Filipa Thespian

Hi @RainConner. Commercially like a store? Event space? night club? something else? thanks

Hey everyone. We've been working on an in world game/sim setup and with that writing the story that goes with it. We began creating videos of episodes of the story setup. We're up to episode 3 in season 1, there are planned 8 episodes in season 1 :). Would be spiffy if you are so inclined to subscribe and like and even comment on the episodes Thanks It's called Atomic City and the playlist is here:

About which vendor systems do you speak? I'd like to start keeping an eye on these closely. While I absolutely love my Casper systems, if down the road, fees start getting added, while I'll hate to do it, I will need to find another vendor solution and fast. I simply refuse to pay any more fees to LL for my businesses. FIGURING OUT FEES: Based on a real L$5,500 sale of a build within the last 30 days, of which I received L$4,950, we pay 10% to LL on each product we sell on marketplace. With the above in consideration, let's say you made L$177,778 entirely from MP sales. That's $703.31 USD. CONGRATULATIONS! Based on #1 above, MP commissions to LL cost L$17,778 or $70.55 USD. So, now we have L$160,000 and we want to cash that out to USD. Fabulous! Ok, the Estimated Value is $633.04 of which we will receive $610.28 USD (a $22.76 or 4% fee to LL) Now, we want to get that money into our RL bank accounts so, we head on over to TILIA where we cash that $610.28 USD out and receive $579.77 USD in our PayPal or Skrill account. That's a difference of 5% or $30.51 USD. So lets put it all that together... LL fees on L$703.31 USD are: 70.55 + 22.76 + 30.51= $123.82 in percentages that would be 4% + 5% + 10% = for a 19% total tax rate LAND COST: Let's not forget too, land fees either direct to LL or to a rental agent (a real expense). A full sim now is $229 usd/month and a homestead is $109 usd/mo. If you own your land, you're also paying a minimum of $99 USD a year to LL to be allowed to own land (or $9.95 USD/mo). And if you are renting land from a rental agent/land baron, your tier is higher (I'm not doing math on these because everyone is different and I'm not sure what the current rental prices are lol.). I wont go into other fees we pay to LL like uploading textures, meshes, etc, as they are really unique to the individual. But here we begin to clearly see the cost of doing business with LL in SL as a content creator. And remember, none of this takes into account the cost of purchasing materials from other content creators for your products or properties. I can't help but feel like it's enough already. At what point is it just to costly to be a content creator in SL? Seems to me, content creators pay all the bills so that those who come to play for free don't have to, while they constantly push for us to give them everything for free lol. Yay what a life haha. In the end, you REALLY need to pay close attention to what you're doing if you want your SL business to be a RL income. Forgive me but I really am not seeing this purchase of CasperTech as a great thing for content creators but I do say congrats to Casper Warden, I was likely a very good thing for him lol. Happy New Year and best wishes to everyone out there in the original "metaverse" lol Hugs and much love, Filipa (a.k.a. Pip)

Have you looked into the CasperSafe system? I know it does a lot of amazing things. there's also NeurolaB Inc. by KRAY Security. It's a server based system and it might help. I hope these suggestions prove useful.

I left you an Offline and a notecard in-world earlier on the 4th of March. I look forward to hearing from you.

Could it be cuz of the size of your ... inventory? I'm tellin you, SIZE DOES MATTER!!! I've noticed that my alts that have VERY small inventories load REALLY FAST while my main avie that has an OMG size inventory takes FOREVER to get in and right now, is not able to get in lol. hmm, I wonder if that's a useful thing to point out? dunno. OMG it's starting to feel like the old days in SL hehehe.

I am actively seeking a full sim that is Grandfathered. Please contact me in world (Filipa Thespian) to discuss. I am ready to move as soon as Tuesday May 15th with the sale/transfer.

Tired of the same old? Want to do something fun, exciting and inspirational? Want to be famous in Second Life and on iMoogi.tv? Auditions for Voice actors are now open! Become a STAR! Have some fun and get invited to all the "IN" parties! http://imoogi.tv/application-audition/ Come seeking fame, work hard and make money!

I believe SLiteChat is what you're actually looking for. I use it when I am work so I can chat with people (i.e. i also do work in sl lol) but without getting distracted with all the visual, etc. http://www.slitechat.org/ Happy SLing

For kicks I opened an account with IMVU. I started an IMVU back in November too. I didn't do much with it though. I tried to figure out the become a creator thing and it was a bit convaluted in my opinion, had a very hard time with it and never did make anything there lol. The shame is, IMVU being just glorified chat rooms for me is a real downfall for them, which is why i'm so amazed at their user base and online user counts. Mind boggling really all things considered, as is the amount of content available to dress these avies that can't even walk without sitting on a ball to do it lol. I'd investigated several such worlds, others are more like SL, yet still, in my opinion, SL is the only place where avies can look REALLY human and we can easily build stuff. As a "world" SL is far superior to them all which really depresses me cuz the company that manages it is just so darn ... well ... facacta. God how I wish LL would get their heads out of their arses!!!

I have items that are big and you can see them inworld first, I even sell all my items cheaper inworld, but it makes no difference. Consumers as a majority prefer to buy my items off Marketplace and that is still rising. Wether we prefer the inworld shopping experience or not is pointless to discuss. It may not make a difference, but be careful stating that openily. TOS states that you MUST make your pircing in world exactly the same as your marketplace pricing at all times or you are in voilation and they'll shut you down or something. i even tried the group discounts in world, wear the group, the prices are 10% less, but that didn't work either ... used to be when i'd submit a new release to the fashion groups like FashCon, instantly i'd have 15 people and for the next several hours there's be no fewer than 15 to 30 people in my store at any given time and sales from those were about half the people made purchases. All that changed with the viewer 2 release ... i think people just dont like going places anymore. but now when i send out a notice about a new release, i might get 1 or 2 people showing up but they dont stay long, maybe 1 or 2 in the store for a half hour or so and maybe one or two sales. I think what we need to do is figure out "ok, this is how it was then, but not now. what work snow? what can we figure out to work now?" We all know LL isn't going to change anything, they will cling to viewer 2 till their dying breath ... so ... if search isn't working ... how do we work around it? There is a neat site online that is like a web search of sims in world. It snags stuff from descriptions and lists things like a google for SL. Maybe we make better use of a tool like that? (though as a sim owner i always had difficult figuring out how to get it to work right to list my sim lol). but anyway, maybe we need to rely on external solutions for our in world issues. Another thing is ... i know so many people made new and intriguing ways to work around what they didn't like about their past search listings (pre 2.0) why can't we figure out how to work around it? http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Search_API is how it works, no? Or did I find the wrong thing lol. What can we learn? Also, check out these websites ... http://www.slbiz2life.com and http://www.gpc2life.com the latter being even more interesting as it's newer and looks spiffy. The older one some of the tools I preferred are going away, but they are creative thinking ideas that I would love to see more of!!!

Thanks Wayfinder and Rene ... and my main point (buried in the above) is that if LL expects a monthly contribution of $470 from each of these few accounts (85k) to make their business model work, they must do everything they can to support OUR business model so we can make payments. If not their business model will collapse faster than they can remake it into something else. This was a key point i was making in my "book" i posted last where i was talking about learning from businesses like Amex about how they try to support their business members so that their business members will stay in business and continue to in turn, support them.

BRAINSTORM!!! Something just hit me like a ton of bricks while reading to catch up since the last time i read lol. I know this became long, sorry, but I urge you all to read it, please and while you do, be constructive with it and your responses. We need constructive, polite and communicable debate and brainstorms here . TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION: We, the residents of SL, are akin to Americans in revolutionary days. What we have here is Taxation Without Representation! Back then, England was taxing us, claiming us, costing us a fortune AND ... we had NO representation in parliament to have our voice heard. That is EXACTLY what we have here if you think about it. Linden Labs (i.e. England), our "government", taxes us, takes our money, is in ultimate control of our land and properties, and shoves laws and expenses of THEIR choosing down our throats and all we can do is sit and take it, cowering in the corner for fear of what they might do to us next (see "03.a - Case in Point" below for more on this). We have no representation with our ruling body. We can banter and bicker and brainstorm and chat back and forth till the end of time, but what this comes down to is ... WE NEED REPRESENTATION THAT MATTERS! Meaning, Residents, NOT LL appointed staff given adorable little titles like "Resident Liason" need to be on this board or team or government. They must be NON-Linden staff (any SL governmental position must require the person cannot be, in any way shape or form, employed by LL), and they must be included in what goes on that drives our community and what affects us. Their voice MUST be seriously heard, listened to and acted upon and their VOTES MUST COUNT and the "seats" they represent on this board MUST BE EQUAL to the number of LL representatives in order to ensure a fair quorum! Wow that actually could be a kick for economy what with campaigning and resources needed to do so. AND if LL uses it right, it could be FABULOUS for marketing SL to the world, while also being an education for many on how politics works and an experiment on how politics could work better ... maybe? haha I'm thinkin that could be beneficial to all these teens we now have. I know that SL is being used in the high schools now to help teach sociology and ecomony (as subjects of student projects). Why not politics? SO WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT? 01. Join groups and associations that matter and make your own constructive voice: I looked into joining that group that Rena mentioned, the Content Creators Association. They're difficult to get into, you need a sponsor from someone already in. I'm working on getting all the qualifications out of the way so I can be a part of it, but I understand much like a Chamber of Commerce, or Better Business Bureau, they have affected change over the years, though I as of yet have no real details. However, we need NON Linden official bodies (such as chambers/better biz bureau) that are trustworthy and that have a voice with the government but are in no way affiliated with or controlled by Linden Labs! 02. Create a Resident Driven/Managed System of Government that can be taken seriously!!! I also believe strongly we need to set up a better system of government. Right now we live seriously in "England" in the old days when the King ruled supreme and squished the bugs if they ticked him off. LL is the King who's not listening and just doing as he/she pleases because it suits them. The tricky thing is, LL is also a company in the 21st century lol. SO ... how do we get them to wake up and start sharing the community power with the community? We need our own Boston Tea Party lol. BTW, the Chambers of Commerce and Better Business Bureau's are a good idea. There's also now a Virtual property licensing website (i.e. like the U.S. Copyright office but for our virtual content) but they're charging too much in my humble opinion. I'm waiting to see how that shakes out over time as it's kinda new. 03. We have our own economy, thus we are our own Country! LL needs to realize regardless of what their goals were or were not, they created a new "country" for all intents and purposes! It's how we see it, it's how we live in it! We have our own economy, we have homes and land and expenses, etc. We deserve a government that represents us and has power! Also, regardless of their corporate mission statement, etc ... LL needs to wake up and realize that without the residents...ALL OF US...(and our content lol)...they're out of business!!! 03.a - CASE IN POINT: When I had my recent 6 week stint I'd mentioned earlier (btw rena no it wasn't the grid you mentioned, it was http://www.RoleplayWorlds.net), I had enlisted the aid of some rather large real estate tycoons I know, people who own 12+ and/or 50+ sims respectively. What I learned from them is this ... from their personal experiences, no matter how many sims you own, LL treats you just as badly as everyone else, they seriously do not care (their words, not mine)! One of the people I spoke with owns 100+ sims and she told me that they have the losses and screw overs due to LL's seriously terrible support and random snatching of land due to minor discrepancies or misunderstandings, etc built into their financial plan as acceptible losses, because there's nothing they can do about it. I myself learned that all the statements about how i hold the copyright on what i create in world are totally irrelevant when LL shuts my account down at the computer ID so i can't log in at all from my computer or my accounts on other computers (they hit me several ways). Additionally I learned that my cash balance is subject for them to snatch random money out of. The hour before they gave me access to my accounts again, they took out L$20,000 from my account (came up on my transaction history), not to mention while i was locked out my marketplace sales increased, i was actually excited abou that, figuring i'd at least have a nice balance when I got back in. No, I had less than I had when they locked me out in the first place. I was having a hard time seeing the sales registering in my transaction history AND they deducted that 20k though the only place I can confidently say they siphoned off was the L$20k they took with NO explanation as my records back and forth during the time i had no access (only LL did) are a bit muddled. And no, I did not contact them about it, I had JUST gotten back in after 6 weeks (when i'd done nothing wrong) and I was terrified they'd lock me back out again and it would repeat. I just took it as an acceptible loss and moved on. But perhaps that's why LL behaves this way? 04. Making use of vagrant land that's collecting dust: I like the idea of these continents, but NOT of LL creating the content. I think that these sims should be put together as a continent and set up as NON PROFIT, then to serious artists who apply for it (like a grant process only easier ) and fit the bill, are given the land (i.e. plot or sim or wahtever they qualify for based on their ideas of what art they want to create for no purpose other than everyone's pleasure and exploration) and they build the content ... for nothing (i mean seriously, LL's not makin anything on it as it is and the world is getting kinda vacant and desert-like, what's it hurt?). I think this will make the community stronger for new residents and old. NO I think this should be carefully managed and people need to qualify based on program requirements ... AND while they get the rights to build on the land, call it community beautification program, I think they shouldn't "own" it persay, I think they should be treated like "non-profit renters" and whatever they do on that sim CANNOT earn them revenue of any kind (they can earn revenue elsewhere, but not on that parcel). 05. Marketing!!! LL MUST market themselves! BUT ... you know ... we ourselves have the power to do that as well, why can't we also be working to bring in more residents? I do it now with my RL business, in my RL magazine that goes to 3500+ theatres nationally, I market SL and my sim and theatre in world, inviting them to come find me. Why can't we all do this on our blogs, forums, posts, etc ... wherever we go? Not just advertise our events to SLians through standard channels, but use free press releases through PRWeb.com to start getting the word out that something amazing is going on here ... get your butts in here! Likewise, SL has to do more to help market serious businesses! And I think these chambers of commerce and what not are a good way to figure out how to do that and who to do it for! 06. Reorganization of Tier pricing structures and options: I think there should be classification set pricing so that sims like Roleplay sims which really are a huge mainstay for LL, they are NOT revenue producing ... they should be charged WAY LESS than say a commercial sim that has retail stores or event venues on them who has the ability to earn the revenue to pay for the sim! Likewise, there should be specials that LL creates for long term owners of land and venues or rather for those who own bulk quantities of sims, etc. Aye, we need reduced tier rates, $295 a month isn't feasible especially considering all else discussed herein, if it were the pricing more like it was in 2006 ($195/mo) I'd own 2 sims! And I could afford to and it would help me with my plans, etc. However, they can't just CUT those rates tomorrow, it could hurt them as a company and that would be bad for us. They need to figure out programs (or we need to do it together through this government I mentioned above) like economic growth programs. They used to do this with educational sims and the schools started coming in ... then they took that away and screwed themselves and the schools started abandoning ship. Something's got to give lol. LL needs to look at, just as we do, what the market will bear. They need to realize that charging L$5.43 or so per prim when all we can earn per prim is L$2 isn't going to work! It hurts us, but in the end, destroys LL. 07. Learn from American Express (omg i can't believe i just said that lol): LL needs to figure out, like American Express did, how to support and build up it's resident's businesses with them so that they too can continue to grow. Amex has a multitude of business programs available to their members with the GOAL of making those members a success. Why do they invest their energies and finances into such programs? Because if their members are succeeding, then they will spend and/or not close their business gold cards which makes Amex money lol. They realize that their members are what makes them viable and if their members are failing, then Amex is failing. So Amex (and other businesses) try to figure out how to educate, support and provide tools and resources their business members need to have long term growth! There's no success without relationships and growth! 08. Ok I think we now know what all the problems are, lets make them work for us: We need to get better at using what we have (be it good, bad or indifferent) and making it work for us! Advertising and Marketing (for all of us, including LL) is paramount, and I'm talking for our own businesses AND for the SL platform! There's some great services out there that have these amazing ideas that I've been looking into and experimenting with (with some success) for some time now! We need to get creative and look at all these problems not as problems, but as opportunities and use our amazing creativity and will power and turn the tide ourselves! Over the years i've learned that no one's going to do it for me ... I MUST do it for myself (whatever IT is lol). LL, LETS BE PARTNERS! WE WANT TO LOVE YOU!!! So, LL, how about we all become partners in this wide wide virtual world? We'd all be better off, you especially! I believe that people do NOT want to sit and "trash" the company that provides our world, but you're not giving us much choice but to vent about the bad things. How about come on board and work with us, become true partners in this!! We'd all appreciate it so much, I'm sure that in time, you're bottom line could be way better than if you were to continue to increase your bottom lines. There's a lot of smart business people here, just read this blog and you'll see! Hugs!!!! Filipa.

Hitomi, they will go on doing it if they have to be a pay user account, it would be just an extra for LL and small Entrepeneurs to breathe Having a pay account, witch is not that costly for access to such a wonderful world as SL is does not prevent anyone form doing is usual shops and spendings and earnings I am sorry Loff, but this whole only paying accounts thing is not what I would consider a viable option. Those who are NOT paying currently, would just leave and not pay. It's in part about the type of person and their mindset. There are many who do not feel they should have to pay, so if they're forced to, they wont do it and they'll just leave. That doesn't mean some wont stay and pay, you'd probably see a rather fair split, but I admit, this is a bit of conjecture. I just have to go with my gut on what i've seen in the past elsewhere and what I know of the SL resident's mindset from living here since 2005. I have said for a long time now that one of the biggest problems for land owners is the mindsets of the average SLian. They do not believe they should have to pay for their entertainment (not talking about physical purchases) like concerts, or theatre, or what not. They wander around SL talking about how bored they are and "what do you want to do?" and for hours they do nothing but hop from empty sim to empty sim bored. They'll drop (or used to anyway not sure they do not, jury's still out lol) oodles of lindens on clothes and "toys" etc ... but freak out if a viable and credible entertaining establishment wants to charge them a cover charge for the concert or show they're offering. Those things take an exorbatant amount of time and resources to pull together and in the real world, these same SLian's wouldn't think twice about the cost of a ticket to go lol. I think that we have a multiple tiered issue that needs addressing, a LARGE part of it is with Linden Labs, but another part we must not ignore is affecting change in the mindset of the resident on perceived value and what is worth paying for. I have been told over and over and over again, venue owners do not really make anything back, they just spend. It's virtually impossible to make money off of a venue (I'm talking like theatre and concerts now, not real estate). The vendor owner pays ALL the bills, sim costs, pays the entertainer, the entertainer keeps all the tips and the venue owner is expected to market with his or her own dollar too. I say ... how is that logical? lol I'd love to brainstorm with people for fixing things

Absolutely false. Linden dollars don't actually exist. They are not preserved or 'fed back into the system.' When Linden Lab receives your Linden dollar, it ceases to exist. New Lindens are created only when people buy them. Furthermore, this idea that there are 'more to sell' is silly. Linden Lab can print as much money as they want; it's their currency. Sorry Cinco, with all due respect I must disagree with you on your post. If the Linden dollars did not actually exist, then we could not exchange them out for RL currency thus earning incomes from our work in SL. Also, as I have read in Linden Lab's book for SL Entrepreneurs, LL employs (or did then at least) a professional economist who managed the "economy" of the linden dollar very carefully. While I have loaned my book to a friend recently and cannot use it to pull direct quotes and terminology at the moment, I will endeavor to share what I learned as best I am able. The U.S. dollar to use as an example, technically is just a piece of paper. It's a note that represents an amount of "virtual" currency that's backed up by gold bars in the glorious Fort. Without the "gold" backing up the paper or "virtual" money on our Debit Cards that we sling about, we wouldn't have the money to use in these formats. Likewise, if the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve just kept issuing more greenbacks, feeding them into our economy, that gold becomes more and more unstable, the more paper money is newly created and fed into our financial system (without destroying old paper money in the process). There is a VERY careful balance that must be maintained or the value of the dollar will completely tank and the government will collapse in on itself. Likewise, Linden Labs manages the lindens in our virtual economy exactly the same way. The linden is very much real unlike what you stated. For if it weren't, it wouldn't have a value we could equate out into RL cash with our paypal accounts. Today, all money is more "virtual" than "paper" anyway, we see it with our debit cards, checks, bank wires, paypal accounts ... there are far more forms of money that are completely intangible than we realize ... going to the ATM machine and taking paper money out of our bank accounts is just being issued "paper notes" that represent the digets that show up on the terminal's screen. So yes, the lindens are VERY much real and no, Linden Labs cannot just make money wherever they like. They need to, just like the U.S. treasury does, siphon off "old money" to replace it with new ... and if they're going to infuse the economy with MORE money ... meaning making new money available that didn't previously exist, then they have to do it in a VERY careful and controlled manner or our currency, no matter what country or virtual world we are discussing, would implode. They way they siphon money out to keep the balance is with those lovely little L$10 fees for our uploads (read this in the book) and as I've been learning in this thread, probably also with the commissions they take on the Marketplace sales. I am certain there are other avenues for this as well. Even the World Of Warcraft does this with their game currency or the in game economy (though we cannot translate it out to RL) would collapse (I read a bunch on this when I used to play, it's why they made it illegal to purchase game money, was hurting the game's economy). If this topic is still going on when I get my book back from my friend, I shall be very happy to type in quotes from LL's economist who explains VERY succinctly exactly how this works and what they do. Until then ... Cheers

I'm not sure why they're still clinging to it. At first I thought, "maybe they're actually seeing enough success with new users that they can afford to piss everyone else off." Apparently not. I really think, at this point, it's some weird matter of pride. Like so many companies are suddenly doing, they have to prove (to who?) that the customer isn't ever right. Definitely not how to run a successful business. They are clinging to it and will always do so, never letting it go or replacing it really, because they have spent so much money in it's development. That's how big corporations work. They will not just "throw away" all that money they invested in its creation, no matter how bad it is. They will just try to sell "vapor ware" and pull wool over people's eyes and add little things and patches here and there hoping to plug the leaks. It's typical of software companies really, I know, I used to work for one lol.

There are two figures: One is the overall amount of Linden dollars that exist in-world. That's the 'money supply,' and is apparently growing. The other is the falling supply on the LindeX, which is a market in which Lindens are bought and sold for US$. When you buy Lindens in-world, what's really happening is that LL is finding the best deal it can on the LindeX and then doing the transaction. (That's why the amounts are 'estimated' until you do the actual transaction.) The trick here is, that as others have stated in previous posts, the amount of lindens available is growing because of the increase in sales volume and ad purchases on the Marketplace. As was stated, these lindens are fed back into the system so that they have more to sell. It does not signify any real growth other than that people are buying now more on the marketplace than in world (where lindens dont get the cash for sales/advertising). It's not really a helpful statistic if you ask me, but I could be mistaken lol.

Second Life is stagnant in terms of growth...everyone knows it and so does Linden Lab. Failed strategies and missed opportunities has resulted in this present day scenario The new CEO and the current management need to be aware of the old addage of "money makes money"...in that they missed the opportunity of growing their userbase during the recession by not investing in real-time Marketing and Advertising. They really need to a look at IMVU and learn how to grow and market their own product (i.e SL) "IMVU achieved $22 million in revenue in 2009 and is on track to gross at least $40 million in 2010, with 85 percent of its revenue coming from paying customers and 15 percent coming from advertising. To date, the company boasts more than 50 million registered users and more than 10 million unique visitors per month. It's grown 657 percent over the last three years." http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/imvus-virtual-cash-cow-doubling-revenues-focused-on-gaming-video/ IMVU grew by a staggering 657% in the last 3 years.......and how much did Second Life grow during that same time frame? Nada...or maybe single digit %'s .IMVU have a 2 Million active user base (4% of total accounts), whilst we still hover around the 800k mark ( 2.5% of total accounts).They achieved that growth by aggresively marketing their product spending real dollars......on an inferior product i might add! (compared to SL) Any LL excuses blaming recession is total bull and won't wash! The Management were asleep at the wheel for the last 2.5 years....or had their purse strings curtailed by the VC's. (one or the other) Recently I had an issue where someone hacked my paypal and used it in sl to purchase thousands of USD worth of lindens. Linden Lab's answer was to lock me out of SL for ... 6 WEEKS ... while they "investigated" with NO communication or avenue for me to communicate as I was locked out. They wouldn't reply to my emails and my phone calls were met with "you have to wait for the admins to respond to you, no one can do anything." It finally took spending even more RL cash to ship Fedex packages to their legal department and marketing director to get them (within days) to open up my accounts again and all they said was "we're done our investigation, good luck." Reason I mention this is, while I was out of world all that time, I went investigating other virtual worlds including IMVU. Do you know that at NON peak times, IMVU has hundreds of thousands of people logged in at the same time? i've never seen less than 80 or 90 thousand people logged in and that was at like 3 or 4am EST. Usually you'll find at least 150,000 people or so logged in AND you can create content and earn real cash on it. I visited other virtual worlds as well, and they are loaded with people and I think a lot of people who left SL are in them. I also traversed the various other SL grids and found one in particular that I liked, the people who own it are wonderful, you CAN make money (they use PayPal for transactions) and it's got a growing community base for roleplay while having a traditional "earth" realm (i.e. non roleplay like clubs, etc). What this shows is LL's blindness is creating opportunities elsewhere and if they don't wake up soon, everyone's going to go elsewhere and then where will everyone be? hmmm.

Web merchandise sales volume grew 5.8% in Q4 = in world sales down by at least that much! In world sales support tier --- your primary revenue stream. Replacing stores with magic boxes is a loosing strategy for everyone! Agreed, so ... how do we fix it? I know this was a blog about economy, but all this goes into the economy. Can we start a conversation perhaps, or maybe all gather in world to talk or something, about what we as residents can do if we ban together. There's power in numbers. Right now we are all a bunch of random voices that are pretty much all in agreement with each other. It has been my experience that though we spend the time to post all this on these blogs, no one at LL reads it or they just dont do anything about it. So ... I have a Business and Economy group in SL, if anyone wants to join it so we can all banter together and what not and maybe create an effective organization to help interface successfully with LL to get our business and economy issues taken seriously. Any takers? Just IM me in world and I'll pop you in then you can pop whoever you like in or what not. if not no biggie, there's nothing in it for me really but hopefully rebuilding for myself and everyone else, what used to be a viable economy ... OR if there's a bigger business group that actually has plans and discussions like this, can someone point me to it? I've joined and unjoined so many cuz they really just don't do anything lol.

Very well put and thank you! The shift of commerce from in-world to web has been accelerating for the past year and already having the effect you mentioned above. Smart businesses also have moved strongly away from renting satellite stores to producing affiliates which has pushed common rentals down even further. This was a known and planned outcome by Linden Lab who does not benefit directly from in-world sales but does take a percentage of all web sales. If you add the introduction of Linden free housing to the mix the impact on rental business is huge, so much that it has been driving the large increase in abandoned land. That may contradict what Linden Lab says about the 'size' of the world growing but then again they did not provide information about the amount of abandoned land or how the inclusion of the teen grid impacted land growth. Remember that Linden Lab can maintain as much unused land as they like so 'land growth' by itself is a useless statistic. Due to these issues, my stand on commerce opportunities in SL has changed dramatically since 2006. When asked now, I tell potential business people the best thing to do is produce and sell product only, hold the minimum amount of land needed to get products listed on the web marketplace, and invest in affiliate vendors. Setting up direct sale in-world stores is simply a waste of money. The ONLY reason anyone should hold land in SL now is for their own personal use and without expectation of breaking even under any circumstances. As harsh as that sounds, it is good business practice in SL which is vastly different than RL. Linden Lab banks on people forgetting that simple fact! As always, remember the first rule in Second Life is to have fun, NOT make money! Stick with that and you will be just fine! Peace and love everyone! I have noticed during the course of this year, my sales have gone from roughly 50/50 (in world and web) to 90% from the Marketplace and 10% from the store, probably less now. And I no longer rent satellite stores because NO ONE ever shops in them at all anymore. The one I maintain is for a reason other than sales! and if that reason went away, i'd leave that spot too. No one shops in world anymore and as a result, I have been thinking of shutting down my in world store for just website sales only for some time now. haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet though lol. I enjoy having the environment and it helps to have a store for people to come to when you post new product in groups. But even those responses are dwindling. I think that commerce may not be an option anymore and we need to think thru what we really enjoy in sl (for me it is the commerce ) and if it's time to move on or not.

Are you sure about not many people using phoenix and imprudence? I could swear every person i look at (i use phoenix) has a red phoenix or purple imprudence over their head, and if they dont they have nothing (meaning they're not using viewer 2, cuz it has its own tag in phoenix). On my own personal little trip thru the world, as far as I can tell, the old timers in SL aren't using viewer 2, they hate it.

they seemed to reorganise what they chose to show us in Q2 2010 - if you want to see the old stats and see what is now missing see this post. In that post they said 'We are eager to hear what information and analysis you would like to see about the Second Life economy that would help your business'. Since then they have quietly dropped the following figures that would surely prove to be useful indicators: Total value of user-to-user transactions Total L$ held by residents Maybe these figures could be re-instated to give businesses a better understanding of how the economy is doing. wow, looking at the old report, it seems that the numbers posted here for that same quarter are VERY different ... are they changing numbers? or the forumlas they're using to report data? About users online ... I remember, in 2006, when we had rolling crashes constantly and we were hourly logging in over and over at least a few times with many complete grid outages for hours on end, none of which we see anymore really ... there were usually (prior to the rolling crashes lol) anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 people online at any given time at the same time and communities were larger and sales volumes were larger. Now, we dont get locked out for hours on end and can get back in quickly when an individual crashes, yet at most there's only ever 68,000 people logged in at the same time, usually less and the grid has considerably fewer sims on which to interract. How is this growth at all?

The big thing to remember about statistics is this ... they can be made to show ANYTHING the creator wants you to see. Statistics are very subjective and can be manipulated in a myriad of ways to show the desired result as opposed to an undesired reality. I think also good numbers to see, which I've not found anywhere yet, is the percentages of people using each viewer, for example, how many are using Viewer 2, the old SL viewer, Phoenix, Imprudence, etc. This information will give a huge heads up on what is worth the time of a creator to focus on in creating. For example, if it's a very small percentage of people using viewer 2, then is it really worth our time making all these fancy extra layer objects and meshes, etc ... that are only available for viewing/use in Viewer 2 (as is my understanding to date about such things). I know for a fact that the role play communities have been shrinking CONSIDERABLY. The Gorean community has HALF the sims (maybe even less) it had just 1.5 to 2 years ago. The role play community used to be a HUGE spender of lindens on attire and gadgets to use in conducting roleplay. Huge in making a large quantity of purchases without much prior thought too. Those sims are hurting because no one really rents market space like they used to and with a prim costing land owners L$5.45 per prim and the best we can charge for it in rental is L$2 on average ... there's really no way to make a profit let alone break even. There's no statistic they can provide that will change the view of reality that occurs on a daily basis when you live, work and play within SL. It is a great concern! But what I'm most interested in is not "what is," but "how can we fix it?" Us the residents AND the Lindens combined. Another thought ... has there ever been a concensus taken of the businesses in world, to show values of sales per market segment? For example, egyptian roleplay attire, high fashion dresses, men's pants suits, boots, high heeled shoes ... etc. or at the very least more broad groups of "men's clothing" "women's clothing" "accessories" "costumes" "footwear" and so on. This would be so very useful to plan and project! No?