Deja Letov

Peggy Paperdoll wrote: Then what are you bitching about? Ads or the fact that I think ads are a fact of life and that the ads are a product of your Internet browsing? BTW. Contextual marketing is search based (keyed off searches on the site you received the ad). You wouldn't get a "see your mugshot" ad unless you searched for something related to jail, crime, mugshots, or, maybe Lindsey Lohan.......on Marketplace. You would see ads along those lines if you, perhaps, searched Lindsey Lohan. The ads are behavioral............not contextual. Clean up your Internet browsing and get better ads. Take a chance.......fire up Google and search behavioral marketing. Then search contextual marketing. Read a little (the wikis are good starting points). You might learn to tell what type of ad you are getting. I run a website outside of SL and I serve Google Adsense ads on my own website so I was able to go into my acocunt and read through a lot of this. These are 3 ways google determines which ads to show on a website...user profile and history is one way, but so is the website content. So again...just because you see an ad does not mean you can simply visit better websites to get away from the smut ads. Stop giving out incorrect information please. Because in the case of contextual marketing it is based on the website the ads display on and not by your preferences. Instead of looking up basic terminology of contextual marketing for the world, look it up from how Google determines it. Google does not consider a users information at all in contextual ad placement. It's based on keywords placed on the site and content within it. Direct copy and paste form Google's website: Contextual targeting Our technology uses such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, in order to determine what a webpage is about and precisely match Google ads to each page. *I actually asked a friend of mine who works at Google about the font size...it's not really the font size it's that they look for headers, and larger font sizes usually indictate a more appropriate topic for the page, so they look for large font sizes for info as to what to display. What you are describing is: Interest-based advertising Interest-based advertising enables advertisers to reach users based on their interests and demographics (e.g. 'sports enthusiasts'), and allows them to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser websites. To complement interest-based advertising, the Ads Preferences Manager lets users view and edit their interest categories. And the third way is: Placement targeting With placement targeting, advertisers choose specific ad placements, or subsections of publisher websites, on which to run their ads. Ads that are placement-targeted may not be precisely related to the content of a page, but are hand-picked by advertisers who've determined a match between what your users are interested in and what they have to offer. In this last option, these are hand picked by the website showing the ad. So that means if SL wanted to, they could specifically CHOOSE to display those smut banners. Meaning you would have no control at all again, just like contextual marketing. So to everyone saying it's all based on your cookies and browsing history, wisen up a bit and stop giving bad advice, because it is not the end all be all of the banners. Like I said before I have NEVER searched for or visited a website with smut, porn, criminal info, etc. I'm just not that kind of person, and nobody else has access to my computer. The ads I am getting are either from contextual content or from Placement targeting...not because of my browsing habits. *By the way....I spent the weekend on my home computer browsing the marketplace...and got the exact same ads that I see while I am at work. I do a lot more web surfing at home obviously, yet no ads changed. I saw the same basic few.

Peggy Paperdoll wrote: Shame on you for taking me for granted.....playing me for an idiot. I said IF YOU GOOD it's easy. If you are mediocre it can be hard and if you are really amateurish it will be almost impossible. So you studied hard in school.......guess what, so did I. So you cried in frustration.........so did I. The end result is that I learned what I wanted to learn and I got good at what I wanted to do.......and IT IS NOW EASY. That's the way life is You can try to impress me with your hard work.........but I know it's little more than play. If you are still, after learning your skill (whatever it is you do), working hard, then you are not very good at what you do. Get offended all you want and tell me I'm shameful...........you're still not getting the respect you seem I owe you. I respect people who are honest with me. You are not being honest. You're playing some game to make yourself feel important. You are no more important than I am (or that brand new SL resident wondering what the heck I'm talking about). You know. of course, I have some serious doubts about you being good enough to "put food on your table". Creators that good don't **bleep** about ads on a platform that they know they are not paying anything near what they are getting back from it. They're too busy creating..........and having fun. Ads on Marketplace are the least of their concerns........it's that next creation that is stirring around in their head that concerns them. Untrue....I pay my mortgage and then some with my SL money these days...and the ads are not the least of my concerns. The least of my concerns is probably how the hair on my avatar looks. Everything directly related to my business...and I consider the ads to be directly related to my business, is my top priority. The ads affect my business in Sl because it allows SL to direct my customers to other websites, to make my MP store look like absolute horse poop with their intrusive and highly offensive ads and honestly...some of the ones that show I block when my kids walk by my screen. If I could put an ad blocker on my computer I would. But unfortunately due to what I do for a living I can't do that, and honestly there are some websites that I like the ads. Mostly because they are relevant to what I am there for and they aren't so huge and in your face.

One other thing to point out about these ads that I learned about. It is completely incorrect to say we are seeing the ads only because of the sites we go to. I can tell you with absolute certainy I have never gone to an adult based website, never viewed porn, never looked at criminals, never even went to a dating website. So I did a little digging and it is not based only on your viewing preferences. It is also based VERY heavily on the website the ads are being displayed on. It's called Contextual targeting and is based on the content, keywords and structure of the website that the ads are being displayed on. In fact from what I read, contextual targeting takes precendense over the viewers browsing history. So for those of us who are seeing these smut ads and don't understand why, it isn't because you are visting smut sites like someone was trying to claim earlier and saying we should just visit other websites. It is because the secondlife website contains a large variety of adult content, therefore will show adult based ads. Just go on the marketplace and search for anything related to what those ads might advertise for and it's there.

I think they may just be something going on in the last week, I don't think it's an overall general thing that has anything to do with DD exactly. I can't remember the last time I've had a failed delivery and I've been on it since about 2-3 weeks after it launched. It's fast and reliable for me. however, in the last week I have ordered several things from other merchants that have failed delivery. One is a merchant I've bought from before and I'm fairly sure is DD based on previous purchases and the other is still using MB. but both failed. So I wouldn't say one is superior over the other, but 2 in one weekend is pretty rare for me, so I thnk maybe something was going wonky with deliveries overall this past week.

Peggy Paperdoll wrote: Bingo once again. Y'all just don't understand the ads are keyed off your personal browsing habits. You don't like sexy ads or get of out jail ads then browse better sites. If they don't bother you then what's the beef? Everyone is their own worse enemy on the Internet. I would think you would know that by now. I don't know how true that is. I can tell you I only go to the SL website during the day when I'm at work. And it's the only website, aside from Facebook, that I even touch that's not related to my job. The rest would all be IT websites and our own education based website. Unless it's based on things I look at on SL. Sometimes when i search for a product, other results that are in no way related to what I'm looking for (and are often adult oriented) will pop up.

Tarina Sewell wrote: Deja Letov wrote: The ads are getting really stupid too. Today I logged in and at the top of my screen were 4 busty chicks, one apparently had no bra on and her top was wide open but the picture was conveniently cut off right above the **bleep**...with the message "We don't like Young Men! We want you!" So they are trying to say I'm old...and male? The chick with the giant basketballs on her chest was kinda hot I guess, if you're into girls. They could at least make an attempt to tailor them to a video game genre, or business, or let SL merchants advertise or something. but really...SL peddling smut and what I'm assuming is a adult porn website? Really SL? These ads seem to target your web browsing trends as well as location specifics... I never get the busty women : ( I get the mug shots and disney ads... cookies suck Are you saying I'm looking for busty chicks and roman orgy's? hahaha I am curious how they get my browsing trends. I clear my cache, cookies and internet history every night before I leave work (I have to with my job), I have nothing installed that would track that and I'm not signed into google...which I know can be famous for that. but really...I'm more interested in how they come up with those ads specifically for me. I don't ever go to sites like that. Although I wonder if it's a network thing and not a computer thing. maybe someone else here is surfing porn all day or something.

Dartagan Shepherd wrote: I feel cheated, I got ads for Zwinky, a free hobbit game and California Psychics. Agree though, it needs to be work safe and not tacky, if that can be said of the kind of ads that they'd rather you just click on and not purchase anything. Well it got better today. Yesterday it was the chicks with giant boobs telling me they don't want young men they want me. Today....I sign in and got invited to a Roman orgy! man SL must think I am the biggest sex freak on the planet. just so you guys don't think I'm making this up lol

"The placement of these ads is designed to be unobtrusive, as we don’t want them to interfere with your Second Life experience on the web, and we’re taking care to keep the content appropriate." So they failed on both parts. They are highly intrusive and if they consider girls with open shirts appropriate content...just wow. I guess if they want to consider all SL residents a bunch of horny sex pervs, then yes, I guess it's appropriate.

The ads are getting really stupid too. Today I logged in and at the top of my screen were 4 busty chicks, one apparently had no bra on and her top was wide open but the picture was conveniently cut off right above the **bleep**...with the message "We don't like Young Men! We want you!" So they are trying to say I'm old...and male? The chick with the giant basketballs on her chest was kinda hot I guess, if you're into girls. They could at least make an attempt to tailor them to a video game genre, or business, or let SL merchants advertise or something. but really...SL peddling smut and what I'm assuming is a adult porn website? Really SL?

Porky Gorky wrote: Jarnz Dench wrote: seems like a waste of resources and time. I agree apart from one exception. MB redundancy has the potential to remove allot of old unsupported content from the MP. So hopefully this will be beneficial from a housekeeping perspective. It will be interesting to see how many listings actually disappear on retirement day Maybe we should start a pool, everyone take a guess at the total number of MP listing after retirement. :matte-motes-big-grin: This is a MAJOR benefit and one I am happily waiting to see on D day. The old and unsupported items that players aren't even around for anymore, I will be so happy to see removed.

I'm a little late in responding to this, catching up on my forum posts, but if you are any good with data manipulation, I'm pretty sure you could do it in excel or even in SQL if you are capturing your sales in a database. I made my own reporting and I have a report that shows me all sales that were a direct result of someone coming in for a hunt. Basically, it shows me people who made purchases after or on the same day as they purchased the hunt item. it's amazing how those look! You see people come in for a hunt or get a freebie item and you think they are just gone. but you'd be surprised at how many come back. I check it all the time and it's why I keep doing freebies and hunts!

I wonder could it possibly be that some merchants are putting mesh on their listings if it's partial mesh? I know there are many builds that are using sculpts and mesh, perhaps maybe they are listing mesh because it's the new hot thing, and it may not be 100% mesh. I have several builds that are a combination of mesh and sculpts, and I don't really know who the merchant is so i'm just thinking outloud here.

phaedra Exonar wrote: Why LL has no requirements to sell to the marketplace is mind boggling, some thing like requiring a 30 wait for avatars with out a premium account to sell on the MP would help reduce or slow down repeat scammers, many scammer have high price items trying to make a quick $ so limiting the price of items to under 500L$ for non premium accounts for the first 30 days might help too at least that way if some one falls for a scam they are out less L$ I don't expect any thing to stop all scams on the marketplace but at least some thing to reduce them would help out a lot. I believe there is a 30 day wait, or at least there was as of a few months ago. When I went to go split my store into two separate stores a few months back, I made a new avi to put a certain product line into and it wouldn't let me create a marketplace store for her until I was 30 days old. So I had to wait it out til she was 30 days and then I could make the store.

I don't have a problem with ads usually, if they are related to what I'm in here for. But I would much rather see ads that are related to Second Life or at least somewhat in a round about way related to at least gaming. I also don't see a huge increase in revenue from these. I doubt very much that the click thru rate will be all that high simply because people are here for a virtual world experience, and probably won't care about those ads I have been seeing. What would have been more ideal...getting paid banner ads in those places from merchants. Maybe LL doesn't think we can afford it, who knows. Overall they don't bother me, I will just block them and be done with it, but I'd keep them if they were related to what I'm doing here in SL. I'd be much more inclined to support the community than random banner ads.

I'm coming in late to the conversation, but I can understand the frustration some may have with lag and such when shopping in world. However, I am one who prefers to shop in world if it's feasible. I also doubt very much that merchants are going to reconsider simply because someone says they will refuse to shop in world, simply because there are also a huge number that refuse to use the marketplace. I tend to use the MP and in world to shop, maybe not equally but I do use both. Mostly I use the MP to search for products but I love going in world and actually completing the purchase. I especially like to go in world for animations, and even some sculpts that I want to see in person from a building stand point. To be honest most of my personal purchases are made in world with a very small amount made on the MP. For example, last week I was in Medhue's store and picked up an AO...I would never buy something like that on the MP. But as a builder for full perm items, there are some businesses I buy from that I know their store like the back of my hand, I've seen all their sculpts and I know the quality so it's just quicker to buy it online on the MP. The other reason I like to buy in world, is yes to save them the 5% fee. I've gotten to know the owners of some of these full perm item creators, so ya, because I'm friendly with them, I would prefer to save them money. Aside from the 5% fee and the need to try things in person...I just like the idea of supporting a virtual universe. That's what we are here for. It's what makes playing SL fun. I think MP has it's place and I do think merchants should most definitely use it, and ya I think they are losing sales if they don't, but if they choose not to, that's ok too.

In my texture shop I do allow transfer between alts. Honestly, it's another alt of the same person so why not? Besides, if you are talking about a legal binding document, I'm not even entirely sure it's legal to sell to an "avatar" and have it hold up in court. Also...keep in mind for builders it would be very difficult to keep it all straight. The majority of full perm suppliers I buy from for my furniture shop do allow transfer to alts. In fact I usually look for that before I buy. But I'm sure there may be a few in there that do not. But how can anyone expect a high volume builder...with say 1000 or more purchases from full perm suppliers. It would be impossible to remember and most don't include a TOS in their packaging, they just put a sign at their store. And others that do include a TOS don't even address the issue of transfering to alts.

I've started building some of my store pieces in mesh but when it comes to clothes, no I don't wear any. Something in my house or for sale, sure why not, even if some people can't see it that's ok. But when it comes to my avatar and how I am seen, I don't want to walk around looking like I have surfboards sticking out of my chest because someone can't view mesh. I'd rather continue wearing what everyone can see, instead of what many still can't see. I did get a couple of hair pieces though that I sometimes wear but I don't wear it when I leave my sim. In time, i think I will start wearing mesh, I'm not against it and will be happy when it's more widely adopted, but until everyone can see it, I will be sticking to system items on my avatar for most of the time.

Ciaran Laval wrote: Social areas are a money sink is part of the problem, more's the pity. Then there's the time issue. I've got a roleplaying sim, one thing I've always wanted to plan, but never got around due to the realities of time and space, is intergrating merchant items into the roleplay. For example buildings are for sale, accessories are for sale, trees and plants are for sale, yadda yadda yadda. Part of the problem there being that you may attract people who aren't roleplayers into the roleplay area and therefore upset the roleplayers. However I think with the right planning, something like that is viable, it gives people something to do and it gives merchants an opportunity to display their wares not only inworld, but in an environment exemplifying their usage. ya I'm not sure roleplaying would be a good option to use as a form of entertainment for what I'm talking about. But I don't think it would be much of a money or time sink for most of the other ideas mentioned. Most of it should be a one time build. For example, the idea of having a sitting area in your store, with coffee dispencers and maybe a contest as someone mentioned. Not much time or money put into that once it's done. Now, if you do something on a larger scale, especially RP...ya that's a huge time sink. I ran a RP sim...and oh goodness I don't think I would ever do that again. LOL

I've been about 50/50 for the last year. I was at about 70% on the Marketplace, but I've heavily marketed in world and now it's about even. I've tried and tried and tried and tried to raise the ratio to have in world be higher but I just can't do it. I'm not sure it's anything I'm doing wrong because when my in world sales go up so do my Marketplace sales, which makes me wonder if my customers aren't getting my sales flyers and using the link in the notecard to get it straight from the Marketplace to save time. So the sales efforts are coming from in world but I think they are still going to MP for ease.

Porky Gorky wrote: Deja Letov wrote: Yes I am in the same situation for prims. It sucks........ If you have been away for a while you may not be aware of some changes related to the mesh rollout that will bring your LI down. First is you can make prims larger than 10m now without resorting to megaprims, but hopefully have worked that one out already. The more important thing to know is the trick of using convex hull physics on normal prims to lower the LI. In some instances it is possible to lower the LI by up to 50% but there are risks and loopholes to be aware of. Have a look this blog post by Ciaran Laval for more info. Oh ya I'm aware. I've only been gone for 2 months or so. I've slowly been making way into mesh. I just still have so many customers who refuse to buy it or can't see it due to their viewer, I haven't made the full leap.

Trinity Yazimoto wrote: Hi wooo, this is a thread i like hehehhehe my shop is a comfy lil cottage, located in a beautifull garden (i may say it, bec im not the one who did the lanscaping lol... im horrible for this hehehhehe). In my garden you have several lil spots where you can sit, pose for pics, do yoga, swim in the river and in the pond, and for this winter we did also a lil icerink. The landscaping has been made by a dear friend who is awesomely talented. So yes, im really proud to own such land. Its really over all i could dream, and ill be thanksfull forever to my friend for this. In spring we will switch again to the normal garden, so the ice rink will be again a pond, with ducks and fishes. and flowers, tons of flower will replace the snow. We will also rerezz the picnic rug and some towels beside the river shore. And i have already some gym rugs i bought recently, ready to be rezzed there too. Im sorry but i hate sand and beach, and althought my land is facing the sea you can easily avoid it and think you are in a peacefull valley with a river. Sadly, ive bought some winter games to entertain my visitors, but these ones, like a battle with snowmen, need i open my land... and lol, no way... i dont want to open my land hehehehhe.. so i had to derezz them and keep them in my inventory. My store doesnt look like a usual store either, as i said its a comfy cottage, you can sit there on the sofa and seats and chit chat. I left for free 2 of the secondary rooms to 2 of my friends for they rezz their vendors, so my customers can also find some diverstiy. One of these friends is my landscaper, and the second one is my best sl friend and she does the same for me in her store. There are also 2 porchs, one on the front and one on the back with table, rockin chairs, seats etc.. there is even a hopscrotch and a schoolboard where you can sit. I really hope that my visitors enjoy my garden like they do for my store. oh and since some days... my visitors can enjoy also a precious lil closet that make you move inside as soon as you clik on it ehehhehehehhe... Well, this one has been gifted tome by a well known forumer heheheheh... Ive already told some of my regular visitors and we had happy moments with this closet :smileywink: ah and something important for me... my followers know that they are always more than welcome to come in my land whatever they come for shopping or only for hanging out.... An ice rink has been really popular for us this year too. I've put up my own gothic ice rink every year and as soon as I announce it's available in December, we have people over the whole month long. It's slowed down now, with V-Day just around the corner,but I still have it up (it's in my cemetery which is weird lol).

Porky Gorky wrote: Welcome back Deja and congrats on the new offspring. I don't think merchants need to necessarily design specific areas for entertainment, but they can strive to make the whole store into a tourist attraction. The Cream Shop springs to mind as a great example, I never went there to go shopping but just loved the sim and the atmosphere and the attention to detail and when I went there I often saw people just hanging about outside chatting etc, Another good example is Rustica. They really cashed in when sculpties rolled out and created, at the time, the best sculpted store in SL. It was talked about often, in the same vein as purely entertainment based sims and effectively became a tourist attraction. So creating a spectacular build or a very atmospheric store can go a long way to providing the social draw that you are talking about, without actually specifically setting aside space and prims to build a specific type of entertainment. The store itself is the entertainment. Allot easier said than done though :smileyhappy: This and what Czari mentioned are exactly what I am talking about. When i say "entertainment" I guess what I mean is something other than just strictly commercialized shopping. It doesn't have to be all games, flashy lights, etc. Even a sitting area with coffee, could fall under what I am talking about. The garden areas, even just an atmosphere worthy of visiting would all over something other than shopping and could draw people in. And oh yes Rustica was beautiful. I remember riding a motorcycle over the terrain there lol

Madeliefste Oh wrote: Our shopping audience, builder and creators, do not often go out to make fun. Many do hardly leave their building platform, so adding entertainment to the shop surrounding won't have much impact in our case. Still we do want to make it attractive to visit the in world shop, we do offer something extra there. For our shop it is important that this extra is not time consuming for creators. And the item or activity must add a value for creators and builders. At the moment we have two things: an education package and a contest. The educational package is our only freebie. It contains an item, that is both made as a sculpty and as a mesh. It contains a notecard in which the main differences between sculpties and meshes are explained. People can play around with the free example to experience these differences by themselves. The contest we have is a 'Suggest a mesh', in runs on monthly base. We invite customers to drop their ideas for items they would like to see in our shop in our suggestion box. Once a month we pick a winning idea, we make the item, and the winner gets a full perms version for free. I can see how businesses catering to creators might not benefit from this idea too. I know for me, getting me to leave my sim is like pulling teeth. I leave to go demo animations, looking at sculpts and find textures. My assistant tries to get me to leave once in awhile but it just doesn't happen. lol I love your contest idea. What a great way to get your customers to interact with you and get them to come back every month to submit new ideas.

Yes I am in the same situation for prims. It sucks. I am always having to delete to make room. What I am thinking of doing is cutting down that prim count drastically by using rezzers instead. I'm already doing that for some things now because I had to. But am thinking I could do it even more and if I package them up by department..like kitchens, bedrooms, etc and do 2 rezzers per section, then I shouldn't run into too many issues with people not being able to get what they need. Not to mention marketplace still overruns my inworld sales no matter how hard I try. I'm not really going to branch out into entertainment as far as something related to my products. I'm talking more along the lines of making it more than just a shop slammed down in the middle of a sim. Things like... 1. People are loving those 7seas fishing areas, so a fishing pond would be ideal I think. 2. Water areas...people love those little romantic spots so why not just landscape a bit outside, put in a river with a boat rezzer and let them float around the sim. 3. Dance Pavillion, give them a place to come and dance under the stars I'm just throwing simple ideas out there. There are some things anyone could do without really branching into the entertainment. Now...you could go massive and do things like a club, roleplay exploration, etc. It's there but ya it would be a lot to do and run a store. And I totally agree i want people there to be interested in shopping. But that's the point...to get ever more people to come and find out about our stores. people who are already coming will continue to come, I don't think you'd be taking that away. But if traffic is higher, more people may show up and if people are tlaking about your location, again more people would come, which would mean potentially more people shopping.

Hi! It's been awhile since I've been very active on the forum...been off caring for my new little monster. Anyway, I've recently started back to building in SL and catching up on the merchant forum ( you guys have been busy). I'm still seeing a lot of posts about how merchants are giving up their in world stores and keeping it just to marketplace. And in other forums like the general discussion forum I keep seeing lots of people asking for things to do in SL, interesting places to see, etc. So it got me to thinking, why are we not slacking a tiny bit on the actual store front and instead shift a bit of our focus on providing some sort of entertainment to the users of SL. Would this not do two important things...1. Increase our traffic count and 2. Potentially bring in new customers (assuming the entertainment matched what it is you are selling)? It just seems like a no brainer as a way to increase traffic and sales. I realize for new merchants, this wouldn't be feasible. They may not have the space nor the extra linden to waste any space at all for entertainment purposes. But for those of us established merchants, couldn't we scale the shop down just a bit and make way for something valuable to give back to the SL community? I've got my own idea for what I'm going to do, and it's definitely something I think that will be fun and give residents a place to explore and hang out. And most importantly my shop will be right smack dab in the middle of it. I'm also thinking this may help with some resident retention by giving people more things to do. Just imagine if 50 shops did this. People would stop complaining that there was nothing to do in SL and the next time someone asks for something to go do on the forum, someone might just post "hey you should go check out X's sim because they have this activtiy oh and they have a cool store there too." Yay or nae?