Rene Erlanger

Josh Susanto wrote: >For my part....i would be satisfied if LL created a "Content Creator Directory" Or they could just create a list of business-licensed people and corporations in RL (listed by LL for a large annual fee), and users could buy all their data from those people and corporations before anything actually gets loaded to SL. Why let regular users create anything in the first place, much less sell it? So as to make Marketplace Merchants more accountable...when loading copyright infringing material or re-selling full perm content in breach of original Creator's EULA.....or loading copybotted products onto Marketplace. How hard can it be? IMVU has a registration process...and they have 6 million products listed on their Catalog shopping site

Josh Susanto wrote: >Most of these Freebies or ultra cheap items...even the ones containing copybotted content.. Why stop there? You haven't even yet characterized the merchants as drug addicts or child r@pists. That's a cheap shot :matte-motes-sour:....selecting part of paragraph. Why not display the context it was written in? "Most of these Freebies or ultra cheap items...even the ones containing copybotted content...will mainly affect & target the most popular keywords and most popular sectors as those are the places that will generate most transactions/ hits, reviews and maybe TP's to any in-world Store."

Josh Susanto wrote: >Supposing they continue to lose more income from Estate Sims & Mainland plots (Likely to be Commercial areas) from abandonments during 2012? The assumption here is that the decline in land use is primarily attributable to shift of commerce to the SLM. I'm not at all convinced of that. It seems equally likely to me that decline in land use is due primarily to RL factors. In terms of effects of SLM on land use, though, what I see so far is that LL has somewhat effectively managed to prevent SL from turning into a huge shopping mall where there are too few shoppers, due to the fact that no one can afford to rez anything anywhere because land prices are inflated by overproduction of shopping malls. Wrong! The mall culture in SL was due to implode at some point, taking both concurrency and land use down with it. But if that's what you would prefer to see happen, why kill off the SLM freebies? Why not kill off the whole SLM? 900 Estate sims went off the grid in 2011...and with it a lot of commerical areas. I have no clue as to the percentages though. I've gotten feedback from some large Estateowners that have told me they are losing Commerical occupancy....and having to change their sims from Commerical Zones to Mixed Zones.....or Mixed Zones to Residential. I know many a designer have downsized their commercial areas during 2011.....from whole Sim down to 1/4 sim...or just closing altogether and relying on Marketplace instead or just leaving SL. RL recession kicked in during 3rd quarter of 2008, that's 3 and a bit years ago.....i realise there would be a time lag before it hits SL, but i doubt it would be that long. From my traffic readers placed inside my shops.....i can tell there's' far less traffiic (unique Avatars visiting shops) than in the preceding years. Some shops, I've kept records for 4 years. Each year since early 2009, traffic seems less and less. Land prices are cheaper than they ever were.....you can buy prime Mainland plots for next to nothing and Linden Tier costs have remained the same for a number of years. Rents have been reduced on Private Estates by mosts Estate Owners due to price wars. There are less Malls nowadays....but there are also less shops too in-world.......most of that due to shopping traffic being directed to Marketplace. I didn't say kill Freebies on Marketplace or In-world ....it's too late to undo the damage from littering the Grid with freebies over the last 3-4 years. My argument was that Second Life didn't require Freebies in the first instance to be an attractive Game or to survive as a viable VW platform. Linden Lab played it's Ace card....when it made Free to join SL back in 2005/6, that's what led to abnormal growth. It's been proven that other well marketed VW's have all grown during a RL recession without the need of providing it's membership with free in-world products.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: I have no strong IN with any LL developers or staff that would know the answer. Does any Merchant have an IN with a LL to get the behind-the-scene answer why IM limits cannot be raised? There are many ex-Linden employees including Devs...some of which might use Twitter. Just need to locate one of them and ask that question.

So the Meeroo bubble has burst? Sorry, I was away from SL for most of the Meeroo evolution....when i did return, I found my SL partner had a bunch of them and was creating/ selling Meeroo Interactive Toys !!!! She knows that i'm not that fond of Breedables because of the astronomical food costs that pile up.

Niran viewer is the follow up of the Kirsten's Viewer as she's stopped developing viewers. Niran has taken it over.

Lol - to rez my breakfast! I'm low to mid range PC ...so I have to be careful which viewers i use. So far CoolViewer is doing the job....haven't crashed or froze once even after lengthy login spells! If you're getting a high end PC with quality graphics card.....either Niran or Exodus viewers will be the ones for you, especially if you're into Photography or Machima. I really liked the Niran Viewer but it was just to powerful for my poor machine.....my Avatar remained a cloud throughout!

Jacki Silverfall wrote: Waits for the nocturnals to come out then all the other meeroos will go in the dumper too. Sounds like another Cash grab ....what's so special about these nocturnal versions?..They can see in the dark....they stay up during the SL night cycle? Not exactly "to die-for" special features to warrant killing the current market for Meeroos.

Actually "All search" isn't broken....since LL has changed the Search engine from GSA to Open source Lucene one...its producing fairer results and less chance of gaming it.....plus LL has greater flexibility to change the parameters than with GSA.....hence a bit of extra weighting for Traffic. Problem are that the majority of businesses don't optimise for Search (SEO) Another major problem is that Marketplace is so prominent in the LL viewers, that new residents will envariably go straight to Marketplace Search.....they initially won't realise there's an In-world search system to service a large number of Stores in-world.

Thats true...but i don't think LLare aggressively enforcing it anymore after Jack Linden's departure. I think they have far bigger issues with SL.......plus in-world commerce is sufficiently getting kicked in the nuts, by having traffic shifted towards Marketplace....what's the point disturbing what little crumbs that are left on the plate?

If Child Avatars have payment on file....and many of them do, that in itself acts as Adult verification. Hence they can land into Adult regions even though it's no fault of their own. It should be based on the ratings that are set in the viewer that determines which hubs you get sent to. I'm sure most verified adults that play Child Avatars ..would not have Adult ticked for Ratings in Preferences.

The Arab Spring Uprisings was very much Internet driven and continues to do so. Oppressive regimes hate the internet.

No one has really answered the question of how one recoups an investment from purchasing a 100k Meeroo. If i spent 100k on a Meeroo....she better be laying rough cut diamonds in those Nests! :matte-motes-tongue:

ahh thanks Innula....I'd better inform my partner, as she's into that multi-layer thing! (she probably spotted that already knowing her!)

I don't think those Meerpetted Meeroos should be taken away....as they're effectively out of the ball game so to speak. They won't be used for breeding, so need for them to be listed on their website as such. In this instance i'm on the side of the OP....being a bit of vocal on their website still doesn't warrant removal of non-breeding Meeroos to which he paid an additional 1k for each. I wouldn't be happy either

Heart Brimmer wrote: Plus you don't have the multiple tattoo layers either. Heart Latest version 1.26.3 released a few days ago.....has multiple layers or will do shortly! Cool VL Viewer v1.26.3.0 (new experimental branch): This branch will get multi-layered clothing implemented as well as some other experimental features that could potentially introduce new bugs. This branch is based off v1.26.2.12, with the following additions: Implemented Qarl's mesh deformer alpha code (to enable it, check the "Advanced" -> "Renderer" -> "Enable Mesh Deformer" setting). Backported from v3 the HTTP inventory fetching (toggle available in Advanced -> Network).

Ceka Cianci wrote: oh i may look into coolviewer then..the last time i was able to use shadows was in kirstens v2..i loved that viewer =) just one question? does it have depth of view ? and if so was she able to get that running also? Depth of view? Is that something new......i've been away from SL for 7/8 months :matte-motes-tongue: I will try and look for you. Where would one expect to find it?

I hear you Ciaran....i've listed ever since the SLEX days, I just don't pay as much attention as I should, then again I've only been back in SL for 6 weeks.......and there were far more important issues in-world that needed attention. MP is a much lower priority for me at the moment. I haven't listed everything (like furniture or poses) as I don't think it's going to radically change my overall sales that much. Just too much competition in those sectors and probably better. I'd just be happy people TP'ing to my in-world shops from my MP listings and treat it as a form of advertising. I think you have to work almost backwards with MP.....look what's being listed and see if there are gaps in the market....and create products to fit that niche. If LL still care about Second Life and are worried about their reducing land tiers....I still believe they will reverse some strategies and make improvements for in-world Commerce l

Toysoldier Thor wrote: That being said Made, I know one fashion designer that in 2006 2007 was earning about $70K US a year and in 2010 her SL business has eroded to under $20K US. I knew quite a few that fit that criteria....that's the advantage of owning 2 Malls for last 5 years, I became friends to many a Fashion designer during that time, so I got a good feel for that sector despite not being a Fashion designer. A lot have left SL or downsized...a couple have passed away too (Zazaz Oz of Rufeena & Wiccan Sojourner of Bewitched R.I.P :matte-motes-crying:) The popular reasons i was given....were increased competition, clothing templates, Freebies & BIAB's and lack of SL growth.

Yep agreed with the above...especially the type of customers you attract for cYo...time is important for builders and they don't want waste time jumping around from sim to sim. Of course the brand companies have a definitie advantage which they earnt over the years.....however it's a much tougher proposition for the majority of stores in those same popular sectors....both in-world and on MP.

Thanks for that Madel......yeah I would imagine your cYo brand would do better here than an in-world store. Your target audience and therefore competition would be a hell of a lot less than say for LAQ in the skins & hair sector. I think for SL brand companies like LAQ or Stilleto Moody, in-world mainstore are still their best income sources. If you map their SIMs....they always have lots of customers, as they don't rely on in-world Search or Classifieds to be found! I think Marketplace is great for certain types of products, scripted gadgets, full perm scripts, full-perm sculpties, building packs, selling franchises, niche or innovative products. I'm just not so convinced when it comes to the popular sectors like fashion, hair, skins....just seems to be so much clutter & noise. I remember a friend that created the "Force Prophecy" gadget back in 2006/7, which was 1 of his only 3 SLEX listings, it made nearly 3 million Lindens (12k USD) in sales over 18mths and was always amongst the SLEX top sellers. It was a unique product and cheaply priced compared to competitors.....and people were falling over themselves to buy it. (you could only buy it on SLEX) I guess "MystiTools" is the equivilant these days (great & popular Gadget cheaply priced).....noticed it was 13th top seller on MP yesterday.

I'm just curious what level of incomes are derived from Marketplace with nearly 2 million product listings? Seems like a lot to wade through, even when you break it down by categories. Historically....and i mean going back to SLEX days, it's always represented 5% or less of my total sales in any given month.....hence my non-reliance (or attention to marketing) on it. I can't imagine anyone on MP are earning anything close to the days when the likes of Naughty Designs, ETD, Celestrial City, Redgrave, Minnu Skins, Stilletto Moody where raking in 5k to 10k USD per month in-world. There's far greater flexibility to generate more income in having your own SL Mainstore....as one can use umpteen different techniques in marketing. It would be interesting to see income splits for a SL Brand company like LAQ were she to place all her products on MP. I still believe it would be comparatively less than her in-world store sales....as she's not going to have to compete with 44,000 listings in "Female Skins" for visibility or whatever astronomical numbers are listed for "Hair"...even when you break it down with keywords like "short hair, long hair, brown hair, black hair, pigtails " etc.....it's still going to be a lot of noise.!!

I've just recently switched to the latest CoolViewer.....it has V3 engine (same library files) but with a familiar 1.23 UI. It can view Mesh, create 64m mega prims, http textures, double click TPs and has a quality Radar. It doesn't seem to drain my CPU...and has an option called "swapping" in it's Advance menu for those that have less than 4Gb RAM memory. The latest version released 4 days ago can view "shadows" My SL Partner who was an avid Phoenix fan, says she can use higher settings in Coolviewer without lagging! She tested it out last night, by opting for "high settings" and 512 draw distance and performed better than her Pheonix viewer. I think it comes down to what Computer you have....if you have top of the range spec, i can imagine Niran Viewer being a good one to use.

1.23 Viewers still have the Places Tab in their Search module. It still works! It still ranks by land traffic. The latest CoolViewer has the new V3 coding (same library files), but the old 1.23 UI....again with a "Places" Search tab still working. With this old styled viewer...you can view Mesh, create 64m mega prims and calls on http Textures. Unknowingly, you still might get a few customers arriving through these older styled viewers via Places Search. What you're doing won't generate that much traffic, but there are still Commerical areas that feature swarms of Avatars just milling around doing nothing on that particular land (appearing as customers). I'm not sure if they are Bots or real Avatars being paid through some device. With the old 1.23 viewers you can still see traffic units from "About Land" box......you can also see it in the V3 Viewer using "All Search"...it states the traffic score with your Land listing.

.....but re-listing should be a very easy process and not time consuming. Something of the order of ticking an "All products" box and then hitting a "Re-list" button. Plus LL should send an automated email telling you have x days left before your next re-list.