed on IMVU than Second Life......it's left SL in the dust! I highlighted mainly that IMVU grew in every area during a recessionary period whilst SL did not. Dartagan got it absolutely right....the blame lies solely at the feet of LL Management. Those 2 years of M.Linden & Jack Linden running in tandom, practically destroyed SL from ever really growing into something much bigger.....they brought SL to a ginding halt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Keyword phrases: Gun Rack Pick Up - ZERO - big honking ZERO available Gun Rack - only 27 - and NOT ONE for a Pick Up Truck - no freebies on front page Front Porch - healthy mix of prices Hound Dog - Holy Cow! Ain't no freebies on that page, Bubba! That's for dang sure! Yee Haw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snow Frostwych Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Keyword phrases: Gun Rack Pick Up - ZERO - big honking ZERO available Gun Rack - only 27 - and NOT ONE for a Pick Up Truck - no freebies on front page Front Porch - healthy mix of prices Hound Dog - Holy Cow! Ain't no freebies on that page, Bubba! That's for dang sure! Yee Haw Oh oh oh!! Search for "Yee Haw"!! No free hound dog?? I has sad face lol EDIT: Did a search for Hound Dog.....there are some things I didn't want to see... :matte-motes-sick: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Didn't you say that you've been gone for a few months? How can you assess everything if you've been gone? Ralph??? Is that YOU? Yes, but i know a lot of business folk in-world.....so i got the run down.....plus I back-read a lot of stuff.(LL blogs & forums) I've been back for about 6 weeks...enough time to see what's happening with in-world foot traffic. I got tipped off about their latest Search engine and did some additional research....so didn't take long to get back most of my top keyword positions. People are still buying in-world, otherwise i wouldn't manage to keep all my commerical lands. I did come back in a nick of time though.. plus a lot of my residential sims were emptying out! That was the first area i tackled....it took me just over 2 weeks to fill them all up again! I had to hustle big time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 I finally got down to your last few paragraphs.... There are barter systems going into place all over the country now. Seems to me, that Coffee and Power is a wee bit like a barter system. I was growing tomatoes when I was a jet setter rolling, because I love gardening. So I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. I hope you never lose your job, because you've got one hell of a long way to fall, with that ego of yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 um yeah, ok, whatever..... but I still don't see your examples plucked out yet, on marketplace. Still waiting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Where are the Abundance of Freebies on the marketplace? I've asked you that several times - give me examples of a keyword where every single item on the first page of search is dominated by freebies. That still won't prove anything , just suggests that market is not the best one to compete in, if you have no drive and no gumption and no marketing in place. Or it suggests that you should use other keywords. You're using that for your argument, over and over again. Where is it? You must learn to read.....i did not say Marketplace as..I meant the SL Grid, that's all I care about.!!! I particpate in a 3D virtual world and that's what I signed up for.....not a 2D shopping website! However, I can see that there are 162k items are listed between 0-10 L on Marketplace...so that's about 10% of all products that are real cheap or free. There are still far more products set out for sale on the SL Grid than Marketplace and that includes Freebies too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: You are commenting on ... "Missed Opportunities???" For Real? After you just went through everything that you are NOT doing? Jeeze...can't you comprehend what i'm saying....or do you have difficulty in reading??? I'm not talking about myself.......I'm talking about Linden Lab. I believe Second Life could have been so much bigger and popular than what it is now. ...and i put that down to missed opportunities by LL Board. Unless you're calling "no growth" for 3 years a success story??. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 If you've been gone so long that you have not seen the numbers change from inworld to marketplace, then holy cow, dude, you've got some major catching up to do. I'm afraid that I've wasted a good portion of my day with someone who is totally out of the loop. I'm not sure who your friends are, but they're out of the loop too. Either you're making good money or you're breaking even or you're going down or you don't care. If you're making money, then I'm not sure why you're hopping around to all the threads in the forums and tossing about disdain for the SL platform over and over again, but you used to do that way back. Not sure why you're back to do it again. If you're breaking even, then you better get your azz on marketplace. If you're going down, then get your azz on marketplace and start turning in some land. And start doing some marketing. If you're not doing any marketing at all, then you have no business harping on this LL lack of marketing. You are blowing smoke out your azz now. If you don't care, then take your lousy attitude over to IMVU and infect their forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Snow Frostwych wrote: OK, after reading a few things about IMVU, comparing their growth to SL is not quite right. For one, they do not have "land" or "tier", they sell (for lack of a better term) "chat" environments, rooms and such. Not really someplace you can explore like in SL. Since there is not any "land" needing rented or tier paid on, merchants have no "land" cost. No land, no inworld store, no prims needed, just items in the IMVU catalog. Which means cost of doing business in IMVU is much less than SL. Two, their platform is web-based. No viewer required to download which makes it easier to use. All in all, IMVU is mainly virtual chat. I can see it appealing more to potential users since it's easier, cheaper, & less complicated. What'scomplicated is their credit system. I read intructions on how to become a "developer" and that looks like it more hassle than it's worth. Honestly, I don't think comparing the two makes much sense as the only thing in common is VR & avatar customization. The platforms & purposes are totally different. Now comparing marketing, yeah SL sucks, no one will argue that. It's not like for like...but it is a 3D virtual environment and it has certain similiarities...in that you're able to create content (similar content actually) and sell it on website. There are Content Creators ( a very small pool) that create & sell in both IMVU and Second Life. Some of their top creators in IMVU earn a lot...but it's a complex system of how that income is derived. No, the costs are greater as IMVU take a larger slice of the sales price through their tiering system.....there are not land tiers or Room tiers....hences it's loaded into the Products equation. For the purpose of growth curves it's an adequate comparison They call them "Rooms", but it's not just a room...it will be whole plot of land (standalone) and will have a house etc on it. lol - if there was something dead similar to SL (not privateers Open Sim Grids)...run by a proper company, i would dread to see what Second Life concurency figure would be like! Half maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snow Frostwych Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Rene Erlanger wrote: Snow Frostwych wrote: OK, after reading a few things about IMVU, comparing their growth to SL is not quite right. For one, they do not have "land" or "tier", they sell (for lack of a better term) "chat" environments, rooms and such. Not really someplace you can explore like in SL. Since there is not any "land" needing rented or tier paid on, merchants have no "land" cost. No land, no inworld store, no prims needed, just items in the IMVU catalog. Which means cost of doing business in IMVU is much less than SL. Two, their platform is web-based. No viewer required to download which makes it easier to use. All in all, IMVU is mainly virtual chat. I can see it appealing more to potential users since it's easier, cheaper, & less complicated. What'scomplicated is their credit system. I read intructions on how to become a "developer" and that looks like it more hassle than it's worth. Honestly, I don't think comparing the two makes much sense as the only thing in common is VR & avatar customization. The platforms & purposes are totally different. Now comparing marketing, yeah SL sucks, no one will argue that. It's not like for like...but it is a 3D virtual environment and it has certain similiarities...in that you're able to create content (similar content actually) and sell it on website. There are Content Creators ( a very small pool) that create & sell in both IMVU and Second Life. Some of their top creators in IMVU earn a lot...but it's a complex system of how that income is derived. No, the costs are greater as IMVU take a larger slice of the sales price through their tiering system.....there are not land tiers or Room tiers....hences it's loaded into the Products equation. For the purpose of growth curves it's an adequate comparison They call them "Rooms", but it's not just a room...it will be whole plot of land (standalone) and will have a house etc on it. lol - if there was something dead similar to SL (not privateers Open Sim Grids)...run by a proper company, i would dread to see what Second Life concurency figure would be like! Half maybe? Thanks for the clarification, Rene. Sounds way too complicated for me, I have a short attention span. Can it really be more expensive though, what is the cost of developer membership vs premium member for SL? While they have higher "fees" taken from sales, equate that with having to pay SL land tiers every week plus upload fees? Is there any upload fees in IMVU? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Won't disagree that came off as pretentious. The only reason I proposed the question about the right to give things away for free was to try to expand on the point that they were so focused on building culture, both internally and with us, that they dropped the ball on a more traditional and simpler model that would have been less of a bubble for virtual goods. They didn't build a model that'll last and there aren't good enough controls for a market like this to sustain a level of value. It's a bubble. So are virtual goods in general, but that's currently an expanding bubble that they're also missing out on. It started to become a bubble last year (actually 2009) at $2 billion, estimates for this year were $4 billion I believe. And here we are with a small portion of that bubble for merchants, and yet we have the greatest ability to succeed ... users generating virtual goods. The IMVU example was a good one, that you don't need a model like SL has to succeed. It applies not because it's similar to SL, but because it's in the same virtual goods industry. SL is not generally mentioned in virtual goods industry analysis and reports. It's a blip. All they need to do, for all their stats and valley wisdom is to make the correlation between their decline and holes in their model to fix things. That and focus on improving what they've already got. Rod says we get a whole quarter of focusing on bugs. Same thing as the last two CEO's. Tried to put out a warning in case Rod happened by to read it that CEOs that get project minded don't last here. So rather than stick Linden Realms on the beta grid and develop it like any other feature, now it's another new user strategy. New projects in 2012 that have nothing to do at all with SL. This isn't "SL is gonna die", this is LL putting a shelf life on SL. I mean, even expiring goods would have worked, killing free isn't the only way. To whoever said something about dictating what merchants should do ... that's impossible, no one here has the power to dictate anything, it's just a discussion. Also talking about the whole model and grid and not just about the Marketplace, and some of these as mistakes as in past tense. Much of it is moot, because it's just too late to change some of it. If they were to overhaul SL to a better model overnight, it would only do more damage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Caught some of those comments, didn't want to reply directly about my business. Doing ok all things considered aside from my failings and disenchantment. Waiting for further announcements from LL to see what that future plans entail, aside from working on the next version. These days it's as easy to build a game here as to build your own and do your own marketing from scratch. I would imagine if doing the latter, I would be knocking on your door for tips. Not changing keywords to lime green anything. With the kind of feedback I've been giving lately, they'll tar and feather me for a keyword violation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Are you drunk? I mean seriously?You're sounding dafter with each post you make as well as getting more personal! Did i not mention in a previous post (or 2 in fact)....that i noticed foot traffic (or TPs) were down by 50% in-world even with similar top positions in the ALL Search system....and deduced that traffic must be going over to the Marketplace Search instead. I also spoke to other Content Providers who confirmed, that.a good portion of traffic had moved over to Marketplace. Well let's see now...all my residential sims are full and therefore a healthy profit, and all my commerical lands with my shops are holding their own, although not as profitable are pre-Mar 2011....so overall a cashing out profit. These forums are used to discuss such matters & opinions on the SL economy....my disdain has proven spot on. No growth in SL for 3 years, 900 Estates sims less than this time last year......and a ton of commercial lands abandoned or downsized. Who's your Daddy? :matte-motes-sunglasses-2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Snow Frostwych wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: Snow Frostwych wrote: OK, after reading a few things about IMVU, comparing their growth to SL is not quite right. For one, they do not have "land" or "tier", they sell (for lack of a better term) "chat" environments, rooms and such. Not really someplace you can explore like in SL. Since there is not any "land" needing rented or tier paid on, merchants have no "land" cost. No land, no inworld store, no prims needed, just items in the IMVU catalog. Which means cost of doing business in IMVU is much less than SL. Two, their platform is web-based. No viewer required to download which makes it easier to use. All in all, IMVU is mainly virtual chat. I can see it appealing more to potential users since it's easier, cheaper, & less complicated. What'scomplicated is their credit system. I read intructions on how to become a "developer" and that looks like it more hassle than it's worth. Honestly, I don't think comparing the two makes much sense as the only thing in common is VR & avatar customization. The platforms & purposes are totally different. Now comparing marketing, yeah SL sucks, no one will argue that. It's not like for like...but it is a 3D virtual environment and it has certain similiarities...in that you're able to create content (similar content actually) and sell it on website. There are Content Creators ( a very small pool) that create & sell in both IMVU and Second Life. Some of their top creators in IMVU earn a lot...but it's a complex system of how that income is derived. No, the costs are greater as IMVU take a larger slice of the sales price through their tiering system.....there are not land tiers or Room tiers....hences it's loaded into the Products equation. For the purpose of growth curves it's an adequate comparison They call them "Rooms", but it's not just a room...it will be whole plot of land (standalone) and will have a house etc on it. lol - if there was something dead similar to SL (not privateers Open Sim Grids)...run by a proper company, i would dread to see what Second Life concurency figure would be like! Half maybe? Thanks for the clarification, Rene. Sounds way too complicated for me, I have a short attention span. Can it really be more expensive though, what is the cost of developer membership vs premium member for SL? While they have higher "fees" taken from sales, equate that with having to pay SL land tiers every week plus upload fees? Is there any upload fees in IMVU? Well with SL land tiers, it probably mean SL is more expensive....but it seems that lots of Marketplace Merchants are no longer keeping shops in-world or just really small ones.....in which case SL will be a lot cheaper than IMVU. I'm not sure about upload fees....as i don't create in IMVU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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