Sookie Slafford

This will be my last response to this post as I honestly fear that this discussion has become overly heated and misunderstood - by a variety of parties. And I fear that there will be a lot of abuse reports thrown around that will land on innocent parties due to the hostile nature in which everyone (not just a select few... everyone) has defended themselves or someone else. I don't believe Mason's intentions were to promote his 'product' because I don't view 2H as a product. It's a free website for SL residents to use. No credit card information nor any other form of payment has left my hands real life or otherwise in order to use his services. And yet, his website has to deal with taking a beating as, like any website on the internet, his databases have to keep up with its user base, their pictures, their profile, and everything else. A negative comment was made in regards to it and he as one of its creators and maintainers and I (and others) as its user base, felt the need to stand up for it. I'm sorry Siwan, that you were singled out for the 'loser' comment. I imagine in the heat of it all, if you felt as if you were called a loser, you probably would have swung a little blindly at times as it happens to the best of us. Siwan... you said that you "don't see the potential in that website that you do" but I don't believe you gave it a real or fair chance. It sort of sounds like you logged in and when you didn't immediately understand what the website was for or how to use it, you got frustrated and so you bad-mouthed it and left. That was where I got my first impression of you. When I viewed your profile yesterday afternoon, I actually went to it in order to add you and politely welcome you to 2H as I have done to so many other people. And instead, I was met with a profile full of hate, complaining and practically an advertisement for another SL networking website. I never really understood how to use AU. I found it complicated and I have been using social networking sites since the term 'social networking site' ever existed. And AU was buggy and complicated to me. That didn't stop me from creating my profile and trying out all of the things it had to offer. I added some friends, uploaded some pictures and messed around with its application features. I logged into it a handful of times in hopes of seeing new features and content and most recently (like a week ago at best) I intended to give it a real shot in hopes of building on AU, the kind of networking I have built up at 2H in the last several months. That is the potential of 2H - to network with other Second Life users for just about everything I could ever think of. I've met people on 2H that I've sold my products to, sold land to and quite a few of the people I met have become my new best friends. It's a great outlet in both a personal and professional way and I'm fairly certain that that is what it was intended to be. It's carefully moderated. Why? Because even good things need to be in moderation. No, there's no customized profile pages. Then again, there's not profiles with a tiled animated picture of jiggly breasts or drug references in the background either. I like it that way. I enjoy the uniformity and cleanliness of the site. You couldn't do much to customize on AU either - not without their coin system which I unfortunately can't comment on because I never really had a chance to read up on it and understand how it worked or how not/easy it was to earn(?) them. The bottom line is that just because you can't customize your profile with colors and graphics (actually, you can customize the color of the text on your profile at 2H using pre-sets) doesn't mean it's a bad thing. I think it's a real shame that you didn't give it a real chance Siwan - and anyone else who looked briefly and left. I attribute a great deal of my business' success to its use and an even greater good - the many friendships forged there.

Not only am I one of the first people to have used 2ndHub, but I'm one of its most frequent users. It's practically impossible to not see me posting on there - daily, and from both a personal and business viewpoint. I can assure you, unless you think I'm a loser (lol) you will encounter some fantastic people. I love 2H... honestly. I've forged friendships there that I would have never otherwise had and brought them to the in world platform. Even better for some - I've forged relationships with a client base that otherwise would have never found me either.

Instead of fancy off-sites, I'd personally prefer to see LL offer a better web-based profile and social network for use within the confines of their own website. I for one registered on AU, but I found the site to be lacking in so many ways. There are other, fantastic websites that offer social networking strictly for Second Life users. Perhaps LL should be following their example.

Thank you so much! The website is just so confusing about these sorts of things... lol

I know, I know.. I've been a resident for like 6 months and I should probably know the answer to these questions by now. lol I'd like some clarification regarding premium accounts, please. It's just... the website is entirely too vauge for my liking and I'm afraid I'm going to pay for something, then have a bunch of extra costs on top of it that I wasn't planning for. What exactly do you get with a premium account? I know you get some land.. and I guess a house now, as well as the nifty extra service. (I see wiki says something about a monthly $L stipend, but not how much) But is that all? Do you owe tier fees on this land? So in addition to the $72/year for a premium account, do you owe LL some weekly or monthly fee for the land? Can you go over the prims they give you with that plot of land? And if so, do you them just owe them money based on regular tier rates? Can you use the land for commercial purposes? Are their building height restrictions? Can you use that land to put a home in the sky, rather than on the ground?