Dartagan Shepherd

Sorry, forgot to add one more bit to the alternative universe. The bit where our chairman of the board at LL takes your money and holds onto it for goals that you set for yourself. If you fail to lose that weight, or whatever your goal is, you lose your money. http://www.ipromisephilip.com/ Just in case you were wondering why a company can't manage a shopping cart and 5 year old bugs. And chat, and marketplace enhancements and ... well, you get the idea. It's all built to monetize, not necessarily "work" more than enough to monetize. Things like trust in commerce, a level of maturity and stability ... all of these are optional features if the grunts in the trenches can manage it.

Lasher Oh wrote: Perhaps the MP team inhabit an alternative dimension where time is contracted exponentially so that the more frequently the dreaded 'We'll be right back' message occurs the faster they believe they are responding however no one has explained to them that 1 second of their time elapsed aproximates 6 months of ours. Personally I feel it's just a severe case of 'head in sand' ^L^ Oh, it gets better! Our Phearless Phil Rosedale is working on creating "Third Life" (http://highfidelity.io/) and it won't even need hosting. You'll get to peer-host bits of the brave new virtual world along with a supposed tens of thousands of other users and potentially get paid for it. Yes, that's right, no lag because people renderung a virtual world on their tablets and computers will miraculously be faster than cloud hosting. In the sometime-future, Third life will have you creating content, paying more in terms of monetization and you get the priviledge of hosting it until you find out the money you make from it won't pay the electricity it took to run your virtual world peer hosting. Brought to you by Rosedale's other venture http://worklist.net where employees are a thing of the past! Yes, that's right, we build technology by paying couch change for small jobs and piece-mealing the entire thing together. Although some ex-Lindens and Rosedale himself earn the lions share of the jobs and money on this worklist.net venture (built from the ashes of Phil's last attempt at monetizing work instead of paying employees ... Coffee and Power, which as been err ... sunsetted to use their terminology). Although in this alternate, alternate universe it's all good because it will use voxels instead of mesh and this will also miraculously build a world more efficiently than mesh. And somehow this will all be better than Second Life because as Phil says ... they wear labcoats when building Third Life, or rather High Fidelity. How many ways can you possibly screw up the concept of a virtual world? Alternative dimensions, indeed.

Pamela Galli wrote: Seriously, if I ran my store like SOME people do their jobs, I would find myself back in the classroom teaching again. Just catching up and spotted this. If you ever do go back to teaching? Please whack them about the heads until they realize that doing a job properly should be higher on the list than trying to "change the world". Otherwise they'll end up working for a commerce team that gets the commerce bits wrong in a world of commerce. Then again, perhaps you just can't teach horse sense.

Sera Lok wrote: Yeah, you could throw a dart anywhere on the site and find a problem wherever you landed, I think >.< Ouch. Not "that" kind of Dart. And certainly not at the deep, dark underbelly of buggery that is the marketplace.

Porky Gorky wrote: Since then allot of bastardised American English spellings have crept into my brain and I find myself constantly questioning my spelling. That would be "bastardized", thank you very much! We U.S. folk like to gamify the english language to keep things interesting.

Deja Letov wrote: Dartagan Shepherd wrote: I'm going to assume you included the sacrificial virgin goat and said the proper words: "Klaatu Barada N... Necktie... Neckturn... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word! Klaatu... Barada... N...". Oddly enough there are no sacrificial goats, virginal or otherwise in a marketplace search. ooohhh untapped market. I'm all over that now. Thanks Dart! Heheh, I can see it now ... Marketplace problems? Low frame rates? Bugs got you down? Introducing a dual function goat available only in Second Life. Blame your SL problems on this handy goat using the scapegoat function. Later, load your goat onto the included altar and sacrifice it with the included ceremonial dagger using the sacrifice function. Guaranteed to create a stench that will singe the nose hairs off of any nearby Linden god, making them take notice and get back to work.

I'm going to assume you included the sacrificial virgin goat and said the proper words: "Klaatu Barada N... Necktie... Neckturn... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word! Klaatu... Barada... N...". Oddly enough there are no sacrificial goats, virginal or otherwise in a marketplace search.

The good news is that the year old Linden pyro-bears burning the magic boxes are almost relevant. At least for freebies and less than L$10 items. Who knew those bears would want a commission for burning empty boxes?

It's not like email was invented in the 1970's and been in use on the internet for 20 years, sheesh. Err ... scratch that. It's not like email alerts and single comprehensive sales reports are common on reseller sites. Oh, nevermind. Take a deep breath and count to 10,000?

As of the last published quarterly report, before they stopped at http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/The-Second-Life-Economy-in-Q3-2011/ba-p/1166705 Although the charts containing the data have mysteriously vanished from the page (go figure), I did jot down some numbers at the time... Quarterly gross Marketplace sales: L$1,183,000,000 5% quarterly commission: L$59,150,000

Awesome, thankfully post-arbitration is a battle I've never had to fight. Also hoping that these battles are not fought specifically with LL to get some change for the good but rather with other companies dabbling in virtual currency which then filters down to LL. I just think content creators and customers using virtual currency need to be afforded the same protections as everyone else in the real world, without all these liability dodges companies are getting away with. Entertaining and rewarding as it might be, it's still real business.

Innula Zenovka wrote: Dartagan Shepherd wrote: Innula Zenovka wrote: How do you say the L$ earnings of people in the USA should be taxed? Should they only be subject to tax if and when they're cashed out, or should people be required to declare all their in-world earnings and be taxed on them if appropriate? Personally I don't see any reason for it to change. It should be taxed when you receive it as plain old income. Currently PayPal has to report it to the IRS when it exceeds a threshold. Income is income and doesn't need to be further convoluted. I think that part of the system already works just fine. Right, and I am inclined to agree with you. However, isn't that treating L$ as something other than currency? I mean, if someone converted them to US$ and left them in their LL US$ account rather than transferring them to PayPal or their bank, they should declare them, I think. So why does moving them from the L$ to the US$ account make a difference for tax purposes? Ugg again, heheh. If you're operating your merchant business as a sole proprietor or DBA you don't need to report it until it's actually in your hands. If your business is a corporation, you may have to report it as future income. In your USD LL balance it's still technically not yet in your hands. LL isn't a bank and the money is still in LL's bank waiting to be paid out. Maybe we should start adding disclaimers about not being legal or financial advice while discussing this

Perrie Juran wrote: The question here would be from a legal point of view who actually "owns" the exchange. Linden Lab is both an Administrator and possibly a user of the Lindex. They do operate it as a separate entity from the rest of the Services that they provide. Whether or not their letters of incorporation as an LLC are publicly available I don't know. We'd have to look at all those to find out the exact legal structure of Linden Lab. ETA, I agree with you that Linden Dollars have Value. The question would be how a Court would view that Value and if a User was entitled to compensation for failed or botched transactions. Until it gets to a Court, we simply don't know. My personal opinionhas always been a Court would find in favor of the Users. Ugg, I thought I heard a rumor that the Lindex wasn't actually owned by LL. It can probably be researched. I haven't personally because I'm not interested in taking them to court myself, I'm more interested in the overall picture and consumer protection in general. Although the wiki says: "LindeX™ is the currency exchange service offert by Linden Lab." and http://secondlife.com/currency/ says nothing to deny that. Also when LL first attempted to acquire the exchange from Gaming Open Network it was LL that negotiated it. It is trademarked by LL, though. If they don't own it directly then they certainly need to be transparent about it. Problem with the court scenario is that we've "agreed" to not go to court for anything less than $10,000 USD by way of mandatory 3rd party arbitration. That too needs to go away.

Innula Zenovka wrote: How do you say the L$ earnings of people in the USA should be taxed? Should they only be subject to tax if and when they're cashed out, or should people be required to declare all their in-world earnings and be taxed on them if appropriate? Personally I don't see any reason for it to change. It should be taxed when you receive it as plain old income. Currently PayPal has to report it to the IRS when it exceeds a threshold. Income is income and doesn't need to be further convoluted. I think that part of the system already works just fine.

Oh, yes ... actually not disagreeing with you, heheh. A sardine is after all, just a sardine with no value if it just sits there being a sardine. And this doesn't so much affect us at all (unless you trigger some new red flags for fraud or laundering), or say that L$ are not tokens. It just puts extra regulatory restrictions on LL for the purposes of fraud and friends. On the other hand, I'd argue without proof that the Lindex is in fact not a user to user transaction at all. It is doctored by LL to maintain a steady exchange value. LL not only issues, but maintains a value, seeds it and also uses L$ for their own purposes (Linden realms and stipends for example). Thus the "user to user" trade bit is not entirely acurate. I suspect it's more like a gamified pool of real money technically engineered to behave as if it were an exchange. And these regulations aren't brand new to LL, they've had reporting responsibilities for fraud and friends before this. This one merely targets virtual currency in particular. But that's the important part to me and to us as consumers. Because now it's not such a stretch to say that virtual currency should also be regulated by consumer facing law as well. And it's not such a stretch to say in court (regardless of the TOS) that there is no value in L$ (or virtual currency in general), and thus no liability for LL because you can point to regulation specifically targetting virtual currency. This is just one step closer to being able to say: "Hey, I was billed 8 times for an ad and not refunded for 8 ads" or "Hey, LL is giving away my virtual goods without compensating me ... I never got paid and the customer got the product" or "Hey I'm being billed in virtual currency for ads that I cannot cancel" or "Hey I earned 50 million L$ this week and LL won't give me my money" ... and have it stick in court as if it were real money (or fake money with real value). To me at least, consumer protection for merchants/customers (and we're all customers of LL) is the prize and this is the glue that comes a step closer to proving that regardless of the "virtual", it most definately is recongized as having real world worth, regardless of whether or not LL claims "no, they're just sardines". This says legally "no, they're not JUST sardines" ... they were sardines issued for real money, as tokens with real value that can be cashed out again with real money. That LL is not in this loop of transactions just isn't true, whether they claim to be "just" facilitating user to user sardine trades or not. They issue the sardines for real money. They control the value of the sardines. And they allow you to cash out the sardines. Only viewing this as a step toward virtual currency not being so ... fishy?

Sorry, I was being a bit sarcastic there and not clear enough. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network specifically makes the distinction that virtual currency is NOT real currency. It is however regulated as real currency. This includes virtual money exchanges and issuers of virtual currency. The important bit I'd said was that it doesn't matter so long as the regulation is there. More importantly is that they formally provide the glue that virtual currency has real money value going in, going out and in-between. It can no longer be said by LL to be merely value-less tokens. The government says otherwise, thus the regulation.

Innula Zenovka wrote: Unless you're seriously expecting Rodvik to say, "Good heavens! You've persuaded me that the L$ is, in fact, a form of currency. I shall direct my legal department to rewrite Section 5 of the ToS forthwith, in the hope we can thus stay under the radar of government regulators", which seems a bit fanciful, to my mind the only thing that's going to persuade LL that the L$ is, in fact, a form of currency would be a judicial ruling to that effect. Making claims is one thing. Persuading a court to enforce them is quite a different kettle of fish. Has anyone, in fact, sought profession advice from a competent attorney about the likelihood of a court being persuaded to set aside the ToS in this respect? It seems to me rather a specialist area of the law, I have to say. Besides necro-posting to remind Rod and the commerce team of prior discussions ... An belated answer to your question as to whether L$ is a real currency? Yes, indeed it is now. Or at least close enough for government work. http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html One step closer to consumer protection. Of course merchants should make sure the tax man is getting his pound of flesh as well, although PayPal handles part of that reporting for you these days. As to the "is it currency" debate, perhaps we can finally put this one to rest, though. Doesn't matter if it's regulated as such. It can't be TOS'ed away.

So not like the smooth migration of geese, packing light and flying in formation, conversing casually about sports and golden eggs but more like an exodus from Egypt wandering throught the desert with no shade, bottled water and sunblock for 40 years. I can import 20,000 appliances from China, move them from one coast to another in the U.S. with little hassle and less hours of work, but I'm pondering how technology makes our lives easier in this alternate universe. Not that it hasn't been easy for some, although migration may not be the right word for this type of experience.

Right on cue, an ad from this page. Obviously this could be me in workboots and jeans "before" using the cream. And yes the ex-russian bride got the motorcycle too. The only thing she left was a silk camisole and a pair of yoga pants, which probably contributed to my change of life. I'm beginning to worry about the effects of 3rd party advertising on merchant-kind.

They do seem to be more varied and more contextual now. Some of them have been cleaned up. The virtual goods to RL goods bit seems to be a stretch though. I'd like to request a review system for the ads though. My russian bride just arrived today and while she's missing a few parts we're firmly committed to each other. 5 stars! I'd forgotten all about my arrest in Cleveland 10 years ago. But thanks to the statute of limitations, I can put that behind me now. Thanks to LL for the closure. 5 stars! This new cream really does make you feel like a new person. I've given up my workboots and jeans for a silk camisole and yoga pants. I've given this one 3 stars but only because of the rash. While searching for tip jars, I found an ad to become a RL escort. Thanks to LL, I've given up being a merchant to follow my new dream as a felony free transgender with great skin. I'm now a professional on craigslist making 3 times what I earned on the marketplace! Or would be if not for the alimony that I have to pay my ex-russian bride who left me as soon as she became a U.S. citizen. 3 stars. Can't wait to see how contextual relates to forum posts for the new ads here.

Random bits directed at no one or opinion in particular. A starting point and a good related theraputic rant after my own heart: http://cityofnidus.blogspot.com/2013/03/stockholm-syndrome.html While "virtual world" was well understood in the niche before SL came onto the scene as a definition, it was the higher level of commercialization than previous efforts and an influx of people unfamiliar with what a virtual world is that raised the question of whether or not it's a game I think. Particularly since Rod Humble came on board, seducing Will Wright and some EA talent to join the fray and increasing game industry hires since then as shown on http://www.lindenlab.com/about and the type of talent they're currently seeking on http://www.lindenlab.com/careers. The bulk of the focus is on new game products. Sandbox games are the term of the moment, as well as dusting off the interactive fiction of the 80s. Original LL employees used to be hired for their skill sets but not their game industry experience. Most of them had no experience in the game industry whatsoever, although game industry talent is close in technology to virtual worlds. It could be said that it's becoming clearer that LL has or is transitioning from a virtual world company to a game company trying to cash in on the "creativity" niche that made SL successful. While SL sort of loses it's way, managements understanding of the magic that makes a virtual world lessens and they tend to dip more into user income and compete more for user generated dollars with increasing sinks, advertising, things like Linden Realms, Linden Homes, themed sims, and lately a rash of L$ "oops" moments and a seemingly increasing friction with PayPal. During a slow measurable decline (which most never claimed to be a sky is falling moment) we're basically now gambling with consumer money from SL on the transition to a sandbox game studio, which is more risky than scaling down SL in an effort to recover or slow the decline. Personally I think we're following the same path that M Linden went down, increasing spending and getting too far off track from the core product with Rod Humble. A CEO that overspends and loses 13% of regions in the last year is a good reason to yet again refocus on SL and get a new CEO or to bring the original back. In the way that M left and Phil Rosedale came back for 3 months to say that we need to tear down the walls that make up the pain points in SL and focus on doing more with less. A seemingly good plan that didn't get implemented as a new "Fast, Easy and Fun" era. Time will tell, but I think they need to focus and learn to make do with what they have in order to halt the decline. It just isn't going to be a millions and billions type of company no matter how hard they try unless the core product is better than it is and the level of buggery lessons. For all the improvements they push just as much new pain into the experience as the old pain. None of this is so far indicating a turn-around moment for LL.

Well, first let me give a brief partial interpretation of what LL has done to advertising since acquiring the marketplace from a 3rd party. The process of taking previously effective and simple methods of advertising and making them needlessly complex and less effective as in: Taking up space on top of paid ads on the home page with a useless but pretty block. Currently telling people you can shop for new decor this spring. I think most shoppers can figure this one out, or could from a short one line blip, but we're telling them the same thing in at least 3 different sections (top, lower right and lower left on the inner pages). Taking up space in the lower right on home page and lower left on inner pages with LL ads for such things as decorating your home, trying to send users off to Facebook rather than buying something and advertising LL themed sims, which don't sell well, are only marginally profitable to LL and compete directly with merchants. Mutant carousel ad blocks on home and category pages which only shows the first paid 3 ads, rather than an older SLX display of 12 or 16 ads. Home page ads used to dominate well ... the home page. Overselling advertising and replacing guaranteed exposure with time periods. Coming up next ... much more expensive advertising to compete in the same space as current paid advertising, also competing with 3rd party advertising, LL's own SL advertising and possibly other LL products. All that to say your design is much more clean and appealing and that if they got rid of some of the useless junk they could squeeze the new ads of desperation quite nicely into the current design without having it outside floating in space. I'm not quite sure that they realize that you can't milk 20 gallons from a 10 gallon udder and it distresses the cow when you try, though.

Good categorical breakdown of the Google advertising. Surely that's helpful about now. More than we ever wanted to know about the Google advertising I think, although it's useful for anyone that runs a website. Perhaps they should look at some of the SL bloggers and SL resident websites that do contain ads and how they're generally better integrated. Beyond the ad content they just destroy the overall marketplace design. Even integrating them into an outer "frame" and blending it with the site would be a huge improvement.

The funny thing about hugs is that they often come when you least expect them and need them the most. Hugs back.

True about the innovation I think, although speaking of that ... attempts at innovation has been focused on the new products rather than here. They need to bring those new hires working on those products "back home" ... it looks like they're possibly not taking off. Get the innovation back where it belongs. Not suprisingly they're not putting ads on the Versu, Patterns, Dio or Creatorverse sites. Go figure. Perhaps they should though, because they try to get these sites media exposure. Even if any of those products don't make it, they will have earned some revenue from traffic boosts when sites like Forbes link to them. Also not suprising is that neither do ads shown up on lindenlab.com ... if they could answer why they don't put them on their corporate site, perhaps they'll understand why some don't like them here.