Butch Daddy

DartAgain wrote: Traffic to the web site means nothing. Page hits mean nothing. Extra revenue to LL for running a promition from the sales of those products on sale means something only to LL and the selected merchants, no one else. Customer spending is finite, you can squeeze it a little but you can only increase it so much. And when you do, someone is going to miss out on sales. Usually smaller merchants. Smaller merchants are the first to leave having no consistent profit to keep them here. Aside from LL making more commission off these sales, what other positive effect does it have? None. So why not stay out of the market manipulation and let a generic "shop for the holidays" graphic take over and let the free market run its own course. A simpler approach that didn't manipulate would have a boost without favoritism. So my understanding of what you wrote it this: You do not care how many people see the items on the web site. You do not care if anyone sells items on the marketplace, unless it is you who is doing the selling. The email had no value to you, personally. The email potentially has the chance to reduce sales to some sellers, by potentially increasing sales to other sellers. (something that already exists, as you so freely pointed out, by the finite number of customers/spending dollars) You think Linden Lab should not advertise the Marketplace, or its sellers, because you personally think it is manipulating the system when they try to generate interest in the web site. Gotcha

Darrius Gothly wrote: Just to recap as this is an issue at least 3 years old .. and probably much more: Instead of investing a few person-hours to resolve the issue once and forever, LL has chosen to address each occurrence with direct personal intervention at an ever-growing and ever-accumulating overhead cost. It depends on how many sellers request refunds. If there are only 10 requests a year for refunds from sellers, it makes more sense to spend resources on higher impacting aspects of the system. If the employee to has to imput the refund to the seller is getting paid 10 dollars an hour and it takes less than 3 minutes to process the refund, there isn't much cost associated compared to the time involved in changing, debugging, and releasing code.

DartAgain wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: DartAgain wrote: Well, no point in making points that others have made about your post, they've covered some of it pretty well. My take on it is that unless LL changes course in the way they do business, in 5 years you won't be here for me to tell you that i told you so. Sorry, but that really isn't saying much. If you go back to the old SLExchange archived forums, and old SL Archived forums from 5-7 years ago, the same thing was being said then as you are saying here. And yet Second Life is still around. Oh sure, it's not a new prediction. I myself however, do not suffer from premature extrapolation. Your argument seems to be that we don't have the right to feel the way that we do, which is strange to me. Nevertheless as I said we decline. So some complainer(s), somewhere is spot on in describing why that decline is happening. If not us and these many varied arguments in this thread then who is rightly identifying the reasons for the decline? Never said people do not have the right to feel the way they do. What I AM saying is that I do not understand why people feel the way they do over the email promotion. That is the underlying thing I am trying to understand. Why do people feel the way they do about the promotion? I just don't get it. No one paid to be in the promotion. No one paid to see the promotion banner. No one paid to get the promotion email. No one lost sales because of the email promotion. No information has been released that indicates that anyone even actually sold items because of the email. All indications seem to be that Linden Lab used the email, and selected the sellers, in order to try to generate traffic to, and hopefully sales through, the Marketplace. I just plain do not understand why the company trying to generate traffic to the web site is seen as some as a bad thing, and gotten them all upset about it. This is what I am trying to understand.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: It also kinda shows that Linden Lab didn't set out in advance to have some grand promotion. It might have been done quickly if they were watching metrics and saw that the holiday slump for marketplace sales was already in full swing. How in blue blazes does picking six select Merchants for a one-time email promotion add anything of measurable value to the Marketplace metrics? If THAT was their goal .. OMG we need a REALLY long talk with their thinkers and planners. (Sorry .. but that one just doesn't even pass the sniff test .. from 10 feet away) Maybe their intention wasn't to generate sales, but generate traffic? Just like Amazon or Ebay or any other company sending out an email to their registered users. I would venture to guess that the whole purpose of the emails is to generate interest in the web site. Regardless of what is actually promoted in the email itself. Example: I got emails from a Star Trek web site advertising sales on some of their products. One of which is a set of BBQ Grill tools. By your standards, if the email sent to me did not cause me to buy the set of grill tools, then the email was of no measurable value. However, even though I didn't buy the grill tools, I took a look around at the other stuff they have on their web site. So the email didn't generate a sale, but it DID generate traffic to the web site. So the email DID have a measurable value, in page counts. Sure, the Linden Lab email promotion had no direct value to you, but it didn't cost you anything, and you didn't lose anything either. So if the email had no value to you, cost you nothing, and lost you nothing, why are you upset?

Darrius Gothly wrote: There are two very distinct reasons why "Giant Up-Updates" are sent out: 1. Someone pulled the trigger too soon, or set a hard date and was not willing to flex it .. or in some fashion established exterior and unrelated deadlines, or 2. We missed a critical thing that should have been caught, wasn't (for whatever reason) and now HAS to be rolled out or really bigger badder things will happen. We've been through both. I personally have been responsible for both. I try like crazy to NEVER employ #1 as it really messes with customer confidence to turn out a known buggy product. Then when you can't defend the decision in any valid manner .. you look like a real doofus. I prefer not to be doofus in any form of appearance. I have fallen victim to #2 for many reasons, none of which really matter to this discussion. Suffice to say I work hard to avoid #2 too. The cutover from XStreet to Marketplace was without a doubt the result of exterior meddling in the schedule. The fact that the entire XStreet structure was up and running for some time afterward, added to the many MANY valid objections and bug reports posted here and in JIRA about SLM, lead to the only reasonable conclusion: It didn't go so well. Here's the bottom line for me Jacob: When they spring something on us (like the recent email promotion for only a few select Merchants) .. it turns out wrong. When my experience and understanding lead to me to realize there are speedbumps ahead, I will do my best to call them out and help suggest a course around them. If you choose to see it as me slamming or bad-mouthing people .. that's your view. But I dang sure won't sit idly by, letting known problems go unaddressed .. especially not when those problems impact me, a project in which I'm involved or invested .. and when options exist that would completely avoid the obstacles. In short, I'd rather think first .. then act with a bit of an idea what I'm doing. I find it preferable to always RE-acting to a situation that didn't really need to BE a "situation" in the first place. I agree with you that the cutover from Xstreet probably was because of "exterior meddling" but chances are, those exterior issues were outside of the control of Linden Lab. But in all honesty, wasn't it better to have both sites running side by side for a while to allow for the core bugs to be addressed on the new system before the old system was shut off, instead of just shutting off the old system in favor of the new system before the core functionality of the new system was ready? How did the email promotion turn out wrong? How were you personally affected by the email promotion?

polysail wrote: Nothing in my post is a strawman argument~ not even close. My point was~ and still is prepare for unfairness in open markets. It always happens. Anyhow ~ I'm off to go do something productive~ I've got nothing more of value to contribute to this conversation. You all have fun arguing with the obvious trolly purple cookiemonster. An "open market" is one that provides free access to everyone. How is having a promotion unfair to the open market?

ChinRey wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: This is what I do not understand. So because you were offended by the promotion, (for what, not being included?), you are going to stop trying to grow and promote your SL business? No, as I've already said, I'm not offended at all. Jacob Cagney wrote: Isn't that the proverbial, shooting yourself in the foot? Throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Cutting off your nose to spite your face? Taking your toys and going home? No, it's called cutting your losses. Linden Lab does not seem to be capable of handling the Marketplace in a satisfactory way so I'm not willing to invest time and money in that market. It's pure business. If you want any success at all, you have to weigh investment (in time and money), earning potential and risk towards each other. This incident and the reactions afterwards have seriously reduced the estimated earning potential and increased the risk level. Edit: Forgot to mention the lack of response from Linden Lab, that's probably the biggest factor increasing the risk level for anybody who wants to deal with them. Cutting your losses? What losses? It costs ZERO money to list items on the Marketplace. So you are saying that you refuse to participate in something that is freely available because of some slight that you feel? Personally, I do not expect anyone from Linden Lab to say something officially about the promotion. The Terms of Service gives them the right to have promotions like this without or without notice to the sellers of the content they are promoting.

ChinRey wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: Except, as has already been established, no one "purchased" anything. Oh yes. Every merchant who has items listed on MP purchases a distribution service from Linden Lab and are entitled by law to the same level of service provided of course that they're dealings are on proprotionally equal terms. In that regard you can not reagrd this sale isolated from the overall service or lack thereoff LL provides to their b2b cusotmers through the Marketplace. First of all, no one purchases a distribution service. Items that are sold for more than 10 lindens have a 5% commission paid by the seller to pay for the upkeep of the system. This is not a "distribution service". Linden Lab doesn't charge to pass inventory from one person to another, or sellers in world would be paying to send other people items. If you want to try to claim that the 5% commission is a "paid distribution service fee" then where is your outrage that users who sell everything for less than 10 lindens, or who give away free items don't have to pay this service fee while everyone else does?

Darrius Gothly wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: Darrius Gothly wrote: (replying to myself here because I prefer offering solutions, not just gripes) The Linden Lab imprimatur on a marketing campaign has immense power and value. Finding your name included in an email that came from a Linden Lab account is a mark of status and accomplishment that many Merchants both deserve and can afford. Having access to that level of marketing power would be a sure-fire way for someone to break out of the minor leagues and really gain a toehold in with the Big Names. So wouldn't it make sense to offer a Linden Lab "Recommended" marketing campaign that is open to all, with a price commensurate with the value offered? First of all, it has already been established that there was no "price" involved. No one had to pay to be a part of the Promotion. So how would you price the value of the promotion? Second, as outlined in my previous reply in this thread, do you seriously want content promotion to be "open to all" including those who allegedly sell copybotted or copyrighted content? Third, if Linden Lab is trying to generate interest in the Marketplace, don't you think that the email campaign should highlight some of the best and brightest sellers/creators instead of the botton of the barrel stuff? (not saying anyone specifically is bottom of the barrel, just pointing out the folly of the claims that any promotion should be "open to all"). Fourth, alluding to a "Linden Lab Recommended" campaign, based on the vocal outrage in this thread, I am sure that any tagging of items as "Linden Lab Recommended" will result in just as much dirt kicking and crying about how it "isn't fair" because someone's items weren't picked. I think you again misunderstand me. First of all, the "Price" is open to valuation the same as any advertising campaign. How did LL set the prices for Enhancements? No clue here .. but obviously they were able to arrive at some sort of value. And apparently people are willing to pay it. So they didn't go THAT wrong. I'll trust in them to work their magic again and set a reasonable price for an ad campaign that has the impact and value of a Linden Lab approved email promotion. Second, absolutely!! Anyone selling illegal, stolen or just plain wrong content VERY MUCH SHOULD make themselves widely known and visible to Linden Lab. That way they can quickly and decisively stomp them flat. Done! Third, Market Dynamics. Those with the highest quality, best selling, most profitable products will by the nature of their success also have the resources to pay top dollar for quality marketing. If someone is willing to spend real money in quantity sums to advertise junk? It's their money, their decision, and their loss. And they most likely won't make that mistake twice. The stuff that is shown in the promotional materials? The first few folks that look at it .. maybe even buy it .. will quickly rank it so poorly that no one on the entire Grid will fall into the sandtrap. (Did I mention Market Dynamics yet?) Fourth, the vocal outrage is precisely because the opportunity wasn't available to all. If the campaign WERE open to all, the most vocal griping would be about it being too expensive. To which the majority of us would respond "poor baby". I seriously doubt there would be outcries of foul play if it was something everyone could attain .. only if they could afford. 1. Listing Enhancements prices were already pretty much set when Linden Lab took over. You would have to talk to Apotheus to find out what metrics he used in deciding the original prices. 2. So you honestly believe that someone selling copybotted content should be freely allowed to participate in a Linden Lab sponsored promotion of their products? And 2 seconds after the emails hit users in-boxes, people would be threatening to sue Linden Lab for partnering with content stealers. 3. Again, no one paid for the promotion. Why do you keep harping on "paying for promotion" when NO ONE PAID!? If Linden Lab went to the 6 sellers and said "Pay us 500,000 lindens and we will email every user advertising your products" then yeah, I could see the outrage, but they didn't. This was not, in any way, shape, or form, a paid promotion. Regardless of whether the selected merchants got something of value for it, they didn't pay for it. 4. I am beginning to see the issue. You are upset because everyone wasn't given the opportunity to pay into the promotion that wasn't paid for with money. We do not know what criteria Linden Lab used, so please tell me how you know for a fact that every seller didn't have the opportunity? There are 2 things that this thread keeps coming back to: 1. The promotion wasn't an Open Call promotion 2. Not everyone was included in the selected group So my question is, so what? Other than outraged user perception, the promotion has had ZERO impact on anyone other than the selected group. No one can show that they lost sales because of the promotion. Hell, we haven't even heard from the selected group saying that their sales increased because of the promotion. As far as we know, there was ZERO value, of any kind, in the promotion. No one can show that they lost customers because of the promotion. No one can show that they were barred or hindered from having a sale on their items for the holidays because of the promotion. No one can show that they were barred or hindered from having their own promotions. The bottom line is that everyone complaining about the promotion ends up, at the core, offended or upset because they themselves were not included. That is just petty.

ChinRey wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: So let me ask you, in what way did Linden Lab offend you with this promotion? I'm not offended at all, I'm worried. This was clearly a very poor decision by the company that is in charge of Second Life's and Sansar's future. They should have known better. Jacob Cagney wrote: Since you really cannot speak for anyone other than yourself, No, I actually can speak for others than myself here. Any business who learns about this incident or even hears rumours about it, will loose a little bit of confidence in Linden Lab and be a little bit more reluctant to enter any kind of busniness partnership with them. Why are you worried? This is what I am trying to understand. What exactly is the issue with a promotion to try to generate traffic for the Marketplace? Please provide a list of all of the people that you are speaking on behalf of, I would like to contact them directly and ask them for their opinion regarding why they have lost confidence in Linden Lab over a promotion designed to generate traffic to a web site that Linden Lab owns.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: 1. What do you mean by 'adjustment'? 2. How do you know it didn't help the sellers who were promoted in the ad and email? 1. Adjustment means any changes in operation, pricing, performance, formatting or external activities that influence the behavior and dynamics of the Marketplace. Sending out email promotions is one such example. Changing the number and presentation format of the Enhancement Ads shown atop each page would be another example. 2. Taken from the implications of your first post. You intimated that those included in the promotion email had probably (possibly?) suffered some from being included. If not .. cool beans. If so .. This is what I am not getting. There hasn't been a change in the Marketplace that affects the behavior and dynamics of the system. Sending out email promotions by private companies is done ALL the time. I get emails from Amazon all the time telling me about some app, item, book, movie, whatever, that is available for sale on the website. Should we be complaining to Amazon that their email promotions are unfair because not every seller was included? The comments I made about the included sellers suffering was in reply to the possibility that those sellers would be or might be treated badly because of the comments regarding favoritism in the selection process.

ChinRey wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: "then along comes LL and slaps us in the face with FREE advertising of "select" competitors - who you gotta blow to get a gig like that lol" Oh, I overlooked that one. Yes, that was thoughtless. In case there are still any misundestandings here: At least one of the six participants has clearly indicated they didn't know about the sale in advance. One of the participants only made a barely half-hearted attempt to do something with the sale. It's clearly nto something they asked for but rather something that dropped onto their head and they couldn't decline. None of the six participating stores show any sign of having prepared for the sale in advance. Quite the contrary, their sale displays show every signs of being rush jobs. In other words: the six stores that participated in LL's publicity stunt, had not asked for it and did not know about it in advance. At least one of them doesn't even seem to have wanted it very much. I am sure anyone selected could have easily said "no thank you" and it is very possible that some did, and we just haven't heard about it. It also kinda shows that Linden Lab didn't set out in advance to have some grand promotion. It might have been done quickly if they were watching metrics and saw that the holiday slump for marketplace sales was already in full swing. Again, all of the chatter about the promotion, other than it happened, is speculation.We do not know when they made the decision to have the promotion and we do not know what the criteria that was used to choose those sellers who ended up getting promoted. Personally, it doesn't really matter to me at all. The promotion has had no negative impact on me, personally, so I have no issue with the specifics surrounding it.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Yours was the exact same argument used by the Commerce Dev Team in justifying their hurried shutdown of the old XStreet infrastructure and the premature "go live" of the SL Marketplace. The old wasn't really dead yet, and the new wasn't really live either. But someone upstairs circled a date, and ready or not, they made the switch. I guess that's another bit of history that those of us with road-rash still remember painfully. We are hopeful that THE transition .. if there IS a transition .. will be better managed, better timed, and better communicated beforehand. We don't really know why that decision was made. It could be that some contract for hardware rental, or whatever, was fast approaching and the decision was made to run with what they had at the time. Whatver, the reason for the decision it wasn't surprising given the way things are done these days. Just take a look at any number of games or software companies who release at product, then have day one patches that are 1/3 the size of the "finished product" just so that they can ship on a deadline and then get a lot of stuff finished before actual release or shortly after. It is the nature of the beast when it comes to the vast amount of bandwith that is available. Back when games were on floppy disk, if the game wasn't absolutely complete with nearly zero bugs, the creating company would tank, not just the game. E.T. anyone? That is no longer the case, so companies have a LOT of leeway in what is considered a finished product by industry standards compared to consumer standards. The best we, as consumers, can hope for is that the product we get is functionally complete, with updates and improvements being made over time.

ChinRey wrote: I was actually planning to spend next year trying to establish a proper SL business and getting ready for Sansar but this incident has made me change my mind. I just can't take LL seriously at the moment and unless I see some real positive development there, those plans are dead. This is what I do not understand. So because you were offended by the promotion, (for what, not being included?), you are going to stop trying to grow and promote your SL business? Isn't that the proverbial, shooting yourself in the foot? Throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Cutting off your nose to spite your face? Taking your toys and going home? The promotion did nothing that is stopping or hindering you, or anyone else, from growing or establishing a business. It would be different if Linden Lab said that they were going to start chargings to list freebies on the marketplace (anyone remember THAT fiasco?), but they haven't. It would be different if Linden Lab said that every item will now have to have a base price of L250, but they haven't. It would be different if Linden Lab said that only people who own a region in world will be able to sell content on the Marketplace, but they haven't. Sorry, but I personally think you are over-reacting.

polysail wrote: I've seen this thread festering down here, but hadn't taken the time to read the entire thing until now. I had the same thoughts when I saw the front page ads. "Wow how much did they have to pay to get that kind of visibility?" I thought long and hard about it and here's my 2 cents on the off chance that a CM stumbles into this thread and actually reads it :: Suffice it to say I wasn't too thrilled to find out that it was free with random selection. Irked substantially but at the same time things like this are part of the business world. Unfairness in "open market" contests happens. It happens a lot. Not just in our little small business online marketplace here but out in the brick and mortar material goods block too. Do you know how many huge businesses today have been utterly screwed over, had to restructure their entire business and find a new customer base or flat out ceased to exist and gone bankrupt because their competitor won a HUGE government contract in an unfair contest where there was an obvious favorite? CEO's commit suicide over this, but it happens, and it happens a LOT. Yet everytime there's a big government contract up for grabs, every single eligble business steps back up to the plate to try and bid on it because there's really no choice in the matter. So. Yes. It's unfair. Yes it irks people. But yes. LL can get away with it. Now~ I may be a bit wide eyed and naive in the SL marketplace. But I want to point something out to all of you. We all get NOTHING if LL goes belly up. I want to preface this with something~ I really do love SL. I thank it for the opportunity it's granted me and the income I've gained here has helped tide me over in a time of financial instability RL. ( yes~ me with my little shop of 15 items here has been my lifeline ) But I want you (fellow merchants! ) to consider this : If your SL shop is 100% of your RL income. I can understand your very apprehensive "I'm dangling by a thread here and LL keeps strumming it to hear a tune" But I ask one question? If you're *that* successful as a merchant, you obviously posess skills to enter other online marketplaces, why haven't you created a backup plan yet? Why haven't you put thought into contingencies? Smart business is exactly that. Diversification. Broad customer base, many product lines, many distributors. I'm not saying pick up and leave SL, but please be sane in planning your life~ do not put ALL your eggs in one basket. And to LL: Please, if you can avoid it. Don't screw us over too hard please. Some of us are trying to make a living here. An open market only means that there are no barriers in place (other than having a Second Life Account) that would prevent anyone from listing their items for sale. The promotion has absolutely nothing to do with wether or not the marketplace is an "open market" system. And there is nothing in the promotion that hinders the marketplacefrom being an "open market" system. Discussions regarding whether or not the marketplace itself is an "open market" or "free market" ecomony are strawman arguements since neither has anything at all to do with the Promotion.

DartAgain wrote: Well, no point in making points that others have made about your post, they've covered some of it pretty well. My take on it is that unless LL changes course in the way they do business, in 5 years you won't be here for me to tell you that i told you so. Sorry, but that really isn't saying much. If you go back to the old SLExchange archived forums, and old SL Archived forums from 5-7 years ago, the same thing was being said then as you are saying here. And yet Second Life is still around.

ChinRey wrote: That's right but in this particular case the law might: (e) Furnishing services or facilities for processing, handling, etc. It shall be unlawful for any person to discriminate in favor of one purchaser against another purchaser or purchasers of a commodity bought for resale, with or without processing, by contracting to furnish or furnishing, or by contributing to the furnishing of, any services or facilities connected with the processing, handling, sale, or offering for sale of such commodity so purchased upon terms not accorded to all purchasers on proportionally equal terms. (15 U.S. Code § 13 - Discrimination in price, services, or facilities) Not sure if that's exactly the right paragraph, it may only cover actual goods sold, not services provided, but the point is all nations have fairly strict laws against anticompetitive practices in business. Sometimes they may seem way too strict but there's a very good reason why they're there. Except, as has already been established, no one "purchased" anything. So the law you quoted does not apply to the Promotion.

ChinRey wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: I like to think that the sellers who were picked actually earned that opportunity through their hard work and dedication. No, not everyone can put in the same time that they have because most of us have lives outside of SL to live. If that is the case, then why begrudge them their dedication? I think I'll leave it to Pamela to answer that one - if she's still following the discussion. Just because someone wasn't picked does not mean that the ones who were didn't earn it. Jacob Cagney wrote: Seems to me that everyone was treated equal. No, they weren't. Take a look at the Marketplace. Yes, most of the sellers there are small time hobby creators and there certainly are plenty of shady operators there too. But there are also lots of serious fairly big merchants. Is there just one serious hair maker in SL? and only one serious clothes designer? I think not. Again, without knowing the criteria that was used, there is no legitmate way that you can claim that all sellers were not treated equally. Jacob Cagney wrote: Until we know for sure, if we ever do,... Good point. Are we ever going to hear from LL about this? That would help a lot. You obviously didn't read my posts in the thread. I can't blame you for that since they are a bit on the side of what everybody else have been writing about. But I happen to think they're rather important So here's a quick summary: My concern here is not whether things are fair or unfair or even whether they are legal or illegal. Linden Lab has offended a large number of their core business-to-business customers, people they depend on to be able to run Second Life at all. We need those people here, we can't afford to loose them! In fact, we need more serious, professional content creators, especially with Sansar coming up. But Second Life has a horrible reputation in the professional 3D design community so most people there stay well away. This will make it even harder to recruit more creators because the rumours will spread. There is absolutely no way the extra revenue from this stunt can make up for the loss of credibility LL suffers from it. There are only three possible explanations why they still decided to do it and we can rule one out right away. The two left are: Linden Lab is so desperately short on cash they had to do something fast or: they're so short-sighted they didn't actually see it coming. I don't know which is the worst of those. So let me ask you, in what way did Linden Lab offend you with this promotion? Since you really cannot speak for anyone other than yourself, you really can only say why you, yourself, are offended by the promotion, and not why someone else might be offended.

ChinRey wrote: Jacob Cagney wrote: Through no fault of their own, you all have basicallyimpliled to the entire community that the only reason why those sellers got picked is because they kiss Lindens butt. If I were one of those "select merchants" who were picked, I would really be thinking right now about how utterly hateful other sellers can be. Where did you read that? As far as I can remember, everybody have been very careful not to put any blame on the six winners. But it is a long thread as you said, so I may well have missed something. "then along comes LL and slaps us in the face with FREE advertising of "select" competitors - who you gotta blow to get a gig like that lol"

Darrius Gothly wrote: (replying to myself here because I prefer offering solutions, not just gripes) The Linden Lab imprimatur on a marketing campaign has immense power and value. Finding your name included in an email that came from a Linden Lab account is a mark of status and accomplishment that many Merchants both deserve and can afford. Having access to that level of marketing power would be a sure-fire way for someone to break out of the minor leagues and really gain a toehold in with the Big Names. So wouldn't it make sense to offer a Linden Lab "Recommended" marketing campaign that is open to all, with a price commensurate with the value offered? First of all, it has already been established that there was no "price" involved. No one had to pay to be a part of the Promotion. So how would you price the value of the promotion? Second, as outlined in my previous reply in this thread, do you seriously want content promotion to be "open to all" including those who allegedly sell copybotted or copyrighted content? Third, if Linden Lab is trying to generate interest in the Marketplace, don't you think that the email campaign should highlight some of the best and brightest sellers/creators instead of the botton of the barrel stuff? (not saying anyone specifically is bottom of the barrel, just pointing out the folly of the claims that any promotion should be "open to all"). Fourth, alluding to a "Linden Lab Recommended" campaign, based on the vocal outrage in this thread, I am sure that any tagging of items as "Linden Lab Recommended" will result in just as much dirt kicking and crying about how it "isn't fair" because someone's items weren't picked.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Jacob, I think you may have taken the wrong meaning from this thread. If I may, I'd like to try and focus on what seems to have been overlooked. In order to express "Entitlement", one must also feel that something is owed to you. As in, some rule somewhere says it has to be that way. As you rightly point out there are no such rules in the ToS .. or any other legal document or agreement between Merchants that use the SL Marketplace and Linden Lab. We know that very well, and that's not what has us up in arms. Any sense of entitlement that we do express emanates from the belief that a level playing field is by far the most productive and efficient mechanism for a thriving and profitable commercial environment. There are "adjustments" that are made in any market to account for circumstances that arise, but ideally the fewer adjustments needed, the better the market will perform. The marketing email that went out was a form of "adjustment". Specifically it was an unneeded adjustment, and it served only to skew the market in a way that didn't really help anyone. It certainly did not help those not included in the promotion. And the resulting outrage and tumult it created has not helped the bottom lines of those that were included either. And Linden Lab lost a bit in the process too. So all in all, lose-lose. Again. This is not a market that tolerates heavy-handed adjustments. It is very carefully balanced .. in its own odd way. But it works, has worked well and continues to work well. Many times in the past, when outside forces have injected adjustments such as this, it has always turned out badly because those types of changes just do not work here. So bottom line? The thing we feel owed us is a place where the operation and aura of the market are honestly understood by the managers of the market. Entitlement? Yeah .. to a place where we all have an equal chance .. to thrive or fail on our own merits .. and without capricious or ill-considered tinkering from those that don't really understand how it all works. 1. What do you mean by 'adjustment'? 2. How do you know it didn't help the sellers who were promoted in the ad and email?

Replying to thread, not to individual peeps The sheer volume of "entitlement" in this thread is horrible! I just spent WAY too much time of my life reading through this since the original page or so seemed like it was bringing up something worth reading, but that flew out the window so fast. First of all, we have no way of knowing why the lab rats chose the selers they did. I didn't see anything official posted, only tons and tons of slanderous speculation. Regardless of why, though, have any of you stopped to think about how your diatribres might be affecting those who were picked? Probably not. Through no fault of their own, you all have basically impliled to the entire community that the only reason why those sellers got picked is because they kiss Lindens butt. If I were one of those "select merchants" who were picked, I would really be thinking right now about how utterly hateful other sellers can be. Second of all, through the years, it has been said, time and time again, that the Marketplace is getting junked up with stolen stuff, free stuff, sub-par stuff, etc. And yet, post after post is demanding that promotions like this be opened up to everyone. I guess that includes those who resell freebie's, alleged stolen content, alleged copybotted content, junky stuff, and stuff that just hasn't sold at all in 2 or 3 years? Are you bloody serious? Third, as a consumer, not a seller, I want to see the good stuff. I am in NO WAY, saying that those posting here do not have quality goods, but the ones who were picked clearly do. As for why they were picked over others, we have to wait and hope that TPTB decide to answer the calls in this thread and say something officially regarding the promotion. Fourth, again, as a consumer, I am more interested in what the top sellers/brands have on sale or promotion for the holiday than some unknown knock-off. Again, I am not saying that anyone in this thread does, I am saying it as a general opinion about what brands I want to be reading about for holiday sales/promotions. I couldn't care one blind mouses ear hair that some knock-off brand android phone may be on sale at tech center wherehouse, I want to see what Apple brand iPhones are on sale. Or what brand Samsung Galaxy S5's or S6's might be on sale. Sure, XXX brand might be nice. Might even be a really decent alternative, but I am not looking for an alternative, I am looking for a well known brand item that might be deeply discounted enough to wiggle those dollars out of my wallet. Fifth, every year that I have been in SL, sellers have complained that their sales have dropped off during the holidays. EVERY year. Sorry, complaining that sales tanked after the email went out is anecdotal at best, and cannot be positively shown to have a correlation to anyone's drop in sales. It might just be the other way around. Sales drop off, and Linden sent the email out at the same time that the sales drop EVERY FREAKING YEAR! at the beginning of the holidays seasons. No where in the TOU does it say that Lindens will treat every one of us exactly the same. I looked. If that were the case, the.n everyone with a free account would be getting the same perks benefits and attention that those huge land barons are getting and I bet you that they are not. When I owned a region, I got a nice set of additional support than I have just by having a monthly paid account. I would bet dimes to dollars that those who own 10, 15, 20+ regions probably have direct line phone numbers to the top of support while the rest of us have to create cases and hope for the best. Do you REALLY expect to be treated the same way? As someone pointed out, either in this thread or another, economy is a numbers game. Spending revenue to promote a seller who has 20 items and 5 sales a month is a waste of resources when you can spend the same amount to promote someone who have 500+ items and makes 300 sales a day. I like to think that the sellers who were picked actually earned that opportunity through their hard work and dedication. No, not everyone can put in the same time that they have because most of us have lives outside of SL to live. If that is the case, then why begrudge them their dedication? Do you think it makes you look bad when someone else succeeded? If you have a job outside of SL, do you demand that your company pay you the same as they pay the CEO, because, well, it just isn't "fair" that they get more money than you do? Fine, you were not picked. Guess what? You have a year to make a difference before the 2016 holiday season starts. If they pick the exact same sellers next year that they did this year, then fine, you can claim the promotion wasn't fair, but until then, all you can really claim is that you weren't picked this year. I see a lot of people complaining about the marketplace. People dont use it. you have more sales in world, it costs money, and on and on and on. Seems to me that this promotion picked some of the top peeps to use to try to generate interest in using the Marketplace. I wouldn't think that was a bad thing, since the hardest part is getting people to show up in the first place. Seems to me that everyone was treated equal. No one who was picked said that they had to pay gobs of money to be included. Not one said that they had to own regions in world. No one said that free accounts were not considered for the promotion. Nothing. Other than one post from someone who said that they were in a group where the group owner/creator was picked and did not have to pay, nothing has been said about the process. Until we know for sure, if we ever do, crying about how it isn't fair only makes the sellers in this thread look like they are a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum in a sand box and threatening to take their toys and go home. If you have a brand that isn't well known, then maybe you need to spend time learning to build up your brand name recognition? If your products aren't as high quality, maybe now would be a good time to step back and work on the little things that make your products stand out? If you rely solely on the marketplace to actualy market your brand and products, maybe now is the time to see what other options are out there, like your own web site, your own group? Heck it could be as simple as reformatting how you write up your item descriptions? There are 5+ language options on the marketplace, how many of you take the time to translate your items into each language so that those who do not speak "murican" can read through your product listings? So far, the only commonality positviely known between all of the sellers who were picked is that they have a presence on the marketplace. Maybe now is the time to see if you can figure out how to improve yours, instead of crying about how unfair it all is. In the mean time, make note of my name. Everyone in this thread who has complained will NOT be seeing my name on any orders from your stores in the near future. Happy Holidays and I truly do hope that each of you see an increase in your sales, and good health. (edit: holy wall'o'text Batman!! One would think the formatting would keep my paragraph breaks)

Yo Darrius, Sorry you didn't get the sarcasm in my post. Next time I will preferace it with tags. <sarcasm> </sarcasm> just to help you out The LAST damn thing I want from Linden Lab is for them to set up a way for a bunch of know-it-alls to have a way to blast my email address with form messages about my stuff. So, no. You have had a lot of really awesome suggestions over the years for how TPTB could truly make things better, but this time, I cannot agree with you on this idea.

If you get the redirect pop up, just cancel it. You can then log into the site.

Did you get an email from them? It should have told you why they removed the item.