Lucky chairs? Are you for or agaisnt?

[Rene Erlanger]

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JeanneAnne wrote:

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

wrong Jeanne....it's 20-25% that support the SL economy in any given month and not 4%

In that other GD thread, you made the mistake of assuming that the 21 million SL accounts were current ones (it's actually over 27 million!)....these are an accumulation of accounts from day 1 of SL....so back to 2002/3. Obviously 95% of those accounts are "dead" accounts for want of a more descriptive word!

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No Rene, if I had used total accounts the percentage of paying accounts to non-paying would be <1%. I used logins per month to arrive at the 4% figure. 20-25% greatly inflates the ratio of paying to non-paying accounts.

But... What difference does it make? Even if we use the 20-25% figure you insist upon, the fact remains that the few support SL financially to the benefit of the many.

Jeanne

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They are dead accounts Jeanne...you can't count them as they are mainly "historical" data from 2002! A good many would not even come up in their Search Engines.......they are dead, nada, finito, tot !

Historically since SL accounts were made free (i.e end of 2005) , a minority has always propped up the majority, nothing has changed there..

The key figures that are important (approx figures)

Over 1 Million unique accounts login each month (new users +Alts)

850k + are repeat logins per month (kind of suggests about 150+k upwards of new users login in once never to return)

approx 20,000 new accounts opened everyday (that's the current run-rate, but will also include Alt a/c's)

475+k  spend over 1 Linden dollar in a month i.e create an SL transaction

200+ k spend over 2000 L per month (only tiny amount would have earnt that in-world, most would be buying Lindens to spend or paying Rents to Estate Owners or paying LL in USD for Tiers and premiums subs)

...so its about 20-25% of the monthly repeat Logins contribute one way or another ....not 4%

A Merchant's target audience would be about 850k during a given month (say you had an Advert on the Login screen)......not 27 Million! You can't sell to the Dead!

[Deja Letov]

I have 2 lucky chairs and 2 MM boards in my shop, but I don't think they attribute to my traffic at all. I honestly couldn't tell you what my traffic is. I really doubt many of my customers come to me through a SL search based on traffic.  I have them there to give the occassional customer who stops by a nice little thank you for coming by. I've never seen anyone camping my chairs in the 3 years I've had my shop, but I have seen a few times where people brought in a crowd to get them to slap them MM board, but they pop in and pop out. As a shop owner in SL, I see value in them as a nice little perk for customers, not to increase traffic. My increases in traffic is MUCH better through the use of hunts. My experience has been that a good hunt is where it's at. My sales are always higher during hunts. I'm not sure of traffic counts because I'm just not convincd they matter all that much for my shop these days.

[Rene Erlanger]

1.23 Viewers still have the Places Tab in their Search module. It still works! It still ranks by land traffic.

The latest CoolViewer has the new V3 coding (same library files), but the old 1.23 UI....again with a "Places" Search tab still working. With this old styled viewer...you can view Mesh, create 64m mega prims and calls on http Textures.

Unknowingly, you still might get a few customers arriving through these older styled viewers via Places Search.

What you're doing won't generate that much traffic, but there are still Commerical areas that feature swarms of Avatars just milling around doing nothing on that particular land (appearing as customers). I'm not sure if they are Bots or real Avatars being paid through some device.

With the old 1.23 viewers you can still see traffic units from "About Land" box......you can also see it in the V3 Viewer using "All Search"...it states the traffic score with your Land listing.

[Zanara Zenovka]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the fact that it's a TOS violation to have those things on a parcel that's set to show in search.

[Deja Letov]

Well I have no doubt that they can help with the traffic numbers on certain sims I suppose if you can get people to camp them. I guess what I'm meaning is I'm not sure, atleast for my type of business, that traffic really counts. Me personally...I don't think I use the SL search feature at all anymore, mainly because I can never find what I'm looking for, so my vision on this thing is most likely skewed by that. I'm just not convinced that people find my store through the SL search as often as maybe other business rely on it. I can see where some businesses can really benefit from traffic...clubs, entertainment type sims, RP, etc. But I dunno...when it comes to retail, there are so many other ways to market your business than to rely on the SL search, that is broken most of the time anyway.

[Rene Erlanger]

Thats true...but i don't think LLare aggressively enforcing it anymore after Jack Linden's departure.

I think they have far bigger issues with SL.......plus in-world commerce is sufficiently getting kicked in the nuts, by having traffic shifted towards Marketplace....what's the point disturbing what little crumbs that are left on the plate?

[Rene Erlanger]

Actually "All search" isn't broken....since LL has changed the Search engine from GSA to Open source Lucene one...its producing fairer results and less chance of gaming it.....plus LL has greater flexibility to change the parameters than with GSA.....hence a bit of extra weighting for Traffic. Problem are that the majority of businesses don't optimise for Search (SEO)

Another major problem is that Marketplace is so prominent in the LL viewers, that new residents will envariably go straight to Marketplace Search.....they initially won't realise there's an In-world search system to service a large number of Stores in-world.

[Phil Deakins]

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Zanara Zenovka wrote:

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the fact that it's a TOS violation to have those things on a parcel that's set to show in search.

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I'm inclined to disagree with that. MM boards and lucky chairs aren't the same as camping. It's not against the ToS to create something that attracts people to a place that's set to show in search and, as far as I know, that's all that those things do. People aren't paid to stay there, like they are with camping. To my way of thinking, lucky chairs and MM boards are perfectly in accordance with the ToS.

[Ann Otoole]

Nothing wrong with lucky chairs or midnight madness boards. To make effective use of them requires the merchant put a not insignificant amount of time into making prizes and rotating the prizes out continuously. This is something seldom recognized by anyone.

Now if LL examines a venue and decides they are attempting to "game the destination guide" then that venue can find itself in trouble. So there is a fine line to be tread if using these tools.

[Zanara Zenovka]

Hmm - I can't find anything in writing now but I do remember that a couple of years ago it was conventional wisdom that such things had to be placed on a non-search parcel, and that this descended from advice from some Linden - ? Jack (sorry not much help - I realise that's all a bit nebulous).

There definitely were instances of lucky chairs being removed from searchable land as a violation, eg http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussions/Lucky-Money-Chairs-banned-or-LL-smoking-something-again/td-p/207637

Can't find anything relevant in the TOS at all now, not even a mention of camping there any more - guess it's worth saving a printout now and then

 

[Syo Emerald]

I think there is nothing bad at lucky chairs and MM boards. It gives people the chance to get something from you to try out for free and if they like your style, they may come back later and buy something from you.

Also I like the conversations I had with others while waiting for my letter to appear. We talked about the store, what item we are waiting for and other stuff. It was nice and something different from my normal shoppingtrips.

[Phil Deakins]

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Zanara Zenovka wrote:

Hmm - I can't find anything in writing now but I do remember that a couple of years ago it was conventional wisdom that such things had to be placed on a non-search parcel, and that this descended from advice from some Linden - ? Jack (sorry not much help - I realise that's all a bit nebulous).

There definitely were instances of lucky chairs being removed from searchable land as a violation, eg

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussions/Lucky-Money-Chairs-banned-or-LL-smoking-something-again/td-p/207637

Can't find anything relevant in the TOS at all now, not even a mention of camping there any more - guess it's worth saving a printout now and then

 

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I read the first few posts of that thread and it sounds like the Linden who did it, didn't understand it. I had something similar when the adult rules came out. A Linden gave me a warning about some demo bots on demo sex beds in my store on Mature land, but he really didn't understand things at all. I later got the warning lifted and the bots have been back ever since then, without any change to them whatsoever.

I still believe that lucky chairs and MM boards are not against the ToS - not the parts pertaining to the gaming of traffic. I've never used either, but I wouldn't hesitate to use them if I wanted to.

[Delinda Abbot]

I track a lot of numbers.  I find that about 8% of my lucky chair "customers" are also "real" customers.  Is that good?  It's a higher percentage than most other forms of "advertising" that I've tried.  Hard to say whether the chair drove the purchase or the purchase drove the chair - that's on my list to look at next.  Of course, I also have a group of "professional lucky chair sitters" - folks that seem to come around regularly looking for a prize - I track them as well.  I have not seen "groups" of people hanging out, but then I only have one chair in each shop.  As some others have noted, direct advertising of a quality product at a special price has the best return for the effort.

[iCade]

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Shiva Draconia wrote:

I look at things like the lucky chairs as being a way for me to judge whether or not I like what a store makes. Same with freebies. If I like, then chances are I'll either go back and buy if I think of it, when I have money in SL... or I'll recommend the place to others looking to buy.

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This, exactly this, and while we're at it, I'll throw hunt gifts in there, too. I judge stores by this and if I'm positively surprised by what I'm given I will return and purchase more.

If however the hunt gift/MM prize/lucky chair prize looks to be straight out of a newbie freebie shop I'll shake my head and leave. Sorry if this sounds like entitlemnt, but if you can't put at least a bit of effort into so called 'prizes' you may not want to bother giving them out at all.

When I had my own lucky chair boards and participated in hunts; I only gave those items that I would like to receive concerning the quality.

it's a prize board, not a garbage bin.

[Czari Zenovka]

Ok, I can now weigh in on this.   I am not a shopper RL or SL.  Since I have enough of most everything to last me forever if I didn't want to buy anything new, any shopping I do is mainly for building components, so I'm definitely not the target audience for Lucky Chairs or MM Boards.

However....I was in an absolutely charming shop last night and was taking my time to look at how beautifully it was laid out, etc. (which takes some time on my old PC...lol).  I vaguely noticed green text in general chat, glanced at it, saw it was a Lucky Board (I like that better than a chair, especially in a smaller shop)...and just kept looking around.  A bit later I saw "C" come up and I stopped everything and was camming like crazy thinking, "Where...where...where?????" lol

I actually laughed at myself.  I would never go to a store *because* of it, but it was like mind went on autopilot when I saw my letter.

So ummmm, yes, I like all the Lucky things.

Edit: typo

[Czari Zenovka]

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iCade wrote:

 

When I had my own lucky chair boards and participated in hunts; I only gave those items that I would like to receive concerning the quality.

it's a prize board, not a garbage bin.

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I once saw someone on these forums comment that the hunt gifts she makes become her new products.  The hunts I've been in thus far have required gifts that have never been offered for sale, but I would make a new one anyway and, as noted, it's a great way to offer a new item I might not have thought of without the hunt theme.

[Medhue Simoni]

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JeanneAnne wrote:

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

wrong Jeanne....it's 20-25% that support the SL economy in any given month and not 4%

In that other GD thread, you made the mistake of assuming that the 21 million SL accounts were current ones (it's actually over 27 million!)....these are an accumulation of accounts from day 1 of SL....so back to 2002/3. Obviously 95% of those accounts are "dead" accounts for want of a more descriptive word!

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No Rene, if I had used total accounts the percentage of paying accounts to non-paying would be <1%. I used logins per month to arrive at the 4% figure. 20-25% greatly inflates the ratio of paying to non-paying accounts.

But... What difference does it make? Even if we use the 20-25% figure you insist upon, the fact remains that the few support SL financially to the benefit of the many.

Jeanne

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I'd love to know how exactly this number has been calculated. Lets see now, I have 5 people in my store, and there aren't any freebies. Today, I've sold a considerable amount, as is the norm for most days, or I'd not be in SL. Do I somehow attract only the people that spend RL money? I seriously doubt that. Oh, I'm sure that a good part of the SL economy are smaller merchants strictly selling items to make lindens to spend in SL, but I doubt that is where most of my sales come from.

Plus, consider the activity on the Lindex. When I put 100k lindens for sale on the Lindex, it will all be sold in a matter of minutes. Can you even contemplate the amount of RL money being spent on the Lindex. I mean really, let's just say that the residents are buying 50k-100k lindens per minute. That's roughly $9,000-$18,000 per hour, or $216,000-$432,000 a day coming into SL. Of course, this is not a scientific sample, but not ridiculously off base. Yet, somehow, only 4% of the residents are buying lindens on the Lindex. I find this a bit hard to believe, especially when I look at my totals every day.