Dartagan Shepherd Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Speaking of land, not sure if you heard they had a fire sale on private regions in october. I forget the details, no setup fee, first month tier free or something. Made a comment here after the fact about it not being wise. From what I understand, they sold 600 sims. ACS dropped 200 sims. Posted again that this was not wise and that it would continue to bite them further. As of yesterday another land baron reports that they dropped 70 sims last week as a direct result of that fire sale. Keep on dipping into the "economy", what do the uninformed resi's know? Marketplace commission needs to go completely. It is the only way you'll focus on the features that users ask for fully without your own agenda, which is not in line with your customer/merchant needs. Shouldn't have acquired the thing in the first place, it was never your money. Then we could deal with our own and reason with them to focus on delivery and important issues rather than how products rank in Google and Facebook and how advertising is laid out.... and all of this without at least the sales charts we used to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefertiti Nefarious Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Rene Erlanger wrote: IMVU has proved that one can grow it's membership in a worldwide recessionary period. They didn't just grow by a small percentage....but a massive 300- 400% !!! IMVU's current logged-in members today are about 65,000 ... their "millions" of members is because anyone and his/her dog can and did create a free account. They also support the freebie accounts on the backs of the content developers and paying accouints - like their "18+ content pass" so you can see naughty bits. As for the number of Facebook likes they have, they bought them: 500 credits for liking them. http://www.imvu.com/earn/credits.php The good and the bad of SL is that anyone can create without running it past a committe like the IMVU content committee. http://www.imvu.com/catalog/web_info.php?topic=mature_content_policy shows that they even dictate the permissible size for unaroused manly bits! Toysoldier wrote: 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? Many of the creators in SL are here not because we want to make a living at it, but because we like to make things and share them. For me it's a game, a hobby that happens to support itself. I have RL income to pay for my living expenses. My ISP connection - courtesy of the SO's employer My computer - I built it myself and it's used for RL work My software - FREE (Linux and the GIMP and Firefox) If I spend 20 hours over the course of a couple of months to make a dress that I sell for $49 ... I don't care. For me it was 20 hours of relaxing creative work. Face it, enthusiastic amateurs have always made it difficult for the professionals by giving it away ... just ask the hooker on the corner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Vandeverre Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 I doubt that calling someone drunk is going to help you with your theory. That's out of line. You use the forums here as your dump outlet. It was a relief when you left. The worst thing for retention or sales or keeping prices where you want them....... ....is to come in here and listen to people with comments such as yours and Toy's. I wouldn't buy from you either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sassy Romano Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Toysoldier Thor wrote: 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? I can answer that! When I started SL life was ok, not good but ok. I could spend some in SL but did realise the amount I was spending was more than I could justify and I cut back. Then I was made redundant. No job, no income but I was still here though at that time couldn't afford to put anything into SL. Nothing. I could not justify spending any real money while each month I was falling further into debt. The computer was already owned, the electricity bill would be paid (adding to more debt) and the internet was a 12 month contract regardless so would have incurred cost to break the contract. Plus, it's a pretty essential tool to help look for jobs and write applications etc. While I had time "in between jobs", I doodled around in SL and stumbled across something that I thought I would see if anyone else wanted to buy. I had no land, I had no need and paying for that first little mall spot at a cost of L$200 for a week was a leap of faith for me and not one that I took lightly, yes it's easy to laugh and say "That's not even $1" and you'd be right but I don't forget this period of my life when I was a month or two away from losing my home and that $1 was another one on top of an already large and growing RL debt. I continue to be humbled whenever someone chooses to spend their L$ with me as I know just how much some have to save for what to others seems a trivial amount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marina Ramer Posted January 9, 2012 Author Share Posted January 9, 2012 I think that depends on that you build If you are clothes make as happened to you before and they are one tohusand more clothes maker then the problem would be the competition yes, also if you create a sculpted full perm tree branch and another sells the same branch even cheaper then your problem its the competition. In my case more than 50% of my stuff has no competition, because for exmaple for my furnitures brand the animations I built self and noone else has it in sl, and as that many other brands or articles like my baby stuff too. Said this, when there is no possible competition on the prododuct that you build because somehow it has an unique characterist that only you have it, which differentiates you form the rest, then actually the freebies builders In Marketplace, bothers, why? Someone said, freebies sellers are not competition because they doesnt take money out of your pocket, of course they dont. What I meant with that is this, we all know very well how search engines are on a big % screwed on Marketplace, this plus most of the people, mayority prefers low prices and if its free better.( I made an original christmas table this year, unique in sl for how its built, price 1200, 7 prims. I only sold my oldest table 3 years old wich is 200 prims and costs $250L, like this with tons of more products I can measure people priorizies the price above all, at least the big mayority, even when many wont mind about price and will pay for quality, etc the mayority according to my experience, will buy according to price only) So even when you have a good product, even when you used all keywords, made marketing and all, people needs to pass over tons of freebies and dollarbies pages first to actually reach to find and see your product. Why? Why if I am the one who pays in the end as all sellers my 5% comission for each product I sell, plus all the enhacements for they at least to show in some category landing, why the people has to decide it it buys one merchant product or a free because they get tired of passing 20 pages? No business for Linden here, not business for us sellers, many people who buys quality freebies and brings business to noone. We pay, we pay for land to linden for our shops, we pay for classifields, we pay for enhacements, we pay comission on sales, all to linden, why liden doesnt beneficiate Us for once, like our products only to be shown , not thousands of freebies pages between? I dont see it should stay this way. The freebie sellers should be able to get all the freebie stff thye want but ingame, this way wouldnt hurt us. And I agree also with Pamela Galli when she said that the suclpt makers who sells at ridiculous prices hurts us too, I had to stop buying myself to Sculpt Republic for exmaple (food) because they packages are so cheap that everyone gets them, then the consequence is that you sell all marketplace selling that stuff on a range form $1 to $10 so why to buy that. All contributes to hurt, competition, of course, new sculpts packges full perm everyday cheaper, templates and everything but this we cannot get rid of. Freebies on marketplace, at least we should, and this was the reason of my opinion when I created this post first. I am grateful and amazed too by every answer even when the opinions are so different, it always enrich to hear another points of view so thank you all for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Rene Erlanger wrote: 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.) IMVU says something different: "IMVU generates most of its revenue from the direct sale of virtual credits, used to purchase virtual goods such as clothing, animations, room decorations, hairstyles and music." (source: imvu.com/about/faq.php) But IMVU has a complete different system. You can not only sells things you create, but you can also allow others to make derivatives of your product. (You can compare it with the full perms sellers in SL, they allow others to add their own creative work to the original.) But in IMVU the system works so that the one who made the original also gets paid a royalty when the second creator sells the derivative product. The original creator is the one who decides what the height of the royalty fee is. By the way, also interesting to know, the CEO of IMVU has a background as marketeer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Let me expand on this IMVU vs SL, thing. As a creator, IMVU is a massive rip off. The brief time that I spent there talking with other merchants, I came to feel very sorry for them. They were all happy they could be slave labor for IMVU. It was like talking to a bunch of teenagers that think making a few dollars is awesome. When I mentioned SL, they all said it was too expensive. I rofl'd, big time. They heard that you need land, and that land cost 300 dollars, again rofl. I've made a few items on IMVU, but after I started to understand the pricing model, I stopped right away and have never been back there since. I've even sold quite a few things, but this is literally pocket change. Now, maybe, If I was making all the profits, instead of 50%, then I'd make more stuff for IMVU. See, IMVU scams you because they force you to derive your products from their own default items. You don't just upload something and put it on the marketplace. You have to attach your items to 1 of the defaults. For example, if I make an animation action, I have to attach that animation to a shirt, or a couch or something. IMVU does this so that you have to pay them. They are the original product, then you set your own price, and the final price is your price plus IMVU's set price for their product, whether you are actually using it or not. When an Item is sold, IMVU takes their cut, which is around 50% depending on what your price is. After, your added pricing, the items can be quite expensive. If any1 derives a product from yours, then, again, IMVU makes their cut, then you, then the derivers cut. Plus, you pay to submit the product, which cost as much or more than what you are charging. Once you submit a product, then a peer review goes into affect and can actually be voted down and not be accepted, but I guess that is somewhat rare. I did get 2 bad votes out of 10 on my last IMVU product, just because I made a "rock on" animation with the avatar making devil horns with their fingers. So, the bottom line about IMVU is that it sucks bigtime. The content creators are massively being taken advantage of, and you really don't have many choices to make anything. At best, you can make a statue that has moving parts, but you can't do anything with it. I have no idea why people go there, other than it actually does work. The only cool thing about animating for IMVU, is you have fingers, beyond that, it totally sucks. Oh, and if IMVU is saying that they make all their money from the currency, they are full of crap. They make money on every item sold, and a good amount too. They don't even have a way to cash out. They have 3rd party people that will cash you out at a massive commission, of like 30%. Did I say it sucks? Just to stay on topic, I agree LL has no idea how to run a marketplace. No private business would ever put all the free items on the first page of search results, or even cheap items. This would not be in the interest of the business to do this. It really does floor me that LL completely misses this concept of not advertising your most worthless products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Marina Ramer wrote: In my case more than 50% of my stuff has no competition, because for exmaple for my furnitures brand the animations I built self and noone else has it in sl, and as that many other brands or articles like my baby stuff too. Said this, when there is no possible competition on the prododuct that you build because somehow it has an unique characterist that only you have it, which differentiates you form the rest, then actually the freebies builders In Marketplace, bothers, why? Someone said, freebies sellers are not competition because they doesnt take money out of your pocket, of course they dont. What I meant with that is this, we all know very well how search engines are on a big % screwed on Marketplace, this plus most of the people, mayority prefers low prices and if its free better.( I made an original christmas table this year, unique in sl for how its built, price 1200, 7 prims. I only sold my oldest table 3 years old wich is 200 prims and costs $250L, like this with tons of more products I can measure people priorizies the price above all, at least the big mayority, even when many wont mind about price and will pay for quality, etc the mayority according to my experience, will buy according to price only) So even when you have a good product, even when you used all keywords, made marketing and all, people needs to pass over tons of freebies and dollarbies pages first to actually reach to find and see your product. I think you make a mistake when you say that 50% of your stuff has no competition, because they have unique animations. Without any doubt you shall have very nice animations, but when the marketplace is your main selling point your customers cannot try your animations before buying. On the marketplace you mainly challange your customer by the look of the picture. There are a lot of other furniture makers as well, begging for the attention of your customers. They might also have unique animation, or maybe no unique animations but unique sculpties they make themselves (and they will have even more low-prims meshes soon). You are all fishing in the same pool of customers. Now take your example from the Christmas table. Who is the customer that buys a christmas table? I most cases your customer will have a home to put this table. So it is a person willing to throw money at his virtual life. There may be some customers who want a new fresh christmas table every year, but the mayority who already has a christmas table, brought in 2007 or 2009 will probably be just glad to use their own lovely christmas table again this year. So the majority of older spending residents is not your first target group, it are the people who spend but don't have a christmas table yet, relatively new users. And those are not around in large numbers, not in those large number we were used to in the past at least. But I'm sure you are not the only one who released a new christmas table. You have to get the attention and willingness to pay your price from a smaller pool of customers, while more creators are fishing in the same pool. Now even when someone in this pool you are all fishing in, decides to get himself a free christmas table, he still will have his premium stipend or the hobby money he allows himself to spend in SL in his pocket. He is maybe lost as your customer, but he is not lost for the market. He simply will spend this money on another item in another shop. Freebiesellers don´t play a role in this proces, they are simply not after the available money in SL. I don´t know your segment of the market, but basicly that doesn´t matter for most of us are in the same position. The number of items available is growing faster then the willingness to buy. The only solution to save each and everyones business is substantial growth of SL: This growth didn´t happen in three years now. If you want your income to grow, or at least to stay stable, your only option is to start eating from the plate of your competitors. And in the meanwhile be very carefull that they are not eating from yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tari Landar Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Sassy Romano wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: 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? I can answer that! When I started SL life was ok, not good but ok. I could spend some in SL but did realise the amount I was spending was more than I could justify and I cut back. Then I was made redundant. No job, no income but I was still here though at that time couldn't afford to put anything into SL. Nothing. I could not justify spending any real money while each month I was falling further into debt. The computer was already owned, the electricity bill would be paid (adding to more debt) and the internet was a 12 month contract regardless so would have incurred cost to break the contract. Plus, it's a pretty essential tool to help look for jobs and write applications etc. While I had time "in between jobs", I doodled around in SL and stumbled across something that I thought I would see if anyone else wanted to buy. I had no land, I had no need and paying for that first little mall spot at a cost of L$200 for a week was a leap of faith for me and not one that I took lightly, yes it's easy to laugh and say "That's not even $1" and you'd be right but I don't forget this period of my life when I was a month or two away from losing my home and that $1 was another one on top of an already large and growing RL debt. I continue to be humbled whenever someone chooses to spend their L$ with me as I know just how much some have to save for what to others seems a trivial amount. Best response thus far. Ty. I think there are a lot more merchants who feel the same way, but likely wouldn't dare say so. Sharks lurk in these waters....and stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toysoldier Thor Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Good example of what I was talking about. Mys story for SL was that although I am not hurting for money RL to keep the lights on and have always had the disposable income I needed to spend on what ever hobby I was interested in, when I joined SL almost 4 years ago (in two weeks) I made a personal commitment that I would not invest / infuse one penny of RL cash into SL. As such, because of my personal commitment, I was poor in SL from the first day. I still remember running with an account balance of $0L for the first two weeks. I remember talking to other less-noobs than I to find out which commercial sims were offering the highest $L / 15minutes for camping my Avatar butt on thier sims. We were talking about $2 to $5L per 15 minutes. So no one has to tell me how important 100L was when I was all excited that I had $50L in my account at that time. I should post my Avatar photo of mr in week 3. I still looked like an absolute Spiked Prim haired noob wearing all the latest hot fashions that the mega Freebie Stores could offer. I had no land. I didnt pay rent for any home. In fact I never paid rent for any place to call my home until over a year later. My first homes in my first 6 weeks of existence in SL was the bottom of sim owner's oceans - where owners didnt protect thier land from visitors Rezzing ! I remember living at the bottom of one ocean for 2 weeks with my freebie cheap chair and bed.... until the sim owner finally caught me. (Luckily she was so sweet and instead of booting me off her land - she adopted me and gave me a place to stay on her public / group use entire island - she became my SL Mom in the months that followed). The first major purchase I made in SL was when I bought my first Avatar skin. It was $3000L and I was nervous as heck to spend that kind of money on a skin, but I did. It is the same skin I wear to this day 3.5 years later. So... the reason I say all this is that even though I had no RL hardship, I was essentially SL Poor and had to fend for myself. I totally appreciated the value of the $L. And it was because I learned to survive and generate my own $L in SL in those early days that it was a major influence for me becoming a Merchant. As such, I too completely appreciate the sale I make from any Avatar that buys my product. It is why I strive to provide the best Pre and After sales service that any Merchant can provide. Because I know the value of the $L that my customers are putting out to buy my products. Funny last thought about looking back at my first few weeks as an SL Noob compared to the noobs I now see walking by me. Some of these Avatars are as hot looking and well dressed and fully laid out with the best fashions in their first 2 days as it took me 6 months to accomplish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelsea Malibu Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 I could not agree more Sassy. The same is true with World of Warcraft. Do the numbers and online games are perhaps the lowest cost entertainment around. For less than the cost of a night out, you can have an entire months of entertainment. Adding to this is the ability to make money. This is where I am thinking there is a lacking in SL at current. There are few paying jobs and being a creator is far more competitive than it has been in the past. 5 years ago you could make about anything and it would sell. Today you either have to create great things or cheap things. Those who choose to do both may hurt the overall competitive market but that is just the nature of a free market. Google does most for free and it has killed many businesses in the process. With SL, the ad based revenue market is pretty tough since the system is not really made for ad monetzation. The ban on selling outside products through SL is either the dumbest decision I've seen or the sign of something to come that we have yet to know. That being said, where I do think we have issues with excessive freebies in the MP and agree with the idea that got so much grief which is to charge for freebie listings. The problem in my opinion goes deeper though. It is in how difficult to get content. In most games, you can quest, grind, craft or do whatever to get more content. In SL, the ability to earn is very limited by scale of the cost. They market that you can earn money playing Linden Realms and I ROFL after having played it and earning something like 30 Lindens. Wow, I'm going shopping. If Linden Labs makes no money on the market place as they claim, why did they pay Anche so much to buy it? Or why did they buy SL Boutique from the Electric Sheep Company only to close it down? Is it to drive merchant revenues or to have more control over the SL economy? My feeling is that the best thing to happen to LL is also the worst thing that would happen to we merchants but I feel it is how things will be some day. Everything will be free or close to it. More free means more stuff to residents. More stuff to residents means more land sales. More money spent on goods means less money for land. Yes, it means killing to golden goose but we have seen this before. Second Life lacks content with less than 1/2 the sims online as there where 3 years ago but will free encourage more creative to come in world to spend their time? Not under the current conditions. I think it was either Josh or Toy who had mentioned us being nickel and dimed to death. If they where to give me something in return for my efforts, I would not have no issues with free content. At least give me my land in return for a content donation and I may be on board with this. The problem is that they are probably making more money on merchants than any other group outside of Land Barons which imho, will have repercussions. Common products like those I and many others sell are going to be tough in the future. Unique products like Sassy makes will always do well since they are niche and proprietary in many ways. It will be very interesting what is new "Merchant tools" we see this year but in the end, it serves Linden Labs no benefit to reduce or remove freebies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Chelsea Malibu wrote: If Linden Labs makes no money on the market place as they claim, why did they pay Anche so much to buy it? Or why did they buy SL Boutique from the Electric Sheep Company only to close it down? Is it to drive merchant revenues or to have more control over the SL economy? My feeling is that the best thing to happen to LL is also the worst thing that would happen to we merchants but I feel it is how things will be some day. Everything will be free or close to it. More free means more stuff to residents. More stuff to residents means more land sales. More money spent on goods means less money for land. Yes, it means killing to golden goose but we have seen this before. L$ are money, things are much clearer when you stop thinking of it as tokens and think of it as a global pool of real money. There are still fictional elements as it can still be "printed", but that's a matter of accounting and how much money they decide should be in that pool. Money bought goes into a pool, in the case of the marketplace, that money was originally purchased by someone, somewhere. Marketplace takes out 5% of real money. Rumors (although some rather convincing ones) that in times past some Lindens were paid in L$. Theoretically Marketplace employees could be paid bonuses on performance of the Marketplace out of that 5%. But all told, when you add up every sink, you're adding up the real dollars that SL takes out the economy. Plus the conversion in and out. Double, triple, quadruple dipping. But even L$ are not an LL idea. Like the Marketplace in-world money was originally done by Gaming Open Market. When this person refused an offer by LL to be bought out, LL opened their own version of currency. http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/will_linden_competition_kill_user_innovation/ The acquisition of those independent marketplaces wasn't about providing service any more than the original currency was, it was about getting ahold of that 5% of real-money-turned-tokens. Had a conversation with (a now ex) Linden about some gaming features, (and no this wasn't an under NDA conversation LL) she said listen, discussion is open and we want some skin in the gaming game. Can we provide Linden owned land .... blah. Backed out of the conversation by saying no, can't think of anything and I can bring in my own game talent if needed. Mentioned their land sale. Where did the users come from that took advantage of that sale? Some were new probably, others were customers of land barons. From the latter, those customers now pay tier directly to LL, which is more than the discounted price they offer to land barons. To this day I won't bring what I "think" are great ideas into SL because they might be worthy of acquiring someday and I'm not interested in acquisition. I believe if I did that and didn't take the offer, they'd do it on their own anyway. Hello Linden Realms ... where are you going with this exactly? Should I give up game dev now or just wait and see? So yes, the more our prices are lowered, the more goods are devalued, the less opportunity for us, the more for LL. Perhaps it's a slow burn into a consumer only market, or just bad choices that end up taking opportunity from users. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Chelsea Malibu wrote: It will be very interesting what is new "Merchant tools" we see this year but in the end, it serves Linden Labs no benefit to reduce or remove freebies. I have to disagree here. Freebies are generally made by inexperienced creators. Freebies are generally inefficiently made. Meaning, they cause lag. Freebies are a drain on the delivery system. Freebies are generally low quality. Freebies do not encourage economic activity. These are just a few off the top of my head. This list could go on and on. None of these things helps LL, or SL. Low quality products are not going to keep any1 in SL. The last thing LL wants to do is hurt the merchants more. They have already lost quite a few. No merchants, no SL. That is the bottom line and if any1 thinks differently, they better go back and look at the history of this platform. As far as everything becoming free, I seriously doubt that. Some markets are always going to be tough market, while others will always be open markets, as well as new 1's opening up. Yeah, I'm guessing that some markets are already saturated, but when I go to find something very basic for MEN, and I still can't find anything close, then it is plainly obvious that there are many merchants that refuse to branch out into other markets. Why? I have no fricken clue. I'm a male, but I still sure as heck make female AOs and animations. I'd be a fricken moron not to make them. For the life of me, I can't understand why so many clothing creators only make female clothing. Or hair, go look at how many hair options guys have. Things will be changing in SL, and I very much hope every1 sticks around to see it. If you plan on being here as a merchant tho, you're going to have to learn and move with the currents. I have no clue if I will be here next year, but I hope to. A year ago, I tried to evaluate what was going on in SL, and made up a plan for where I wanted to take things. Luckily, LL's improvements and coming tools play right into what I had planned. Plus, everyday, my plan gets better and better as I hear what LL has up their sleeve next. I can only hope that I actually finish everything, and LL's new tools have the affect that I'm hoping for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gavin Hird Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 My take on freebies in the marketplace, to the extent they should be there, is that these should be in a separate section and not be returned for the regular product searches. Certain types of free items should be handled differently like open source scripts which by nature is free, but for the majority of free items, when searched, the listing could return the result in a randomized order that changed for every search. This would eliminate the advantage people of high volume free items have for profiling when their items always returns first in search with the current setup. Fuzzing the result will be much more fair to all the people who offer freebies. As it currently is, one must wade through pages upon pages of free and demo items before one gets to real products when doing regular search for a very large number of searches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Dartagan Shepherd wrote: Speaking of land, not sure if you heard they had a fire sale on private regions in october. I forget the details, no setup fee, first month tier free or something. Made a comment here after the fact about it not being wise. From what I understand, they sold 600 sims. ACS dropped 200 sims. Posted again that this was not wise and that it would continue to bite them further. As of yesterday another land baron reports that they dropped 70 sims last week as a direct result of that fire sale. Keep on dipping into the "economy", what do the uninformed resi's know? Marketplace commission needs to go completely. It is the only way you'll focus on the features that users ask for fully without your own agenda, which is not in line with your customer/merchant needs. Shouldn't have acquired the thing in the first place, it was never your money. Then we could deal with our own and reason with them to focus on delivery and important issues rather than how products rank in Google and Facebook and how advertising is laid out.... and all of this without at least the sales charts we used to have. yep Dartagan......that October promo sale was one of the 1st things i heard about, upon my return to Second Life. I know a lot of Atlas member Estates (SL's biggest Estates)...wern't happy, in fact very angry!! They lost quite a few tenants to LL's promo! LL have once again directly interfered with their customer's business environment...but this time it were the Land providers. I tend to agree with your Marketplace comments.....my actual all-time favourite SL shopping site was "SL Exchange" when it was owned Apotheus Silverman it had decent shopping listings, real estate listings, auctions, currency exchange and a very vibrant Forum community split into various categories. I felt it had the right balance between off-site and in-world shopping opportunities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Nefertiti Nefarious wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: IMVU has proved that one can grow it's membership in a worldwide recessionary period. They didn't just grow by a small percentage....but a massive 300- 400% !!! IMVU's current logged-in members today are about 65,000 ... their "millions" of members is because anyone and his/her dog can and did create a free account. They also support the freebie accounts on the backs of the content developers and paying accouints - like their "18+ content pass" so you can see naughty bits. As for the number of Facebook likes they have, they bought them: 500 credits for liking them. http://www.imvu.com/earn/credits.php The good and the bad of SL is that anyone can create without running it past a committe like the IMVU content committee. http://www.imvu.com/catalog/web_info.php?topic=mature_content_policy shows that they even dictate the permissible size for unaroused manly bits! Come on Nef , you and i know logins vary during the course of the day, depending on the Platform's demographic membership. It's peak logins are around 150k......i took a peak very late last night and it had 110k logins (not during peak hours) I think its good that IMVU Owners keeper a tighter lid on what products can be submiited onto their shopping site......look at the mess we have here on Marketplace with copybotted content being sold. Linden Lab could take a leaf out of IMVU's book imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Dartagan Shepherd wrote: L$ are money, things are much clearer when you stop thinking of it as tokens and think of it as a global pool of real money. There are still fictional elements as it can still be "printed", but that's a matter of accounting and how much money they decide should be in that pool. Money bought goes into a pool, in the case of the marketplace, that money was originally purchased by someone, somewhere. Marketplace takes out 5% of real money. Not only that. The marketplace also sells our goods for USD. In Xstreet you could choose as a merchant to be paid in L$ or in USD. That is one of the first things that changed when LL bought it. Customers can pay in USD, but merchants can no longer receive them, all goes to LL´s pockets, who gives you the number of L$ you ask for the item. You have to pay LL commission for changing those L$ back to USD´s. LL profits two times here. The customer pays the (much higer) usd price for the item. The merchants get charged commission by changing his lindens (so he is able to pay those usd to LL for the tier of his land). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Well, that's fine..I miss you too! lol Most of your forum ramblings are out their for the Birds ........It's incoherent mumbo jumbo!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Madeliefste Oh wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: 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.) IMVU says something different: "IMVU generates most of its revenue from the direct sale of virtual credits, used to purchase virtual goods such as clothing, animations, room decorations, hairstyles and music." (source: imvu.com/about/faq.php) But IMVU has a complete different system. You can not only sells things you create, but you can also allow others to make derivatives of your product. (You can compare it with the full perms sellers in SL, they allow others to add their own creative work to the original.) But in IMVU the system works so that the one who made the original also gets paid a royalty when the second creator sells the derivative product. The original creator is the one who decides what the height of the royalty fee is. By the way, also interesting to know, the CEO of IMVU has a background as marketeer. ahh...so basically printing money. I forgot about that! I had thought it was from their Catalog commissions/ tiers. Yes that would make sense....it's a bit like the Federal Reserve -lol I think the IMVU CEO and their Board did a splendid job in growing their product....when you consider how it compares to Second Life. In general most Virtual Worlds games/ environments including the likes of Habbo Hotel have all grown over the last 3 years. The 1st graph shows growth in the Virtual Worlds by age group 5 to 25 yrs old. The 2nd graph shows the same age groups by continents. So all the more reason to be baffled, that all these type of VW's grew durng the last 3 years......yet Second Life hasn't! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dartagan Shepherd Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Madeliefste Oh wrote: Dartagan Shepherd wrote: L$ are money, things are much clearer when you stop thinking of it as tokens and think of it as a global pool of real money. There are still fictional elements as it can still be "printed", but that's a matter of accounting and how much money they decide should be in that pool. Money bought goes into a pool, in the case of the marketplace, that money was originally purchased by someone, somewhere. Marketplace takes out 5% of real money. Not only that. The marketplace also sells our goods for USD. In Xstreet you could choose as a merchant to be paid in L$ or in USD. That is one of the first things that changed when LL bought it. Customers can pay in USD, but merchants can no longer receive them, all goes to LL´s pockets, who gives you the number of L$ you ask for the item. You have to pay LL commission for changing those L$ back to USD´s. LL profits two times here. The customer pays the (much higer) usd price for the item. The merchants get charged commission by changing his lindens (so he is able to pay those usd to LL for the tier of his land). Ah, didn't realize they changed that part. And here I am wondering why they're not making use of the newer PayPal Micropayments where virtual goods can now be sold for a fraction of the transaction fees, and they could actually make a profit on a 25 cent sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Hi Medhue ...long time no see! I did say IMVU was an inferior VW product. i spent a bit of time in their Rooms. I also participated in their Forums to try and figure out how it all works. Yet, having said all that plus your more detailed analysis.......it just goes to show that a VW platform can still grow year on year without the requirement of Freebie products......now compare that to Second Life. Despite all the quality free products around the Grid, it's still not enough to grow it's concurrency. The SL content economy model is flawed.....as we have 2 cultures and 2 economic models clashing. You either make all of SL products free or you have a proper managed supply & demand Merchant economy. (like IMVU as an example).....having both of them in direct opposition doesn't work (more noticeable due to SL's lack of growth). Second Life always had Freebies since day 1 , but generally they were of inferior quality to the products that were available for purchase......that all changed at the start of 2008 with BIAB's (many of which contained copybotted products)....and it continued to erode from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gavin Hird Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Rene Erlanger wrote: The SL content economy model is now flawed.....as we have 2 cultures and 2 business models clashing. You either make all of SL products free or you have a proper managed supply & demand Merchant economy. (like IMVU as an example).....having both of them in direct opposition doesn't work (more noticebale due to SL's lack of growth). Second Life has always had Freebies since day 1 , but generally they were of inferior quality to the products that could be purchased......that all changed at the start of 2008 with BIAB's (many of which contained copybotted products)....and it continued to erode from there. In principle I agree with you on that, but I believe it is possible to mix the two models with success. The iPhone/iPad app store is witness to that. But is still very regulated in that you must be a registered (paying) developer to channel your products in the App store and there are a number of things Apple won't allow on there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 IMVU has no freebies true, but you earn so little money (as you pointed out Rene) that they might as well be freebies. I fear this is the trend for SL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rene Erlanger Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Madeliefste Oh wrote: Now even when someone in this pool you are all fishing in, decides to get himself a free christmas table, he still will have his premium stipend or the hobby money he allows himself to spend in SL in his pocket. He is maybe lost as your customer, but he is not lost for the market. He simply will spend this money on another item in another shop. Freebiesellers don´t play a role in this proces, they are simply not after the available money in SL. I don´t know your segment of the market, but basicly that doesn´t matter for most of us are in the same position. The number of items available is growing faster then the willingness to buy. The only solution to save each and everyones business is substantial growth of SL: This growth didn´t happen in three years now. If you want your income to grow, or at least to stay stable, your only option is to start eating from the plate of your competitors. And in the meanwhile be very carefull that they are not eating from yours. 2 points i'd like to comment on. Firstly, freebies could impact your business in a big way . Let's say we had a talented Sculpty creator like yourself, creating similar items to you, but had the selling principles of Alicia.....i.e make them all free to the public. It's my guess, .you would certainly feel the effects of lower sales....unless you were an ace Marketeer. Your very last paragraph is so true....the key is the growth in SL's consumer base, which it hasn't managed to do since 2008. The pie is the same with more mouths to feed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luna Bliss Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Madeliefste, your sculpt maps are expensive compared to many, but they are good quality, and I have purchased them. However if my business was not doing so good, and I saw sculpts for half of what you charge, or freebies, I'd buy those instead. Freebies do contribute to the decline of the economy - not the only factor but they do contribute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Flickr
Recommended Posts
Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now