WADE1 Jya

Thank you Lindens for doing this! It is so nice to see Linden Lab taking action to help out in this disaster, so much help is needed, it is complete devastation for millions of people. If anyone can give a little to this cause to help out the Japanese people, please do, there is so much hurt & loss there!

I don't see any value whatsoever in allowing people who are not logged in to Second Life and in-world to have access to my profile information. I don't see any value in... The value is more people might log into Second Life (for the first time) if the community is not stuck behind walls in its own little world that nobody outside can see. Having deep profiles on the web that are interesting & rich in content (I'll be adding videos to mine & more!) could be a major attractor of new people into Second Life. Think of it as opening more doors into Second Life Think of it as connecting the Second Life community to the global web community. I will opt-in once this is speedier loading, but I am happy to see Linden Lab is allowing people to opt-out, respecting their privacy concerns.

Hey those stars are made of gold right? We just need an exchange to convert into USD. That will get people really motivated to help I'm wondering too what this new credit system could entail...

Interesting stuff, sounds like some great stuff coming for the SL community. Looking forward to seeing the new platform, I always felt this current set up was a little awkward. Ann does have a good point, will heavy community contributors who've helped loads of people get some status or credit in the new system for their helpful efforts to date? It would be a bit of a shame for these people if it is a wipe everything & start over situation.

Awesome Thank you Brooke!

There's been several things Lindens are doing that shows they're listening a lot more to residents more lately. I see it. For example, Customer Support seems to be really on track to pull a complete 180° from bad to good & the response time is much faster these days too. Lindens are doing something right cause I meet more and more newbies everyday now. Happy to see all the nice changes. Thank you Lindens

I love SL's inclusiveness too, but thinking of commerce, some "laws of the land" could exist. Imagine if Apple's App Store decided to implement inclusiveness, so that any random file authored by any anonymous "Apple Developer" could be declared an "Apple App" & set out for sale. The App Store would slowly devolve. Apple's brand name, at least for apps, would go down the toilet. Everything good would get buried in an avalanche of stolen apps, garbage files, scams, malware & endless chains of duplicate resellers cannibilizing the entire ecology. This hypothetical place would someday be shut down by court injunction, or simply abandoned. If the Second Life economy is to scale up, the way we do commerce here needs to change.

"PIOF to sell inworld and on SLM"I can't attend these things lately, but just wanted to go on record as saying I am also in favor of this. I understand how some are against the idea but I think the pros far outweigh the cons here. Looks like a step in the right direction to me, happy to see the idea is on the table

Great work Lindens! I see one vein of commonality with these improvements.... they are not just random things LL wanted to do, these are all things residents of Second Life have been (loudly) asking for! Thank you for listening to us. Delighted with the way things are going lately

This sounds good If you can bring over some more of that old historical Xstreet ranking that would be great! I'm in same position as Pamela, previous nice ranking was all wiped upon entry to SLM, it's like being "ruthed" as a merchant! Noobified Most of my items have been rediscovered by now, but several good ones still lay buried in SLM's wasteland of unfindables. This sounds like a nice holiday gift to us merchants from the Linden family, looking forward to it Cheers!

Hello Bushido, Not sure what you are getting at sorry... I wrote: *Deleted* (Double Post) because I accidentally posted the same comment twice... My double post has now been deleted. I am not sure how your question relates to anything I said above If you give more detail on what specific issue you are talking about perhaps I can comment.

Woohoo its that time of year again! @ Astolat: Maybe only one merchant actually applied? Ah well, it will still be a cool event anyhow! Winterfest is much more about fun & festivities, then it is about commercialism. I would have happily participated (like I did last year) but I missed the mass invite to all merchants to participate .....it must have been sent out ....same as last year? Maybe this year, you had to be following the right Linden & catch a certain tweet or something like that to stand a chance of being involved. or maybe it was skype invites only. No idea.... just imagining guestimations We probably just weren't paying attention to the right channel at the crucial moment. Happy Holidays Everybody (including all the Linden family)

Hey Wayfinder, I haven't actually got a campaign yet sorry, but I will get one at some point down the road. I'm just not feeling the need for more advertising at the moment. I am happy this option is there now, as before... it wasn't an option Several times in the past I ran banners with the Xstreet crew before LL bought it up & really this new package by Glam is highly similar. It is impossible to gauge real accrued sales data from this kind of campaign but I think it can be effective (or forgettable, or even damaging if your ad sucks!). I remember there was convos on the Xstreet forums about exactly this topic. I take it literally, I am buying "impressions" as in the most common understandings of the word (making an impression), not sales or click-throughs or anything else. Impressions, taken literally, is yes just people "meeting" your brand, and hopefully you create a pleasantly memorable impact. One impression today could translate into multiple sales 3 months from now (or translate into absolutely nothing). Like a meme, an impression can travel between persons... somebody sees your banner... later their friend is looking for a similar item, and your name is remembered. Powerful stuff eh? That's how I see it anyway Best of luck with your campaigns!

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Hey people, I just wanted to fill you in on things.... I spent some time & took a much more granular look at this ad service and talked with the people at Glam (who are providing this ad service for Linden Lab) in much detail about what all is offered. The Glam team is friendly, and they were incredibly prompt & helpful! My earlier badgering of LL about this system was unneeded & based on ignorance, my apologies..... sometimes I act like an idiot Sure the website needs work (its BETA), but once you understand what you are getting with this ad system (which right now requires the Glam team explaining it to you), it is a decent service offered at a fair price (in my opinion). The price is reasonable (at least at their current "discount" rate) although the way the site words everything (incomprehensibly) you'd think it is insanely expensive. Honestly, at first I was offended, thinking this was basically just a cash grab to take advantage of dumb people! I don't have a need for any big ad campaign at the moment, but next time I feel that itch to make pretty banner graphics, want to promote a special new item, or if I see any slump in sales I might use this service. Oh oh... I'm agreeing with Prok again (does that make me officially crazy? ) ...but anyways, I'll just say thanks Linden Lab for providing us with another possible way to make our business presence here more visible. It is nice to have multiple streams for this. Kudos again LL & Happy Holidays everyone!

Oh Really? Thanks Ticious IE is the one browser I never use because... well because its IE. I hope Linden Lab adds support for other browsers soon, kinda makes sense how it was unworkable if this is just a browser compatibility issue. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so harsh & snippy with my earlier criticisms... it does prominently say BETA on it after all

Yay! Viewer 2 was terrible at first but it keeps improving I'm finding I use it more than 50% of the time now. Its very nice to see Lindens are listening to resident feedback here. So far every loud complaint from the community of anything that was en masse disliked about viewer 2 they have changed things to grant our wishes. Huzzah Lindens! This is the kind of thing that builds community confidence So... I'm assuming Viewer 2.5 will have mesh import?

I think its odd that Lindens don't communicate about how to use their new ad service & how it works on this thread (or anywhere else). A few people now have shown they have interest in the service & have also stated that they don't understand the product and need help to begin using it (I agree it is incomprehensible). At a certain point however, interested customers give up. Sure a few people will throw money down without knowing what they are purchasing, but most people won't. Its failure at basic communication tasks like this is where Linden Lab loses a lot of potential new business. I've emailed asking about the program too, lets see if I get some good answers An FAQ would be more convenient....

IMVU is terrible in every other regard, but "Simple" is the one key factor it has that Second Life has been lacking so far. In the 21st century, simplicity alone is the "killer app" that often beats out a product with superior features. Second Life needs a simple version for all the people who just want to relax, play, and not heavily engage their higher thought processes. Nearly everyone that is! Most people already did difficult stuff all day & just want to chill out, chat, share LOLs, etc... The new web SL player looks promisingly like exactly this kind of thing, very stripped down and simplified in extreme, hopefully its the solution Second Life needs!

Until I see Linden Lab doing some solid external marketing, another onion layer of internal marketing just looks like monetization of the merchants. I am not saying that was the intention, in fact I'm almost certain that wasn't the intent... it just does have the appearance of this, which is why you got 74 comments mostly full of irate disgust for this new program. Linden Lab, please market Second Life with some smart real world marketing blitzes (I don't mean more lame IMVU-style net ads). Make Second Life known. If we see Linden Lab advertise more... we'll want to advertise more too. Make concurrency start upticking & I will be all over your new ad products like white on rice Oh and let us pay for ads in L$ please... thats another showstopper. You guys don't accept your own native currency? oh yeah "tokens" sorry... but still are you sure you don't want my L$?

Could this be for Risk API reasons? Xstreet may have been less secure and Linden Lab is just stepping up security to combat fraud? I criticized Linden Lab earlier for making the move of removing MassPay, but just now it crossed my mind that there may have been a very sensible reason for the action!

Economies are psychology driven. So if most people are negative & thinking it is failing it will. If people are super hyped a bubble forms. If people stay super hyped the bubble sustains itself forming a functional marketplace. Anything economic is more based on public perception than real statistical data or facts. SL is a lot like the world in that "Never Ending Story" movie... if we stop imagining it, it begins to fade away.

It is a little odd that LL almost seems to be directing merchants away from owning land currently by the total focus on SLM. Once magic boxes are gone, a merchant definitely does not need to own any land, not even a small parcel. There is no big advantage to owning land in SL as a merchant currently... LL should change that to make their land products more relevent again.... I don't know about other merchants, but I prefer dealing with business inworld.... web listings and flat 2-D web stuff is all kinda boring. but SLM is their baby right now so I'll let them enjoy it a while before whining too much that its getting all the attention @Rene: Good point! I'd really like to see retention figures too... it seems the daily max concurrency is up lately (hitting near 70000 more often) so maybe even good news there? ...... LL, could this data be shared too please? Less data transparency lets the skeptics win cause we can't prove them wrong!

Hah I fell for those "ex-Lindens" at first. Their comments about Linden bosses secretly hating counterculture got me going I guess... I didn't stop to think at first. However, I now suspect those ex-Lindens are fake. They were after all writing on Prok's blog... and they were writing about how a group of Lindens were conspiring to "block" Prok, and this other group of now ex-Lindens were giving her FIC status essentially by blocking the blockers. Think about it a second.... Does that much daily activity at LL really revolve around Prokofy? So who says SL can't scale... anything is possible given the right technology, bright minds & a little positivity! If SL can scale (which I think it sure could)... why link to other grids? SL can be the grid everywhere. If SL can't scale, why is LL then working on Project Skylight, a browser-based viewer? Put that on the web & its a disaster waiting to happen if the grid can't take more residents arriving! Anyway, big problem with these other little grids around...... even if they achieve interportability between them there is still no sizable economy... who do I sell my creations to there? Who do I be friends with there? The communities are tiny! Why would I trust these other grids when I see them rise & fall so quick & full of drama? Its back to Linden Lab, the only ones to get a working economy running of any significant proportions. So, kudos to that! Second Life remains the best place to do any virtual world business.