lucagrabacr

I mean Philip Rosedale looked like this so

Some newer things generally look nicer and are on-par with most modern games out there c= and try GEMC's cars and Bandit's / The Mesh Shop's boats, they make the best realistic cars and boats around

Gotta say I love the presentation on the SL for remote work portal's "about" page, much better than how they presented the idea more than a decade ago imo (is that Patch in the middle?)

It's a cube c=

Thanks Beth! c= I'm glad you think so ♥ SL will be even better and have the comeback of the decade \ o / (or century!)

Thanks Beth! ♥ I really want to show to people what SL truly is and its potential

Finally finished this video c= it's time we take control back of the narrative!

So I've been talking with Draxtor about the topic because he does care a lot about the inworld communities he represented in his videos as he said, which he emphasized to me are his top priorities when making his videos, and I just want to make it clear that my criticism and others' who I've been talking to are not necessarily aimed at all of his videos but just at certain aspects of some videos of his c= my main point for the thread is my suggestion to LL For SL, yup! in fact I just wrote a general observation and feasibility assessment paper about how LL might be able to turn the tide and reverse SL's very slow decline (and risking myself sounding really stupid in it because LL prolly already considered most of what I'm suggesting :P) and decided to make another video in addition to it and in the spirit of changing the false popular narrative that SL is old and not cool Thanks Soft! ♥ and we're all lucky our security is in the hands of someone with such astute ears >:3 In the aforementioned general observation and feasibility assessment paper I mentioned to LL something along the line of what you're saying, that we should take control of the narrative and show to people how great of a platform SL really is, my general promotional video above is also aimed to convey that!

There were some NSFW stuff on the first sim and I was using Shadowplay's "Record last x second" feature because I didn't plan for the people who answered my questions or saw the video I was showing to answer on voice as it was spontaneous, so I didn't have time to turn off nametags and there were more people in the background besides the people who were speaking in the video so I blurred the video for them

Indeed, I'm certainly not against the general jack-of-all-trades kind of ads that LL have been making for SL, especially when they're done right, one of my points is how LL's more niche-specific ads tend to seem as if they don't intricately understand or are out of touch from what these specific communities want to project or how they want to be perceived inside and outside of SL (their outward niche appeal especially), which in my opinion probably has to do with time constraint on LL's part or maybe because their overall marketing strategy (which @Brett Linden kindly laid out for us, and more is coming on the next Lab Gab) might not put too much emphasis on these things because they do have to put more priority on their proven data-driven approach to maintain SL's relative resilience, hence why I suggested they form a low-cost side marketing project which aim to address the perceived issues I mentioned above, sort of one where they don't have to make too many of them, but make sure they take their time and nail them, and these can be used to penetrate their particular niches much deeper than their more blanketing materials in the long term without taking too much away from their current endeavors I quickly put this sample together to further elaborate on my points, cinematography and effects can be better (of this video), and I'm sure LL can certainly do better if they put their time to it. The emphasis I want to highlight with the sample is the overall "feel" or "vibe" of the video and how through visual and auditory elements which match pre-existing subcultural concepts or constructs, and a more "inside-out" instead of "outside-in" perspective, it might resonate better with people who follow the subculture and the modern audience, not including narrative element and despite the fact that my outfit might not be thematically perfect for the video Also below is some voice testimonies of a few SL users within the 20-35 age group regarding what they feel about some of SL's ads, which I know isn't representative of SL's main demographic (higher age group people with higher spending power) who I think are generally much more accepting or care less about these things, and I think that compounded with the fact that most of SL users are loyal users who will support SL no matter what (I know because I'm one of them), kinda skewed the perception of how well-received some of SL's ads are outside SL's communities. I'll keep the video private / unlisted so only those who have the link can see it And I want to emphasize that I don't put these out to patronize LL or anyone, they're wonderful people who are always very professional and passionate about SL and are always helpful, they're the reason SL exist to begin with and still does to this day to which I'm sure a lot of people including me are eternally grateful for, I understand that everyone working for LL are people too who have their own lives and things to do and I don't want this to come out as some sort of pointless "do it better" rant which doesn't account for the aforementioned factors I didn't speak in the video, the 1st person who started talking in the 2nd part of the 2nd video is my friend who also thinks SL's ads can be better, and they were talking about it with someone else and invited me to the conversation during their road trip Most of the people within the age group I questioned answered on text instead of voice, but their opinions are generally similar to those expressed in the above video. (latest ones I did after making this thread have approximately 50% saying they're bad, 33% indifferent or slightly below average, 17% said it's decent)

Check under your "current outfit" folder, see if you have anything you don't recognize there and detach them, otherwise it might be a graphical bug or maybe it's one of the layers on your body if it's a mesh one

We're a group of like-minded individuals who share the philosophical view and beliefs that our virtual existence and experiences are no less meaningful than their physical counterparts, and strive to preserve and promote those things, our values and way of life. Recently we decided to gradually and slightly change how we operate in term of how we integrate more faithful people into our society and how we let non-members who agree with our cause help with our efforts c= so if you're interested do check us out inworld, our website and our latest video below!

Pretty much 99% all the furry places / spots on SL are LGBT places if you'd like to visit

Thanks to the Lindens for replying and show that you guys do care (that's why we care too!) and I've read all the responses and replies, and I hope this graph I made below can further explain or elaborate on my points, also answering some of the replies here in this thread Also, I'm not criticizing the abilities of LL, its marketing team or anyone who's involved, I'm sure there are many reasons that I don't know about regarding why some of us (me, my friends, some people I've asked and some people in the forums who agreed with my points) might feel that certain niche-specific marketing materials of SL do seem a bit lacking in certain aspects, but I did ask my friends and people about what they think of SL's ads and niche-specific video ads in particular (cyberpunk, biker clubs), and they generally don't think they are as good as they could've been In my opinion there are very surgical ways that LL can integrate SL into the subcultural subconscious of certain subcultures (lots of subs in a phrase I know) which in my opinion consist of people that would love the chance to live out their internal realities in a more tangible form if they were presented with the right materials in the right ways

No problem Soft! c= and thank you! Well there are several that I can think of right now other than the examples I've given, for example Hideo Kojima always seems to have this "awareness" when it comes to a very-indepth insight to the mind of the people who he made his games for, and from there he seems to always just know what to make and how to present them, the sort of genius which always made him and his creations seems to be in-tune with the collective ebb and flow of the communities he caters to and beyond. For example if we're looking at his "Death Stranding" game trailer from the perspective of an objective observer, the kind of viewpoint that corporate-based marketing approach usually caters to, it may seem "silly" or "overly and unnecessarily dramatic and out of touch with the majority of people's collective idea of things", it might even seem whacky and insane - but it's not, it perfectly resonates and made sense to his intended audience, the aesthetic, narrative and feel of the trailer and the game itself is on-point in regard to what sort of emotion and construct it wants to convey to its audience, which is why it was a critical success. A lot of successful indie RPG games also usually harness these aspects of cultural or subcultural awareness, like one of the examples I've given in my original post (Undertale) and some other like "VA-11 Hall-A" which on paper might seem just like your mediocre 2D RPG games with little to no innovation in term of actual gameplay, But they were both very successful by harnessing the aforementioned awareness Now of course I'm not saying the elements of the things I mentioned directly parralel the variables of what SL can potentially do and its audience, but the essence of my argument is that when you're in-tune with how your target audience thinks, you make things that resonate with them on a very fundamental level. For example there are many vibrant "Synthwave" or "Retrowave" subcultures on SL (yes they are subcultures now and not just genres of music, because their distinct visuals are widely used as a basis or feels of things such as buildings or even whole sims on SL), which sometimes intersect with the "Cyberpunk" culture, but LL's promotion and exploration of these communities always seem surface-level, like, "Ok here's some cyberpunk things" without considering the essence, aesthetic and feel of the subcultures which make them resonate with their followers or people who live in the communities of those subcultures. And yup! Not necessarily video or ad banner materials but Chouchou's sky cathedral was spot-on in term of aesthetic when combined with the music being played on the parcels, it's an old build too but it overcomes the lack of powerful 3D modeling tools which can be used for SL back then with a very strong sense of aesthetic and feel, it's the kind of genius which I've mentioned in this post, it feels just right and it conveys what it wants to convey perfectly Some sims I know which are run by the younger users of SL also have many elements which indicate subcultural awareness for their respective niches which they harness, I know these examples might not sound very solid, but I'll see if I can take some examples and extrapolate some key elements which make them so for this thread

I think many people still have a rough idea of what it is, and those who know knows that it's still the best virtual world platform in term of features and sophistication, but what you said is also part of my point, that SL can be perceived as THE virtual world again for the modern era if LL can navigate well enough

So I was replying to another thread in the forum earlier regarding whether or not SL can be as popular as it used to be, and if the slow downward trend can be reversed. In it I mentioned how LL's doing a great job at marketing SL by the book using available data and statistical analysis, and I said it can be better if LL's willing to take risks and do a right-on-the-spot marketing which resonates with key very-high-retention audience. So in this thread I wish to elaborate further and we can discuss it, and hopefully if my assessment is or perceived as correct, LL is willing to listen and try. Before I start I'd like to mention that I've seen a lot of SL's promotional materials throughout the years, both in banner ads and video ads formats. Looking at them and knowing the majority of SL's user demographic plus who is the most likely that they wish to target, it's clear to me that while LL certainly know what constitutes as a good traffic, LL still put an emphasis on volume over quality of traffic. Now, I'm not saying they don't target specific kinds of people and certain niches which they know have produced quality traffic, but even then those ads have this feel of being very superficial in nature. I'm not talking about the technical skills or artistic sense of the people who are making the ads, they are superb and top-notch in those regards - but none or at least very few of them have this effect of, "Wow, that's spot on", the kind of ads that will make people who never even thought about a virtual world stop what they're doing and try SL, or make it more culturally relevant and in my opinion this has a lot to do with direction and LL's tendency to play it safe, which has its merits and proven records but in my opinion things won't change for the better that way. One of the major elements that caused this is the level of cultural sophistication and penetration of the marketing materials, they just don't tend to resonate too much in that regard and don't feel like they are in the same page with people's idea of a futuristic, best virtual world - which SL is in term of features and sophistication by a large margin compared to any other Metaverse or social VR out there. That sort of marketing could make SL stick in people's mind even if they don't use it or haven't For example, I remember seeing a video ad showcasing Bryn Oh's very surreal and melancholic exhibit, yet it was presented through the eyes of a casual viewer or visitor instead of the artistic essence of said exhibit. There was this very huge gap between what Bryn Oh or their art seemed to want to convey with how it was presented in the video ad, and the resulting product was not as impactful as it could have been and seemingly hollow. Again, I'm not criticizing the people who worked on the material itself, but the seeming indirection by LL. And that was just one example. SL is a trove of cultural wonders and arts which often transcend the two dimensional barrier of the monitors in which they are displayed, and carry the very essence and consciousness of the people who experience them through their sheer thoroughness and impact for being in spaces that people actually live in, they are dimensions to be explored and presented as their creators intended to while working on them with all their hearts. So what do you guys think? Edit: Here's a simple visualization I made regarding what I conceived to be the effect of SL's marketing materials in regard to how much they leave an impression within their intended target audience / niche and the wider cultural fallout footprint Edit 2: as examples of what knowing one's target audience, their culture and aesthetic preference can do in propelling something, Undertale and Hotel Hazbin are great recent examples - one is just a simple top-down RPG and the other is just your casual mid-budget cartoon on a technical level, but because of their creators' understanding regarding their audience culture and aesthetic preference, both became very popular within their particular niches despite being just mediocre products if the cultural and aesthetic relevance elements are removed from the equation. These are things that visually, auditorially and narratively touch, influence and appeal to people's innermost workings and perception, they transcended what's potentially possible by objective measures by tapping into people's subjective perception of things

It can be, it's partly a matter of marketing to the right very-high-retention audience, the rest is technical development. I'm not saying LL haven't been doing a good job in marketing SL, in fact they've done a great job at it, as proven by the profitability of SL. However, to reverse the slight downward trend, LL needs to do a terrific job at marketing, not just in term of doing the right thing by the book using available data and statistical analysis which they've been doing, but a revolutionary, right-on-the-spot kind of marketing that truly resonates with the aforementioned audience(s). They need to go far and beyond and take risks in order to accomplish it

I actually ask a lot of new users about how they found out about Second Life over the years, the 3 most common answers are ads, Google searches and "Heard about it a long time ago but just decided to join"

OMG i didnt know about that, actually kinda like it! ❤️

Second Life never has a theme song / music o -o If Second Life has a theme song or music how do you guys think it would sound like?

Region restart warning

So I decided to make a "company profile" kind of video for this game where I make ships used my SL avatar for it

The majority of trans people have nothing to do with the people in a particular extreme of politics who lobbied for those things. There are people out there who claim they represent the "trans community" or "voice" who just exploit them as a platform for stepping stones while ruining the image people have regarding trans people.

I usually just do the honest thing and tell them that I gotta do something or go to someone else, then tell them to take care c=