Rene Erlanger

JeanneAnne wrote: Untrue Rene. I was initially using figures from the Wikipedia and later using your own figures. I made some assumptions, as did you, and I also eliminated those who paid circa $8 or less per month to play because the issue was "contributes substantially." This is hardly "pure mumbo jumbo" and it is dishonest for you to claim that it is. The point is that it hardly matters whether 4% or 25% of players actually contribute to LL profit, or that .01% or 4% actually make a RL living from SL businesses. The fact remains that those who pay into SL are the minority, while the majority of SL players play for free. The fact of the matter is that under LL's unfair business model, the few subsidize the many. Jeanne lol wikipedia....you do make me laugh. You mis-interpreptated the data and graphs i provided for you......it's the 20-25% that contribute to SL out of the monthly regular logins, not the 4% as you suggested. The Lindex and 3rd party exchanges gets used a lot. There's probably a couple hundred thousand resident s that have to pay rents or tiers each week or month....that is not represented by just 4%!! This is from Tyche Shepherd's Mainland commentary (not the 23k Estate sims but the 7000 Mainland sims) "Overview of Owners Mainland is now owned by 68336 unique owners, 56497 individual accounts and 12839 groups, an increase of 3874 individuals and 308 groups since Dec 2010, The annual growth in individual owners is about 7.4% . Each Non-Linden owner has holdings with a mean area of 3624.6Sqm - down by 181sqm (Median is unchanged at 512Sqm) on average held in 1.84 different parcels, a 7% decline from Dec 2010 figure of 1.98. So just from Mainland alone there's 70K + Residents paying tiers to Linden Lab i.e pay LL in USD and have Premium subscriptions! Estate sims outnumber Mainland sims by over 3 to 1 ....so my 200K guessimates is not going to be far off and maybe on the light side! Around 850,000 unique repeat logins each month (Linden & Gridsurvey current figures).....do the maths and educate yourself!

I doubt it will make pleasant reading....especially regarding to 2 critical indicators i.e Concurrency and Land mass. A lot of up to data can picked out from Tyche Shepherd's website. I'm sure they'll find some positive statistics from somewhere....like Voice minutes are up or sales are up on Marketplace compared to a year ago......the usual smokescreens! .

I like part of your Avatar name! I think LL are re-introducing Avatar surnames again.....you might be lucky and grab a proper "Tony Montana" username without using numbers at the end.

Yep, Tummy Talkers can be rather annoying...generalyl i don't like my Chat filling up with text generated from objects.

Porky Gorky wrote: As you know Rene,...."Back in the day" when this forum was at it's most active, it was a total bitchfest. We had resmods who constantly failed to maintain order and you could essentially say whatever you wanted as long is it wasn't too extreme, i.e. no racism or overly explicit language. I used to get quite involved. I like debating and arguing with people, especially the LL cheerleaders, it's entertainment to some extent and a good way to pass the time on slow work days. I'm tactless and blunt so generally there was no shortage of people to debate with, they were normally queuing up to pull my posts apart and to offer their opinions. lol...me too! :matte-motes-sunglasses-1: Porky Gorky wrote: I would be active for a few months on the forum, then would be inactive for a few months as my workload increased. I saw no difference at all to my profit levels or my bottom line in SL. There is no notable correlation between my forum activities and my sales of digital content. When debating with someone, quite often they assume that I am hurting my business through the comments I make and they are smug in the assurance that they are not hurting their own business as they are hiding behind an alt. This is just nonsense. Snap! No difference at all! That particularly occured on Merchant related forums, where others would warn me, that my views would hurt my business. Well, I'm still here and still standing.....and have not downsized at all. My next move will most likely be expansion! So their smugness is what it is......poppycock! Porky Gorky wrote: As I said before though, it's all negligible at the end of the day. The active userbase here is really small and always has been when compared to the inworld population. If people are so desperate for business that they let it dictate how they present themselves on the forums, then they need to take good look at their marketing strategy and find more effective ways of reaching out to new and potential customers. I have lots of effective marketing tools at my disposal. This forum isn't one of them. 100% correct imo! :matte-motes-sunglasses-1: Porky Gorky wrote: Compared to in the past, my posts nowadays are tame and rarely confrontational because you can't get away with it any more. We have real moderators now who actually know how to do their jobs. I take my hat off too them, they have certainly cleaned up the streets as it were. Unfortunately the forums are allot less interesting as a result but that is the price we have to pay for helping protect the teens and helping LL protect their reputation on a publicly accessible forum. Me too...then again the likes of Suspira have disappeared from here, so life on these Forums have become more peaceful! :matte-motes-wink:

Most of the issues between what you see wandering around SL and what you see on Display boards are enviromental lighting and the performance of your own graphic cards (low to high settings). You can't compare it to Shape +Skin combo being photographed in a Studio under perfect lighting conditions ...and then possibly being retouched or emphasised in Photoshop.

Exactly what I do....and keep all my Excel files in a special SL folder on a 2nd HD drive.

Porky Gorky wrote: Luckily for me I'm not desperate enough to have to rely on a forum with a small userbase to generate sales. So I feel no need to hide in order to avoid alienating potential customers. Infact I would have said exactly the same thing to you in world if you were a customer. If you contacted me inworld with the intention of buying a product and then laid the whole "I am elite" speech on me with a brand new account, i would have happily told you that you are talking bollocks and sent you on your merry way. So why are you hiding Dai? Are you just here with your alt to troll? Or are you planning on doing something that would besmirch your good business name? Yes.... it's real tiny! You can see how many have viewed (not necessarily read) your post.....its a tiny amount.! Throughout SL's Forum history....it's always been a tiny amount relative to Second Life Population. That's why i'm not bothered if some of my views are regarded as controversial. Only on the odd occasion a fellow merchant, a tenant or a SL friend will tap me on the shoulder and tell me that they've read my comments on the SL blogs or forums. (and normally in agreement with my point of view!) It really isn't going to increase or decrease my SL business in the grand scheme of things!

Melita Magic wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: The earnings of the Meeroo creators....would blow your mind away! They are well into 6-figure amounts......those Meeroos eat and food is expensive! Same could be said for the Sion Chicken, Amaretto Horses and Ozimal bunnies creators.....they all had their time in the limelight......and they raked it in during that time! If the meeroo empire hasn't grossed a million USD by now I'd be very surprised. (Yet they still can't seem to lower any prices, don'tcha know!) But why do people keep posting on these spammers' reposted topics here? Are we that bored? (I know I am, today.) I agree with you, it's probably well over a Million USD..i was being conservative ! :matte-motes-wink:. However between the 3 main contributors, it's more likely 6-figure amounts for each. The Meeroo food is criminally expensive....but the greedy tend to get greedier! "Make hay while the sun shines" If you use the "Best Selling Products" button on Marketplace, the first 2 or 3 pages are littered with Meeroo porducts (mostly food)

Pussycat Catnap wrote: And now that the $800 suite of applications from Daz3D just went free for the month of February, the bar for getting into making Mesh content just went down by a -LOT-, so its likely to get a good boost. http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/breaking-news-for-february-only-daz-studio-pro-bryze-7-and-hexagon-2-5-free-from-daz3d-for-february-giving-sl-mesh-creators-a-powerful-suite-of-apps-to-work-with/ Yep, I downloaded all the Daz programs last night...it states "Free for a limited time!" i think the offer is to 11th Feb according to my download page though. A few posters in the Merchant forums pointed out correctly, that good Mesh builders and indeed the professional ones have so many outlets online to sell their creations for 100's of USD... that they are unlikely to really be interested in selling within Second Life's mircopayments economy. It looks like creation & selling of Mesh products within SL will be more for the Hobbybist and existing set of SL Creators.

JeanneAnne wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: The earnings of the Meeroo creators....would blow your mind away! They are well into 6-figure amounts......those Meeroos eat and food is expensive! Same could be said for the Sion Chicken, Amaretto Horses and Ozimal bunnies creators.....they all had their time in the limelight......and they raked it in during that time! Yeah Rene, one person, I heard, became a RL millionaire in virtual real estate. A few manage to make a RL living from SL & a very few actually do quite well. We've discussed the statistics before and you've concluded that I tend to under-estimate the numbers of people who even make any money in SL while I think that you greatly over-estimate the numbers. The point is moot since we don't have reliable figures to go on & in any case, we both agree that those who make any $$ in SL (besides the Lindens) are the minority. The difference is that i backed it up with hard numbers from given sources, including Linden Lab's own figures and with some graphs.......whereas your number crunching was pure mumbo jumbo diatribe based on nothing!

The earnings of the Meeroo creators....would blow your mind away! They are well into 6-figure amounts......those Meeroos eat and food is expensive! Same could be said for the Sion Chicken, Amaretto Horses and Ozimal bunnies creators.....they all had their time in the limelight......and they raked it in during that time!

Marcus Hancroft wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: <snip> ** another 100 Estate Sims dropped off the Grid this week /me shakes his head Are we just going to be left with nothing but Linden owned mainland?? No there will always be a good number of Estate sims (currently 23k)...and there will always be some sort of demand for residential or commerical plots to rent......thats not really the issue. The problem is how many 1000's of Estate sims would LL need to lose to hit their own break-even point .....or even go into the red? To put it into perspective. they've lost 1500 sims since the beginning of 2011....how much Tier income has LL lost for 2012? Let's attempt an approx calculation. According to Gridsurvey.com -> 56.4% of Private Estate regions are Full Regions, 43.3% Homesteads & 0.3% Openspaces We can determine average Tier charge per sim =.> ($295 x 56.4% + $125 x 43.3%+ $75 x 0.3%) = $223 approx => so that's 1500 sims x $223 average Tier cost x 11 mths =3.68 Million USD Tier income lost for 2012! (annualised its 4.014 Mill) So the question remains, how many more sims can be abandoned before alarm bells start sounding off at LL offices? The above doesn't account for Mainland abandonment and lost of Tiers there. We do have titbits of information though => 43.0% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Contiguous Mainland is 6723 regions including Linden Home regions) with 6.7% to 7.8% of Mainland by area are abandoned parcels...generally it looks like any gains or losses in Mainland Tier over ther same period has been minimal...and can be ignored. My guess is that if LL lost another 3 to 4k worth of Estate sims, I think the company would be in trouble. ACS & RGF the 2 biggest SL Estates own 13.5% of Estate sims (approx 3150 sims)...if those both left SL !!.....eeeekk!

i would say you're here to promote your system moreso than yourself. No harm in that! Your comments spark debate and could be seen as controversial....it might be your intention! :matte-motes-wink:

UncommonTruth wrote: I havent tried listing anything on the market yet.. even so, this is good solid advise I'll use when I do. :matte-motes-smitten: ETA @ OP- I looked at some of your stuff on the market, and it does look high quality. I hope you can get it seen and make a killing :smileyhappy: 2 million products listed? Even once you distribute the products into their individual branch categories...it's still a lot in many instances. (the popular markets). If you're know how to get your stuff top of the search rankings...i would say you could make decent sales per month.....but i doubt it would be a killing! Aside from the creators of Meeroo foods, I doubt if any Merchant comes close to selling $5000 USD worth of goods on Marketplace in any given month. Once upon a time, I could have showed you a good many In-World Stores that were pulling in that sort of money in a variety of different market sectors.

Marcus Hancroft wrote: Anyway, I would suggest upgrading to at least 1600. Sooner or later, Linden Lab will block all version 1.0 based viewers (which Phoenix is one) and you will be forced to move to a different viewer anyway. All new residents are coming inworld with SL viewer 3.0 so they can all see mesh. But you are right...if someone is in a PG area and they appear naked to someone else there because they don't have a mesh enabled viewer, one quick snapshot and an AR, and the "naked" person would be in trouble. LL might stop supporting any 1.23 viewers, but that doesn't mean they will block TPV 1.23 logins. For one Coolviewer latest versions are 1.23's UI based but with a V3 engine (i.e the same Library files as V3)...it would be very hard to block that particular viewer as it would also be blocking off their own official V3 viewers at login. The Coolviewer can view Mesh and shadows just like V3, but with a 1.23 UI and with several memory leaks plugged, so it chews up less CPU than most other viewers including Pheonix & Firestorm. With gradually decreasing SL concurrency during the last 24 mths,** i doubt very much LL would want to reduce it even further by choking off all the TPV 1.23 viewers or even it's own official one. One has to take into account users with low end machines that might have difficulty usings LL's latest viewers.....even Firestorm & Pheonix can be CPU & GPU hungry. ** another 100 Estate Sims dropped off the Grid this week

I've always found there's more drama on these SL forums than in-world. The only drama I've encounted in SL are silly Griefers ...or having to mediate in a dispute between 2 residents.

Use Virwox or one of the 3rd party approved exchange systems...or at least have one account as a back-up.

Lucinda Bulloch wrote: I think we are in the twilight years of the internet, the USA is becoming a fascist state and fascist states do not allow freedom of speech, it is as simple as that. I'm not sure about Facist state-lol......but certianly their civil liberties have been eroding over the last couple of decades. All Governments & Dictatorships generally fear the power of the Internet. They can't control it.....a place where the masses can effectively organise themselves. Just read about the beginnings of the Arab Spring uprisings. The Govts will try and control it via the ISPs and blocking filters.

LarryLow Kappler wrote: Its still the oldest misbelief that review ratings affect the search in any way. If you look deeper into the search engine you will very quickly understand that reviews not really have any effect on the relevancy. However a mixture of the price, the number of sold items, the age and impressions is pretty much correct. Nobody but the LL knows the other parameters but its not necessary to know these because selling as many products as possible and for a very long time must be the goal. If you do so, the items will be relevant. I personally like Neferiti's suggestions how to pimp your listings. I'm curious how price will impact a search ranking....i would have thought in LL's interest (i.e more commission to them), they would weigh it heavier in favour of higher priced items. Yes, impressions or clicks would count, Product title would have a strong influence and number of sales (which favours older items).....other than review ratings (which you implied doesn't count) , I'm not sure what else could influence Search rankings.

How will it impact the Internet in general and Second Life?

Several on these Forums might be homeless....no land or investment in SL, hence Info Hubs might be listed in their Picks.

WADE1 Jya wrote: Yes, agree with those who choose to shop inworld! That's what I do all the time, just use marketplace as a searching tool. Inworld shopping is much more fun anyway. ^ This.....i hope more consumers see the light! :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

JeanneAnne wrote: Rene Erlanger wrote: JeanneAnne wrote: LL can ban anyone for any reason or for no reason at all. This being the case, spend NO money on SL or any other LL product. That way, if they ban you, it's no big deal. Jeanne If that were to be replicated by all SL residents.....there wouldn't be a Second Life Grid. Someone is paying the Sim or Land tiers, so that you enjoy your Second Life....i suppose you could confine yourself to just Linden owned land on Mainland, but you'll soon get bored. yeah, yeah Rene ... And for the umpteenth time... what you say is true given the business model LL imposes on SL users. Change the business model & what you say is no longer necessarily true. Take SL away from the for-profit corporation and run it as a members owned nonprofit cooperative and I'd be more than happy to pay a modest fee to help cover operating expenses. As things stand, those of you who pay tier cover operating expenses plus contribute to obscene executive salaries & bonuses and shareholder dividends & capital gains. I'm glad that you don't mind being parasitized in this way, in order to keep SL free for the rest of us. Thanks! When you get banned arbitrarily don't complain to me about losing your "investment." Jeanne I have been locked out of SL 4 times over the years...as mentioned in my previous post. I've never come onto these Forums to complain about it....i just went about resolving the problems by harassing LL until resolved. If you want a non-profit co-operative...I suggest you join some of the lesser known Open Sim grids which are run by a bunch of individuals.

JeanneAnne wrote: LL can ban anyone for any reason or for no reason at all. This being the case, spend NO money on SL or any other LL product. That way, if they ban you, it's no big deal. Jeanne If that were to be replicated by all SL residents.....there wouldn't be a Second Life Grid. Someone is paying the Sim or Land tiers, so that you enjoy your Second Life....i suppose you could confine yourself to just Linden owned land on Mainland, but you'll soon get bored.