Rene Erlanger

Total SIms = 31575 Linden owned (mainland) = 6782 Private Estate sims = 24793 Mainland is 21.5 % of the grid, but 40.9% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Mainland is 6401 regions excl.Adult ??) 6.8% to 7.7% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels So we can say approximately 48% of 6401 is not Tier earning.....about 3070 sims or 9.8 % of the entire Grid.

I disagree, there are a good percentage of residents that actually enjoy shopping in-world (Iike myself)....and then there are those that see it as a chore. It mirrors real life ....those that hate shopping in RL, will appreciate Marketplace as a sort of quick in-an-out painless shopping format.

Frankly, I believe Linden lab would do better as a pure play SAAS catering to businesses that want to create virtual world experiences – experiences that could be tailored to themes, interest groups and adapted to local legislation. In such a scenario the ability to wander between grids and inventory portability is important for the overall environment and experience. Good points...sort of mini -universes (Grids) within the entire Grid. Like having a Steampunk Grid, or Gor World, Adult Grid etc etc Might also help the loads too ...with portability between those grids. To the comment about servers idling, you are correct, they can't take the mainland sims offline without creating gaping holes in the landscape. Hence, it is better to utilize that space and place things like the Linden Homes in the existing landscape, after which they would free up server capacity. Then we're kind of on the same page...you're saying fill out the blanks with Linden Homes.....and I'm saying have those same areas created for public interest & entertainment. Both options would lead to the regeneration of Mainland with some added side benefits.

Prok - i'm not disputing your points about Mainland. I'm a fan of Mainland, I recently increased my holdings by moving all my commercials lands to Mainland from ACS. I love it! What i was saying, is that LL could invest some of their idle land (only a small portion) to public areas of interest, likes Games & Entertainment Region (I gave the example of creating a ski-resort in the snow regions of Sansara as LL owned several of those high peak sims already), an Arts area (as originally suggested by M.Linden)...the only sub-continent that LL might have to recreate seperately is the "best of the best" of SL sims like Nemo's Trilogy (if they get the Creators permission) My suggestions are in reference to bloggers on this thread saying that Residents get bored in SL, and there's nothing to do. I see it as a way of killing 2 birds with 1 stone...as it could also serve as a tour to new sign-ups, by leading them into Regions that are fun, of visually appealing....to view what could be done in SL (with the goal of improving retention rates)

To be honest Wayfinder...it makes very little sense for any Roleplay Sims to be located on Second Life. The tiers are far too expensive. It's hardly surprising that this Grid has been set up ---->http://roleplayworlds.net/ (posted by Flilpa)...or Inworldz, which could do the job too as it has already a lot of Merchants located there. Hi Tracey I'm able to confirm the same findings, though my visitor trackers.....actual unique foot traffic to most of my shops went down between 50-70 % . You're correct the drop-off happened overnight in April 2010 with both the new Viewer & GSA6 Search engine being introduced....imo both are economy killers.

Rene Today, the marketplace makes owning land a sucker bet. Why buy land when the website costs nothing but a commission? This kills off browsing and wandering. So simply tie the max number of items you can have for sale on the website to the amount of land you own, and both systems will flourish hand in hand. And make it so anyone can have 12 items on the marketplace and you'll still be nourishing the innovators and newcomers. I've have my products on SLEX/ Xstreet/ Marketplace for quite some time now....but to be honest i have no passion for it. I'm not too worried how my sales do there (i.e I won't waste money on Enhancements etc) and i don't get involved in any of the Marketplace heated discussions on the Commerce Forums......my main focus are my in-world shops, always has been.!

Rene, Linden Lab does ONLY take payment for land from land-owners. These land owners can be full sim owners - being estate or mainland. They can be parcel owners on mainland sims, and they can be premium account holders who don't have any land holding. There are about 85k such people. How the money flows to these 85k people does not have any bearing on Linden lab. They all come - ultimately from external sources flowing via these 85k people to Linden Lab. The money these 85k people pay to Linden Lab on a monthly basis is a mix of subscription fees and setup fees (for new land purchases - not resold resident owned land.) These 85k people pay each, on a monthly basis about $470 amounting to 40 MUSD per month or closer to 480 MUSD per year. it doesn't matter who is responsible for making that final payment to Linden Lab coffers.....the point is simple ACS Dreamland would not have 1600 sims on the Grid, if they didn't have those 8 or 9 or 10,000 renters paying them to use their lands/ SIMs That's income from 1600 sims coming off the bottom line from Linden's Profit & Loss a/c right there. I have an Estate (Mainland & Private Estate Sims), because I derive profits from it.....I collect more rents from Residents than I pay LL per month...if i didn't they'd either be sold or switched off! Apart from probviding customer service to my residents...i see myself more as an administrator....i collect the rents/ tiers and pay LL a pecentage of that. I'm not going to overstate my role....bar the (good) customer service i provided to my Residents. This service (my time) is paid for by those profit margins The Resident that pays me say 26 USD p/mth to use a 4096 sqm on one of my sims, is equally entitled to the same LL resources & support that a Premium Subs holder of a 512 sqm Mainland plot has. That renter will contribute into the economy by purchasing a House(s), furniture, landscape materials , avatar related products, fashion etc etc.....they support the SL economy, maybe more so than some of those registered 85k contributors you keep harping on about. I would guess that the people that contribute directly and indirectly to the entire economy and also to LL coffers is somewhere in the 300-400 k region. Each and every one of them is important in this delicate 3d VW eco-system. If these renters did not exist, the large Estates would disappear and LL' s income would be radically reduced. Its for the above reason why i disagree of making SL "a pay to play" platform....there's enough Residents contributing to the SL economy.....and those numbers are certainly underestimated if you think its only 85k that makes the SL World go round!

Rene Personally I detest shopping inworld. When I need something, I need it then and there. I don't have 3 hours to piddlepot around the grid, arguing with Search and crossing my fingers that I might (MIGHT) find something that'll do what I need. Instead I just punch in a search term into the Marketplace (which actually works) and look through the listings. Tada, I get what I need, then and there. When i first joined SL back in 2006....SL Exchange shopping site was effectively my bible and my search engine. However i used it in a different way...i would locate the product on SLEX, but purchase it in-world having located the store. I guess because i like exploring when not occupied with my in-world businesses....i enjoy the in-world shopping experience. I often get distracted when visiting new locations, as i have a tendency to explore the immediate neighborhood and get sidetracked. I've found a few gems that way! I feel that in-world shopping is part and parcel of that 3D social experience

Your figures are all skewed and incorrect to begin with.(i.e 85k contributors.....its far far higher than that figure) The majority of the monthly tiers collected by LL are not directly generated from those that pay LL directly.......the bulk are generated from Rents received from residents who don't have Premium subscriptions nor pay LL tiers directly (and in many cases don't even have Payment on File) The Residents pay the EstateOwner directly in Lindens$ or in USD via PayPal. Contemplate how many residents pay Estateowners across 24,800 Estate sims......its far far more than 85000 residents that you keep harping on about.(i.e..I have an average of around 11/12 different Residents paying me rents/tiers on each of my Sims) If those Estate sims were empty (or had very low occupancy) , the majority of those 24800 sims would dissappear ovenight! (if there were no buyers) Apart from probviding customer service to my residents...i see myself more as an administrator....i collect the rents/ tiers and pay LL a pecentage of that. I'm not going to overstate my role....bar the (good) customer service i provided to my Residents. This service (my time) is paid for by those profit margins Example : ACS Dreamland has around 1600 sims....how many residents pay them to live or use land for commerical purposes on those sims? Check it out....i would bet it's getting near to 10k residents alone. A lot of them pay more in Rents then those that have Premium subs and own their little plots on Mainland.

Rene, you are just being bone-headed about this ALL land owners - whether they are SIM or mainland holders pay a monthly fee, $295 for a sim, $125 for a homestead, $195 for a full mainland sim. In addition there are some premium account holders who pay the monthly fee ($9.95 less discounts and stipend) that possibly don't hold any land, but that fee gives them the right to "own" 512 sq.m for "free". It is for all practical purposes a tier. All the above I call TIER - paid for by "premium account holders". There are approximately 85k people who fall into this category. It is one of two big revenue streams for Linden Lab. The other major revenue stream is sale of fresh sims and recycled abandoned land. In the calculation that was set up last year, it was estimated that all these 85k people must contribute, on an average - through tier and land purchases, $470 per month each to keep Linden Lab floating. That is about 40 MUSD per month, or 479 MUSD per year, which is reasonably consistent with the estimate of the overall revenue generated by LL in 2009. The main point here is that these 85k people carry the annual burden of about 475 MUSD to keep LL and SL as we know it floating. Anything Linden Lab gives out for free, still comes out of the pocket of these people. It's not being boneheaded at all...its your inability to understand what i'm suggesting. Don't forget prior to M.LInden being ousted....he had recommended an idea to create a 70-sim Arts continent.. I'm only extending from that initial idea of our ex-CEO...and bolting on other types of sub-continents. In fact my suggestion is more cost-effective....as those empty sims/ lands already exist on the Mainland continents. These unused sims (or non income generating) are switched on 24/7 already and consuming all kinds of costs....which are funded from their existing tier incomes. "All the above I call TIER - paid for by "premium account holders". <-----Wrong you don't need to be a premiun account holder to own Estate sims......it only applies to Mainland & Linden Homes. Nearly 50% of Mainland (6800 sims) are not generating any form of income to Linden Lab....so all i'm saying is that there's plenty of scope to use from it's existing Inventory of sims...to create such public area regions (scrap continents) avalable to every single active SL resident.

You're not understanding what i meant...or what the ultimate objective is. Nothing to do with Mainland tier payers nor premium account holders.....it's a much wider issue. For example, you don't have to be a Premium account to own an Estate SIM. There are 24800 Estate sims versus 6800 Mainland sims....the bulk of Linden's income comes from these Estate owners and not the premium account who owns their ickle 512 sqm parcel on Mainland For the record (a 3rd time on this thread!) Monthly Tier Estimates (LL income) - Private Estates c.US$ 5.131 Million, Mainland c.US$1.017 Million If Mainland were 80% empty or 100% full.......it would not make any difference to your personal costs in terms of Premium Subs fee or your land holding Tier.....these costs have been fixed since year dot of SL from their own pricing structure. You would not pay a single cent more....or less, if LL converted 200-300 of their own sims and re-generateed them into Public areas of interests. For example..LL already own a number of sims in the Snow Regions of Sansara (the old Continent), just imagine if that were turned into a public Ski resort, with bars, clubs, and had different types of ski-runs on the Mountain faces...where you'd be able to have real downhill and slalom races with timing gates and scoreboards (run by Mentor type personnnel)...that Tech already exists in-world. That would be interesting to both existing residents and new users...now multipy those type of regions of interests as public run LL areas across the Mainland Continents. I call that a re-generation of Mainland as well as serving as promotional material.....and i'm positive it would improve retention rates too.

LL only need to project manage -they have great swathes of Linden owned lands/ sims not doing anything. Those sub-continents can remain within the Mainland continent if need be...its only utilising their existing sims that are not doing anything. It would be public areas (direct TP's from Orientation Islands)..and owned by LL.....nothing to do with premium account holders etc.

I disagree that Linden Lab should develop. Why? Because in doing so they would have to add significant overhead to their own staff either salaried or consultants both for the content creation, management and support. well we disagree then....that overhead already exists....its called 3,000 + Mainland sims not earning LL any tiers, whilst chewing up server, storage, utility, software & hardware maintenance costs. 200-300 Sims donated to promote SL and as a carrot to improve new user retention rates can only be beneficial to LL . Inevitably those Sims would be built out by SL content creators...which isn't a bad thing as it could be used as an advertising tool to their own business locations

That doesn't mean some wont stay and pay, you'd probably see a rather fair split, but I admit, this is a bit of conjecture. They wander around SL talking about how bored they are and "what do you want to do?" and for hours they do nothing but hop from empty sim to empty sim bored. They'll drop (or used to anyway not sure they do not, jury's still out lol) oodles of lindens on clothes and "toys" etc ... but freak out if a viable and credible entertaining establishment wants to charge them a cover charge for the concert or show they're offering. I agree with the "mindset" comment....that's something i noticed a couple years back, when the recession was just beginning to bite....and the Grid was being flooded with Freebies. (I've written the below suggestion before...I hope Rod Humble is reading this ! ) Here's the thing, Linden Lab have a wonderful opportunity to make their platform more interesting ....not only to existing users, but also as a stopping point for new users. It's been pointed out that somewhere between 40-50% of Mainland is under a Linden a/c name.....so around 3,000 sims worth of land/sims not earning Tiers for LL but chewing up server, storage & utility costs. Instead Linden Lab could invest and develop in mini-Continents as public areas.....an Arts continent (That was actually a good suggestion by M.Linden), Gaming & Entertainment (non-commercial, but free activity) continent.....a continent that houses some of the best ever SL Sim builds like the Nemo Trilogy or Rezzables or whatever (again non-commercial). I'm betting that if a new user is amazed by all the creativity and all the fun that could be had in-world......they're more likely to stick it and become a fully fledged resident. These mini-Continents (anything between 20-50 sims worth)....should be the next step from the Orientation Islands...the next TP so to speak with direct links (included in Showcase advertising), but it will also be of interest to existing residents too. Everyone is a winner! Thats a few hundred sims being used to good effect and to promote the best of the best of SL..and not lying dormant as we have now have on Mainland just gathering dust!

I still stand by that blog, I don’t hate Market place, I use it as a search and would be sorry to see it go, its much easier to find the item there (even though search is messed up) than wait for shops to rez. BUT the Lindens in there never ending efforts to screw the last cent out of citizens have completely messed up the economic climate of SL. No satellite shops, no malls, and no income – bye bye another sim and the loss of a much higher tier to the Lindens coffers and more derelict land. I tend to agree with this Second Life is a 3D Virtual World with user content and an inbuilt economy......shopping in-world is all part of that social experience in a 3D virtual enviroment! For the life of me, I don't understand Linden Lab's game plan of driving it's Consumers to a 2D shopping website......isn't that where we all came from? (i.e the Internet) Those commissions from Marketplace sales are just more Linden sinks......whilst Land tiers & premium subs are direct income to Linden Lab. I can't speak for Estate sims....but certainly on Mainland, there's an increase of abandoned lands all over the place. Marketplace should be a supplement to a user's experience....not a main driver. I yearn for the days when we just had SL Exchange & Onrez shopping sites, independently owned....imo that was the right balance.

Hitomi, they will go on doing it if they have to be a pay user account, it would be just an extra for LL and small Entrepeneurs to breathe Having a pay account, witch is not that costly for access to such a wonderful world as SL is does not prevent anyone form doing is usual shops and spendings and earnings It would be a disaster for SL to have everyone "pay to play"....this is not a game with an end goal i.e WoW. I saw some stats way back in Jan 2009.....at that time only 14% had either Payment on File or a Premium a/c. Just imagine if at that point in time LL would have taken up your suggestion of "pay to play" ? I'm not sure what the current PIOF / Prem Subs % rate are.....i would guess it's a lot higher nowadays as folk used PIOF as a form of adult verification to enter adult-rated Sims.....but I still doubt if its much over 30% in total I know quite a few merchants that generate a lot of Linden $ and spend a lot of Linden $ too...and don't have payment on file. It's not a determining factor.....the grid being swamped with high quality freebies has more of an impact on the SL Economy than whether a person is PIOF or not! Bear in mind the "competition" you so readily dismiss, already have a pricing advantage.....and technology wise, they're no longer that far behind SL. Cummulatively the OS Grids are already 1/2 the size of SL in land area size (i.e SIMs).....that didn't happen overnight!. The OS Grids suffers from the same symptons as SL.....lack of advertising, lack of marketing....how many Internet users really know about either platforms? They both need to increase their Consumer level bases

Sorry Loff...that would be disastrous for the overall SL economy. A lot of people especially Europeans buy Linden dollars through 3rd party exchanges, because they don't want to place the Credit card or other funding details on SL website.

Hi Filipa The U.S dollar is no longer covered by Gold reserves, the U.S Govt via the Fed Reserve printed money far in excess of any Gold reserves they hold. I think the Gold Standard was given up after the Great Depression. In the last 4000 years of human history, only 140,000 tonnes of gold have been mined. At current prices, that's only about $3-4 trillion - not enough to foster adequate world trade. An asset backed currency is meant to be a safeguard against rampant money creation, but what commodity is there enough of to adquately supply enough currency to foster world trade? I don't think there is. But you don't necessarily need an asset backed currency to thrive and prosper and keep inflation in check. The U.S is effectively trillions of dollars in debt, the annual interest payments alone would require a major Tax increase to each working citizen to cover those payments, The money is being borrowed - and those who bought treasury bonds/bills/etc, expect to get their money back with interest. Remember, those T-bills/bonds are in Americans' retirement funds, and they need that money to live on! Foreign buyers expect to be repaid, too. The Fed is trying to inflate away the debt. That's why your dollar buys less & less each month. Every time you buy a gallon of gas or loaf of bread, you are paying the consequences of accumulated annual US budget deficits plus the total national debt, including unfunded liabilities

Does PMLF really mean anything?...it never use to take into account any USD transactions like Land or SIM tier payments or premium subs. It was totally misleading as it represented Gross Profits or Sales net of sink payments. The nearest thing to SL Business net-profits are the cashing-out amounts.

Final thought for the whiners and complainers. Just like real life, people appreciate and will act on positive, factual and constructive feedback. And most people ignore whiners and complainers, as they should. You have a choice to be here. Lighten up or GTFO. I really enjoy Second Life and think it's an incredible experience. Over. Ignorance is bliss Your're an Insurance Saleman's dream customer!

The missing statistic I would most like to see is this: Of that flat-lined world size, what percentage of the total space is now owned by LInden Lab, i.e. "abandoned." Looking around various Sims, I see huge quantities of land now owned by LL with former structures carefully maintained to make the abandoned land look used. Painted as per post above (8 up) http://www.gridsurvey.com/ info borrowed from Tyche's website : 40.9% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Mainland is 6401 regions) 6.8% to 7.7% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels (details - 2nd Jan 2011) 56.4% of Private Estate regions are Full Regions, 43.9% Homesteads & 0.7% Openspaces (details including top 20 Estates - 25th Jan 2011) Monthly Tier Estimates - Private Estates c.US$5.131 Million, Mainland c.US$1.017 Million Currently 29741 Linden Homes are occupied out of 32444 down 4.3% since September 2010(details - 2nd Jan 2011)

Reason I mention this is, while I was out of world all that time, I went investigating other virtual worlds including IMVU. Do you know that at NON peak times, IMVU has hundreds of thousands of people logged in at the same time? i've never seen less than 80 or 90 thousand people logged in and that was at like 3 or 4am EST. Usually you'll find at least 150,000 people or so logged in AND you can create content and earn real cash on it. I visited other virtual worlds as well, and they are loaded with people and I think a lot of people who left SL are in them. I also traversed the various other SL grids and found one in particular that I liked, the people who own it are wonderful, you CAN make money (they use PayPal for transactions) and it's got a growing community base for roleplay while having a traditional "earth" realm (i.e. non roleplay like clubs, etc). What this shows is LL's blindness is creating opportunities elsewhere and if they don't wake up soon, everyone's going to go elsewhere and then where will everyone be? hmmm. InWorldz Grid I presume!

So ... I have a Business and Economy group in SL, if anyone wants to join it so we can all banter together and what not and maybe create an effective organization to help interface successfully with LL to get our business and economy issues taken seriously. Any takers? Just IM me in world and I'll pop you in then you can pop whoever you like in or what not. if not no biggie, there's nothing in it for me really but hopefully rebuilding for myself and everyone else, what used to be a viable economy ... OR if there's a bigger business group that actually has plans and discussions like this, can someone point me to it? I've joined and unjoined so many cuz they really just don't do anything lol. Join the Content Creators Association....it's a well respected group that have direct links with a few Linden employees. You might want to send a IM to Gwen Carillon for an invite. The Group has been around for quite some time now with a lot of the big players as members. (260 members) This Group is extremely active via Notices and Group Chats.....particularly on Content theft & Copybotting.

You want to impress me... hire an independent, unbiased third-party statistical company and give them free-range to provide all the tracking information possible to provide. Then I might feel like Linden Lab is being up-front and honest with us-- and that this statistics blog is more than just pure PR tripe and self-serving coprorate propaganda. Maybe Tyche Shepherd would be the ideal candidate....she has a lot of detail in place. http://www.gridsurvey.com/ info borrowed from Tyche's website : 40.9% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Mainland is 6401 regions) 6.8% to 7.7% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels (details - 2nd Jan 2011) 56.4% of Private Estate regions are Full Regions, 43.9% Homesteads & 0.7% Openspaces (details including top 20 Estates - 25th Jan 2011) Monthly Tier Estimates - Private Estates c.US$5.131 Million, Mainland c.US$1.017 Million Currently 29741 Linden Homes are occupied out of 32444 down 4.3% since September 2010(details - 2nd Jan 2011)

Second Life is stagnant in terms of growth...everyone knows it and so does Linden Lab. Failed strategies and missed opportunities has resulted in this present day scenario The new CEO and the current management need to be aware of the old addage of "money makes money"...in that they missed the opportunity of growing their userbase during the recession by not investing in real-time Marketing and Advertising. They really need to a look at IMVU and learn how to grow and market their own product (i.e SL) "IMVU achieved $22 million in revenue in 2009 and is on track to gross at least $40 million in 2010, with 85 percent of its revenue coming from paying customers and 15 percent coming from advertising. To date, the company boasts more than 50 million registered users and more than 10 million unique visitors per month. It's grown 657 percent over the last three years." http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/imvus-virtual-cash-cow-doubling-revenues-focused-on-gaming-video/ IMVU grew by a staggering 657% in the last 3 years.......and how much did Second Life grow during that same time frame? Nada...or maybe single digit %'s .IMVU have a 2 Million active user base (4% of total accounts), whilst we still hover around the 800k mark ( 2.5% of total accounts).They achieved that growth by aggresively marketing their product spending real dollars......on an inferior product i might add! (compared to SL) Any LL excuses blaming recession is total bull and won't wash! The Management were asleep at the wheel for the last 2.5 years....or had their purse strings curtailed by the VC's. (one or the other)