Marketplace, Mesh & a question - your opinions please

[Ann Otoole]

well... after the megaupload incident... they might actually care.

Again, the IP/Copyright owner has to take action. If that fails to happen the rippers could have their rl data and pic on their profile and it would not matter since LL cannot do a thing about it.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

This is not a question about your customers and the realtion to them.

This is a question about you - as a merchant and developer - and your relation to Linden Lab and your fellow merchants. 

By having to disclose your real identity to Linden Lab to be able to trade on the marketplace, it makes you much more responsible in terms of what goods you offer and how it was obtained. It makes it possible to legally go after you if you infringe on other peoples IP. 

Nobody has said that your RL indentity must be revealed to the rest of the SecondLife community unless you decide to do so. I don't care if I only know you as Toysoildier, but the minute I found you infringed on my IP, I would be very interested to know who you are. Having that disclosed to Linden Lab gives me a certain assurance. 

 

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The flaw being I already have a relationship with Linden Lab but all of my alts don't, despite Linden Lab knowing who they are. When Linden Lab finally sort out being able to flag people's alts as being linked to a main account, then maybe they can move along in a sensible fashion.

I was able to submit a support ticket to get them access to adult land but they can't mark a marketplace listing as Mesh, or even upload Mesh, the situation is absurd.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Porky Gorky wrote:

I completely agree with Gavin here. In fact I would take it one step further and change it so that only premium account holders could list and sell content on the marketplace and in-world.

The anonymity currently afforded to merchants in SL has also helped drive up the amount of copyright infringement we see in SL today. There needs to be more regulation and better accountability in this multi-million dollar market.

 

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Considering questionable Mesh content has already been on the marketplace and that ripping started before people were able to access Second Life without providing these details, I'm not convinced it would make a big difference other than narrowing the amount of people who engage with Second Life.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

(PS to make you feel better - I was forced to PIOF but only because I wanted to convert all my profits to RL $)

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Good!

As I have stated elsewhere, a developer program is overdue.

You should only be able to trade on the market place if member of the developer program. The program should have a yearly fee to be a member. You would have to disclose your real identity to the program manager (LL.)  As a member you should be able to trade all your content on equal standing regardless of prim, sculpt, mesh, script ...  

Membership fees should be used to develop the marketplace, such as having multiple brands for one developer, seasonal products, varieties, much better reporting, campaing management, bundling management, etc, etc. 

I don't think a direct connection between premium and developer is a good idea as I can see many cases of people wanting to be member of one or the other. 

 

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Im sorry Gavin but I have to completely disagree with your "wishes" on how you would like to see the Merchant / Content Developer community should be in SL.

I do understand where your vision comes from - the worlds of formalized, well trained, commercialized development communities where there are classes of "creators" and classes of the pure "consumers".  A world where product creation disciplines are in place, standards, guidelines, oaths, formal obligations, fees for the rights to to be one with the community of developers and commercialisation of the created content.

BUT.... in your vision of what you feel you want SL to evolve to, you have completely forgotten / dismissed the fundamental critical success of the SL Creator / Merchant community and why it has evolved so quickly in SL to be a large and vibrant and amazingly successful as it is now.  Why do you think SL has over 70,000 Creator / Merchants within its community?  Compare the population of SL's creator/merchant community to any other world like sims, IMVU, blue mars, etc. 

I will be blunt....  SL's creator / merchant community (even with all its current flaws primarily due to its enormous success) is so large and successful for one major reason - THE BARRIERS TO ENTRY ARE EXTREMELY LOW !

Maybe you are special and came into SL for one primary reason - "to become a commercial developer of SL product for the objective of establishing a commercial business operation".  But, I am very very comfortable in stating that the vast majority of all 70,000+ creator/merchants (I will estimate over 90%) evolved to becoming creator / merchants because they learned the easy to understand basics of building content inworld.  The barriers were/are very low to build some amazing content.  The knowledgebase is very large to become an expert builder in SL .   Then, many of these Builders discovered that the barrier to actually SELL what they built to others was even lower. 

They then got the bug and discovered they could more formally sell many of their products in an inworld store or on a low cost risk MARKETPLACE website.  In other words they all quickly learned that the barriers to formally selling their content in SL were extremely low.  It was a bit confusing but most untrained averge-joe builders in SL could easily evolve to becoming Merchants.  Once they evolved to becoming a Merchant - many of them stopped their evolution there and just sold what they made with little formal disciplines of development, marketing, customer service, etc.  A FEW remaining percent evolved to becoming very mature Creator / Merchants or even large scale commercial merchants.

Why am I reminding you about how SL's creator / merchant community works for 90% + of the merchant community?  Because your proposed ideas of introducing formal communities, fees, guidelines, structures, exposing your RL identity, formal obgligations, etc.....  they put up HUGE BARRIERS TO ENTRY for the next generations of creators that want to become Merchants.

Your great idea flies completely in the face of the fundamental reason that SL's Creator Merchant community is the most successful of any other in its marketspace.

Your concepts are a great idea for you and any of the top 10% of creator merchants that have far passed all these hurdles and are not willing to look back and what made the economy of SL the success it is that YOUR BUSINESS LEVERAGES.

So.... I respectfully and strongly disagree with your ideas.  If you want to run a business in a developer / merchant community that has pre-established rigors and fees and disciplined rules and hurdles that wipes out the ameteur / hobbyist creator / merchant.... then I suggest you close your SL business - and move to a virtual world that better fits your model of how a creator / merchant community should run.  May I suggest you move to Blue Mars.

You CANT bite the hand that feeds you Gavin. 

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Ciaran Laval wrote:

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Porky Gorky wrote:

I completely agree with Gavin here. In fact I would take it one step further and change it so that only premium account holders could list and sell content on the marketplace and in-world.

The anonymity currently afforded to merchants in SL has also helped drive up the amount of copyright infringement we see in SL today. There needs to be more regulation and better accountability in this multi-million dollar market.

 

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Considering questionable Mesh content has already been on the marketplace and that ripping started before people were able to access Second Life without providing these details, I'm not convinced it would make a big difference other than narrowing the amount of people who engage with Second Life.

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1000% agree with your comment Ciaran.  These wishes are just coming from a portion of the Creator / Merchant community that would like to see the 90% of the SL creator / merchant community be culled from the SL marketplace.

This does very little to stop theft, copybotting, poor customer service, and all the other benefits mentioned that they suggest would come out of creating all these formal barriers.

[Gavin Hird]

You are putting a lot of words in my mouth I never uttered or wished for. 

My statements are purely for the Marketplace. The oportunity for everyone shall still remain as is in-world. The problem with the marketplace is one of crowding the way it is laid out – crowding of freebies, crowding of demos, crowding of ripped and stolen goods, crowding of old stuff that hang around in servers people have long time forgotten about.

It does, in addition, remove attention from in-world activities and discourage land use for commercial purposes. Which bites LL's hand much more than mine. 

A sound developer program can be run modelled on Apple's developer program where barriers to entry and participation are low, it gives you rights to trade in the App stores, and it gives you great access to documentation, beta products and forward looking product plans. Fashioned in this manner, the barrier for the hobby builder who finds he wants to go "pro" is very low. 

it does not eliminate the issue of ripped and stolen goods, but it minimizes the attractiveness of it. 

[Gavin Hird]

I am totally with you there re the linking of alts to a main account. It should not be possible to create one without linking it to a main. 

Also the inventories should be shared between main and alts. 

Mesh needs a search flag in the marketplace, then they don't need to change anything else.

Somebody found out that the "100% mesh" was searchable, but that is not true. It only yields a return because people have put 100% mesh in the description field which is indexed 

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

You are putting a lot of words in my mouth I never uttered or wished for. 

My statements are purely for the Marketplace. The oportunity for everyone shall still remain as is in-world. The problem with the marketplace is one of crowding the way it is laid out – crowding of freebies, crowding of demos, crowding of ripped and stolen goods, crowding of old stuff that hang around in servers people have long time forgotten about.

It does, in addition, remove attention from in-world activities and discourage land use for commercial purposes. Which bites LL's hand much more than mine. 

A sound developer program can be run modelled on Apple's developer program where barriers to entry and participation are low, it gives you rights to trade in the App stores, and it gives you great access to documentation, beta products and forward looking product plans. Fashioned in this manner, the barrier for the hobby builder who finds he wants to go "pro" is very low. 

it does not eliminate the issue of ripped and stolen goods, but it minimizes the attractiveness of it. 

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Gavin, I am not really putting words in your mouth.  Moreso I am paraphrasing the world you would like to see.

And in your last post you state that your wishes of these new DEVELOPER CLASSED Merchant would only be for the world of SL's Marketplace.

LOL   Arnt you Generous!

So, you only want to rise barriers to entry for IP creating Merchants on the largest and fastest growing and easiest to setup market on SL?  You suggest that all those creator / merchants that cant or do not want to break through your DEVELOPER hurdles - they can still sell all their lame weak non-blessed content within the inworld community. 

The same inworld community where we all already have been witnessing the fast erosion of inworld selling marketplace.  So for the rest of us - we can still set up a store inworld where fewer and fewer SL residents actually shop anymore and where there is near zero product search and where the additional barriers ot selling are put up for new creator / merchants (having to rent land / stores etc. with no promise of any sales).

Arent you so nice to push us non-developer classed merchants into the dying inworld lands.

I have a much much better idea Gavin.  This is an idea that would make all creator / merchants happy.

How about you work with other fellow Commercial Classed Developer / Merchants of SL (that top 10% of merchants) and create a new Marketplace.  Create it and if you can convince LL Commerce to setup a 2nd marketplace for the ELITE MERCHANTS.... then you can set up rules and barriers and guidelines and annual membership fees and applications where each member must register his/her RL information.  You can make this ELITE SL MARKETPLACE as exclusive as you want.

Then, you and all these other Elite Developer-Stamped Merchants can migrate all your content to this new ELITE MP and close out all your listing from the current main ugly dirty cluttered content-theft ridden Marketplace.

Then, SL Customers can decide if they want to shop and buy from the Main Marketplace or your ELITE Marketplace.  If you and Porky and Medhue and others that want these standards are correct with your theory - all the SL Customers should quickly abandon the main marketplace and migrate to this ELITE Markeplace.  Why? because SL customers dont want to shop for and buy free / cheap content.  They dont like search results that are all cluttered.  They will want to buy from all your trusted mature and formally Developer endorsed merchants.  RIGHT?

In the meantime, your demands for the Elite Marketplace does not impact the 90% of Creator / Merchants that want easy access to the powerful and growing Main Marketplace... even with all its evils...

We are all happy.

What do you think of that idea?

[Toysoldier Thor]

PS - have you ever researched how many hurdles a developer must go through to be an APPLE APP developer???

If you wanted to explain low barriers and benefits.... you should have referenced Google's Andoid development.  Apple's is far far from low barriers and easy.  I know.  My Brother has struggled to get through it.

If Apple's App Dev program is your idea of "low barriers to entry"...  we are on a totally different wavelength.  LL putting in Apple's model would destroy SL's future merchant community growth or merchants and content.

[Gavin Hird]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

PS - have you ever researched how many hurdles a developer must go through to be an APPLE APP developer???

 

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There is exactly one: Pay the $100 yearly member fee if you want to trade on the App Store. If not, download the free Xcode and iOS/Mac SDKs from the App Store. 

I have done it. It takes 2 minutes to get into the program. ;-)

[Gavin Hird]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

If Apple's App Dev program is your idea of "low barriers to entry"...  we are on a totally different wavelength.  LL putting in Apple's model would destroy SL's future merchant community growth or merchants and content.

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Not sure the developers in the iOS program who so far has had $3 billion in revenue paid will agree on that. How much has so far been paid to the Andriod developers who are supposed to give their apps away for free mostly?

[Toysoldier Thor]

in addition to the cost. for the code and access.. your code you develop is not reviewed by Apple and does not have to meet all of Apple's countless controls (including the "we just dont want that in our store for no technical reason" control)?

Again.... if you wanted to explain low barriers to development - GOOGLE ANDROID.  that is why Android is the fastest growing platform on phones and apps and why it is outselling Apple's platform.

Ohhhh do you think this amazing android phenominum is happening because Google's barrier to entry is far lower than Apples?  Isnt that amazing how the reason SL's creator merchant community has grown so fast is the same reason Android's popularity has exploded in the last 2 years to be the fastest selling platform on the market??

Just real cool to see the same model working on two different marketspaces.

 

[Gavin Hird]

This is not a discussion about Apple vs Andriod. 

It is a discussion about Linden lab's market place, and where I have made suggestions on how a developer program can be fashioned along the same simple lines for enrollment and benefits. It is NOT a suggestion to adopt Apple's business model. 

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

This is not a discussion about Apple vs Andriod. 

It is a discussion about Linden lab's market place, and where I have made suggestions on how a developer program can be fashioned along the same simple lines for enrollment and benefits. It is NOT a suggestion to adopt Apple's business model. 

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ohhh but it is and you started the comparison to how the SL Marketplace could be modeled after the Apple model.  Let me quote you...

A sound developer program can be run modelled on Apple's developer program where barriers to entry and participation are low, it gives you rights to trade in the App stores, and it gives you great access to documentation, beta products and forward looking product plans. Fashioned in this manner, the barrier for the hobby builder who finds he wants to go "pro" is very low.

 

 

You said that LL could develop a program  just like the Apple Model. 

My thoughts on my response are that the Android model is what SL's Marketplace is already like and it has proven to be amazingly popular and successful even with its flaws.  Resembling Android's model proving now that its an amazingly more attractive model for most than Apple's since even with Apple's huge marketshare position establishment prior to Android entering the market - in 2 short years the Android platform and its apps have already taken month unit sales marketshare leadership away from Apple.

How can this be possible if as you suggest Apple's model is superior and LL should model a Marketplace acces program after it?  With all the current revenue generated for Apple Iphone developers, why are so many consumers trading in their iphones for Androids and developers are writing free or near free apps for the Android???

I know why.  I am sure you know why. 

LOWER COST OF ENTRY.... LOWER BARRIERS TO ENTRY.... LOWER CONTROLS...

So I am glad you brought up the comparison of LL Marketplace Paid Developer access to that of Apple's model.  You could not have proved my point any more clearly.

PS.... you suggest that for SL Merchants that paid and signed up to trade on Marketplace they would be given access to documentation, beta products, etc....  Do you remember we are talking about LL Commerce here?  Exactly one documentation do you think LL would create and share with us that we could not get in the public space?  Beta products?? You want to join LL Commerce's Closed Beta teams? LOL More power to you.  You can do that now for free - as long as you like a sock rammed in your mouth for ever.

 

This has been a fun discussion and one that I know is purely acedemic since LL Commerce never listens to us (good or bad).  The reason your ideas are not causing a flamestorm of protest against you is because most Merchants that are against your idea fully know that LL would never take the idea seriously.

  So thanks for the enjoyable debate.

[Gavin Hird]

To refer to a slashdot discussion: 

"Google Chariman Eric Schmidt recently addressed an Android user lamenting the fact that that mobile apps are often released on Apple's iOS platform well before they finally reach Android. Schmidt cooly and curiously explained that this dynamic will change in just 6 months. Here's why he's wrong. Though Google brags about the total number of Android users, developers care about certain kinds of users (those that pay for apps). A similar dynamic can be found in television advertising, where advertisers will more money for ad spots on less popular shows in order to reach desirable demographics, even though other programs may have many millions of more viewers."

To quote the above, Linden Lab should be interested in the kind of developers who wants customers to pay for their creations, and not get everything for free.

A complete free business model, will collapse the SecondLife business model. LL does not make anything from the marketplace if only free and dollarbie products are traded. 

They don't make anything from discouraging in-world trade that removes the incentive to pay tier.  

Your Andriod business model does in no way translate to SecondLife. It does not translate very well for Google either – in terms of revenue. 

Estimates for tomorrow is that Apple will post quarterly revenue of $38.92 billion for the 4Q11, while Google posted  $2.7 billion for the same period. Guess who's business model seems to pay off better?

[Toysoldier Thor]

isnt it funny how you conveniently left out in the $ revenue figures the Revenuw made from all the manufacturers of the Android platform.  Samsung, HTC, etc.

Funny how you also forgot how long the proprietary Apple iphone platform was on the market before Google's adroid OS and all the devices of that platform entered the market.

Funny how you call all of Android's apps free and that its the same FREE model that LL has and is collapsing when countless Android Apps charge for their apps  (the benefits being that developers dont have to jump through Applies costs and hoops to put out a new app).

And after all this.... as popular as Apple is... they are following the same model they went through in the 70s 80s when they kept things proprietary and with high barriers to entry and heavy partnering controls for the Apple II III etc. Remember in the mid 80s when the PC entered the market and all the industry experts initially thought "ROFL PCs have no hope in penetrating Apples desktop microcomputer market".  Fast Forward 10 years later and Apple's microcoputer marketshare eroded to 10% of the market. 

So you keep throwing today's numbers around and we will see 10 years from now - specially when Androids have already taken 1st place in monthly device shipments over iphones in only 2 years.

Last thought......  if you so strongly feel the LL SL Marketplace model is so flawed and headed for ultimate collapse... then why are you so stupid as to be spending any time and effort in this marketplace.  GET OUT NOW!!  invest your time and effort in a virtual world and platform that has high barriers to entry and restricts most of your competitors from competing with you and there is a lot of control where you can jack up your product pricing.

Your actions do not match your beliefs Gavin.

[Madeliefste Oh]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

 

Your actions do not match your beliefs Gavin.

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Then he is not alone

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

As for a user having or not having PIOF... that is the merchants choice and no one should question why.  I personally didnt want to have PIOF and only did it eventually in order for me to withdraw my profits from SL.

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[Medhue Simoni]

Although, I don't really mind being lumped in with Gavin and Porky, you really should refrain from putting people into groups and insinuating that we have the same views. My personal view is that it wouldn't matter to me if every merchant on the marketplace was PIOF. That seems reasonable to me, but this is not what I meant in my post. I generally like everything to be voluntary, but I understand if some restrictions were added.

And.... I was not saying that any1 should be able to see your RL identity, accept LL. My statements about the customer being more comfortable, can be akin to the mom and pop bakery in town, as apposed to the mega store with the customer service being automated phone networks. Tho, my store does look a bit more like the mega store, but with mom and pop service. PIOF is just a small part of the equation. They don't need to know my RL name, as they have no reason to know it. This is different than knowing I'm going to be here tomorrow and the next day, month or year.

It is also worth pointing out, that none of us are, in any way, saying that inworld sales should be changed at all. If anything, inworld sales would grow, as people know they can find even more inworld. Plus, inworld, a small parcel can be ranked #1 in inworld search, lol.

[Medhue Simoni]

The new tools we will be getting this year are said to require a special developer status, but I'm really not for creating labels that can cause divide within the community. I feel this is always a bad things, unless logically justified for such very good reasons as we can all understand, like the Linden Realm tools.

[Toysoldier Thor]

I do think there are influences around the LL product development teams that would like to see this establishment of more elite classes of developers, builders, etc. and they are using the "with mesh we can start to change the SL world".

So it doesnt surprise me that we are seeing more and more restrictions and hurdles and guidelines and shifts with the MESH then all the existing building tools.

Maybe Rod and Sr. Mgmt see that the days of the "anyone can be a builder" are coming to an end.

[Medhue Simoni]

Toy, i think you are way off base here. SL's lifelong problem was lag, and mesh addresses that directly. LL's commitment to keep legacy prims and sculpts functional implies that they understand that building magic that SL has. Mesh allows those of us that want to spread our wings to do so. Personally, I never liked building with prims, and I always knew the issues concerning sculpts. Hence, I didn't build much and stuck to all things animation.

I've always felt that better games was the key to mass appeal, and I think Rod sees that. Now, it's a whole new ball game.

Ask Porky what he thinks of mesh now. I think we can all agree it's complicated, but when you find the sweet spot, it is pure HEAVEN. Let's not get back to that arguement tho.

[Toysoldier Thor]

you're starting it.  I was talking about your mention that LL is planning to introduce "special developer access only" tools and how this is not surprising with the moves coming from LL on stratifying builders to the basic builders and the elite special registered builders with access to tools that the general community doesnt have.

As for your lack of interest in building with prims.... for every one like you does doesnt like or cant figure out how to create amazing creations from simple prims... I can point out 20 builders that absolutely love SL's prim building.

Luckily for me I have experienced and liked both sides.  I really like prim building and figuring out the technical and creative challenge to make such simple prims become amazing builds.  I also love the analog natural shape forming abilities of sclpties and now mesh.  In fact I like, have tried and can fully appreciate the value of so many facets of the build environment - prims, sculpties, scripts, texturing, mesh.   Ironically, the only part I have never had any real passion or interests in has been animations and poses - never built one and dont feel like I missed anything for not having built one.

Maybe that is why I am not as quick to keep calling out the demise of all other building components of SL and "everything I build from now on will only be MESH".

But... LL's move to a create a more restrictive class of builder with plans to block development / build tools from the general community... not good news.  I would agree with you there.

[Medhue Simoni]

See, I was never formally trained in programs like 3ds Max, but I did buy the program many years ago, before I ever found SL. I only learned the basics. When I first entered SL, I obviously saw the potential in the system they had, and I thought prims were an ingenius idea to allow people to create. Of course, I thought long and hard about where my talents would be best suited, and building was not high on my list.

I did mostly portraits and figurative drawings in RL, so the most likely candidates were skin making and maybe animation. Not having the best photoshop skills, I gave animation a try. I did do some animating and game development on some other platforms, like the CryEngine. Plus, animation was exciting to me and I never saw any kind of animation system like we have here.

While I played with MODs, I got to see how real game content is created, and even made characters for those MODs like Hitler and Bin Laden. So, when every1 talked about lag, I had a decent idea why there was so much lag. Once you have seen and know how to create with mesh, fiddling with prims or sculpts is not all that attractive. But.... as I have said many times, I have always been amazed by what people have done in SL with its limited scope for building tools. Now, the animation system, contrary to the building tools, it is still miles ahead of any other animation system. Coding is robust, but IMHO, not as good as LUA. What do I know tho, I've never been an even decent coder.

As can be seen with games like Minecraft, it's not usually just graphics and looks that bring in the masses. It's usually gameplay. I think Counter-Strike still has people playing it today, and that is like super old. Plus, people tend to feel connected to their avatars, which is why a good avatar editing system goes a long way. Animation is a unique aspect, cause there is not any games where you really have a choice in animation. So, I think I've made some dang good choices.

Now, do I think SL is going to change drastically from what it is currently? No, just with much better gameplay, when you feel like doing it. The better gameplay will draw in those that like gameplay, and then they will stick around for all the other wonders of SL. Maybe even start building.

Really, if you want to see awesome environments, you should play around on the CryEngine, or CryEngine2 platform. It's basically impossible for SL to have environments that good, at least for most of it, tho water and the sky(windlight) are pretty comparable. Checking it out would give creators some good ideas for SL, now that we have mesh. My love for mesh is because I know what it will do for SL, and it is all based on logic, not emotional ties.

[Ann Otoole]

Go to an empty island sim devoid of objects. Add 30 avatars. Lag. Mesh will in no way fix what LL did with the conversion to homesteads.

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, I'm not all that familiar with the conversion homestead issue, or what that has to do with lag. I did have some 15 avatars on my sim today, mostly inside my store, and I didn't see 1 bit of lag because of them. These were just everyday laggy SL avatars too, plus 3 of my mesh Lycan avatars. I do have a decent pc and internet connection, and it was an off peak time. Not everything is mesh on my sim, but I do have about 17 mesh npc creatures running around the sim, that will attack you, if you enter their area. Plus, I was fighting them at the time, and they explode when you kill them. I can't wait to get my hands on the new pathfinding system.

The only time I saw lag, was when I got too close to the sim next to me and my pc had to render about 15 sculpty trees. Mesh will make all avatars less laggy tho. Heck, just mesh shoes and hair alone will cut most of the avatar lag.