April Looming

Amethyst Jetaime wrote: The TOS does not say that you have to pay campers in cash to be illegal. It says: "6.3 Additional rules of conduct apply to users of Second Life: In addition to the rules set forth in Sections 6.1 and 6.2 above, you agree that you will not: (i) Use robots or other automated means to increase traffic to any Virtual Land;" I hadn't thought about a gift-giver as an "automated means to increase traffic". That's a pretty loose interpretation. With a loose interpretation, you cold lump in: "Mob-vend", "Lucky chairs", random prize givers like at Bare Rose... etc. I think prize chairs are OK. And this idea seems like a good one for a product. Maybe a Linden could chime in and tell us?

I taught a class on this topic for Builders Brewery for a couple of years. Details I shared in that class are now on a static page in my blog: http://wildstylefashions.blogspot.com/p/operating-profitable-business-in-second.html Hope the info there helps.

You can have a timer event do more than one thing though. They just won't happen at exactly the same tame. I've seen SL take a LONG time to load sounds initially, so playing sounds and sync with animation can be a real problem. The first / second / third time through, the anim may play with no sound.

My point about "free" things was that there's no L$ cost. You're right that there's a time cost.

Madeliefste - Strawberry Singh was on Plurk just this morning on that very topic - asking opinions about skins. Yes, skins are very personal; but I think they are also subject to some of these same principles - People need to be able to find your products They should be well made Unique products can offer something distinctive With skins, unlike some products, demos are mandatory.

Great discussion! I love hearing the different experiences here too. Yes, clothing seems to have the most competition, but I think that the same principles which work in that environment also work in less competitive environments.

Abount marketing: Word of mouth is the best, but you have to reach at least one person in order to start that "word of mouth" chain reaction. To reach people, you have to be visible. You have to be easily found in search. When people see your creations in SL and inspect them for creator, your profile should point to your store. When you create new things, you can blog them (free) and have them show up on the feeds you're syndicated to (free). If you have lots of contacts on Flikr (free), you can post to Flikr and people will see your teaser there (be careful not to make it look like an AD, because Flikr might delete it... I believe in free advertizing to start that "word of mouth" chain reaction. Hunts are usually free to join, so those work too. Events that charge commission (like Charity events) will be profitable and get your name out too.

Great point about tools. In last night's class, one of the students mentioned that Maya and 3DS Max are better tools to learn for Mesh because you can market yourself to companies that do game design, and don't allow things to be made with Blender. People countered that Blender is free, and he countered with "there are ways to get the others for free", to which I replied "I suggest you don't do that". Point taken - expenses outside of SL are still expenses.

I talk to a lot of people who would be happy making a profit at all... which is part of what inspired me to put this out there.

I followed the link and see something about ads on SL Universe, and a few threads that don't seem related to economics. I'm thinking more in terms of basic guidelines for merchants on what works and what doesn't, what costs are associated with selling in SL, whether people are making money in SL and how they're doing it, that sort of thing.

For roughly the last year, I've been teaching a weekly class at Builders' Brewery on Operating a profitable business in SL. Over 500 people have attended the class, with almost unanimous praise. One of the many questions I got from attendees was "Are there any forums where people discuss economics in SL?" I'm not sure, other than here. So I thought I would kick off the topic and see what people have to say. I'm releasing the information I shared in my classes on my blog: http://wildstylefashions.blogspot.com/p/operating-profitable-business-in-second.html

Affiliate programs have 3 risks: Fraud: They require you to give your debit permissions; and with that there is a risk of your L$ account being drained. Image: They dilute your "brand image" if you have items you made yourself and you mix affiliate vendors in the same space. Financial: They take prims in a place where you have fixed expense for rent, and they may never generate revenue. Also, if there was an upfront cost to "buy in" to the affiliate program, you may never recoup that cost. ----- I used to speak about this in my "Operating a profitable business in SL" class at Builders' Brewery, but I decided to remove my thoughts on the topic to shorten the class. My thoughts: Fraud risk: The risk of L$ account being drained can be mitigated by using an ALT account, and having it pay you frequently. Also, only use affiliate vending systems like Hippo or Caspervend, which have a long standing reputation that would be trashed if they drained everyone, pulled up stakes and left for a country with no extradition treaty. Maybe there's only a 0.001% chance of that; but use an alt anyway. Image: Make sure that affiliate vendors are segregated from anything you make, so that they don't impact your brand's unique image. Financial: Avoid affiliate programs where you have to "buy in", because you only get a % from each sale (20%-50% usually), and that doesn't go as far towards paying the rent for those prims inworld as things you make yourself where you get 100% of the sale price. You have to realize that you may have ZERO sales or maybe 1 sale a month from affiliate vendors, even if you're in a crazy high traffic area (because the traffic is all dancing and flirting and not shopping). Yes, your experience may vary; but the risk is that the vendors might not produce income enough to pay your expenses. When you invest in an affiliate program's vendors, you're in direct competition with all other affiliates, and the main store itself. You won't be able to benefit from group notices, and in fact, group notices from the designer that direct people to the main store direct them away from your affiliate store. So is it "safe" to enter into any affiliate program? That depends on how many customers you can direct to your affiliate store.

This will help with the negative scale issue: http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4471

Did a little Google search to add more to this thread... http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/8/cd/305651/1.html http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Technical/Temporary-prims-versus-rezzables/qaq-p/1300501 The first link has a link to the second... The maximum temporary prims allowed are based on the regular prim limit: (regular_prim_limit - current_regular_prims) + minimum(0.5 * regular_prim_limit + 400, 1000) See this forum post and SVC-2380[c] for details. If the two parcels are close to their prim limit and using 1000 additional (temp rez) prims each, they might be using everyone else's temp prims too. I'd complain to the landlord if you have one, or create an abuse report if you're on mainland.

I bookmarked this thread because it's just so COOL. Offsetting the camera to the side seems to make navigating SL a little more difficult, at least for me. So I went straight down, just so I could see the whole avie. This seems to work best for me: CameraOffsetRearView X = -2.700 Y = 0.000 Z = 0.250 FocusOffsetRearView X = 0.900 Y = 0.000 Z = 0.500

I really wanted to get an item uploaded to Marketplace, and I just needed to do some final testing... Grrr. Well, I guess I can write up descriptions and help notes offline... What else can we do but wait?

To all the people who said the OP has no recourse, and the LL won't get involved: I agree. Here's the proof: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Transactions-and-disputes-between-Residents/ta-p/799395 Quoted: ------------------------------- People sometimes seek help with questions such as the following: I rented a land parcel from another Resident and they are taking it back from me, even though I paid the fees or rent. Another Resident is not upholding their agreement regarding real estate, group management, performance of services, or division of revenue. I paid for something, but didn't receive it as promised. I provided something, but the buyer didn't pay for it as promised. However, Linden Lab cannot verify, enforce, certify, examine, uphold, or adjudicate any oath, contract, deal, bargain, or agreement made by the Residents of Second Life. Nor does Linden Lab enforce or uphold rental agreements between Residents. While you may have a valid agreement with another person, Linden Lab is not a party to and cannot resolve your dispute. Please contact the Resident involved and resolve the issue with them. ------------------------------- So there you have it.

Ok, so if there was a "denial of service" attack, then how are people logging into and using the forums? They're at community.secondlife.com, and being at secondlife.com, wouldn't the forums be non-responsive during a DOS attack?

Ditto what ToySoldier said. If that were true, if I hire a DJ in RL to play at my house, I would need to get a license in RL? That can't be true. Nobody does that.

Re: "It's best to just keep a throw away checking account that costs you maybe $5.00 a month to keep and only put money in that account as needed to make your online purchases." I totally agree, except it's better to use a Credit Union that has FREE checking accounts. I have a FREE checking account that I use just for PayPal. Sounds like the OP is leaving SL anyway, but for anyone else reading this and contemplating what to do, I think we have a consensus on the tips and tricks

RE: "It would be difficult to form a legal argument which said that the Second Life's PRIMARY reason for existing and the main activity of its users was illegal file sharing." I saw in the news the other day that a drunk driver is suing the estate of someone he KILLED in an accident that he admits he caused, for $15000. Will he have trouble proving his argument? Sure! That didn't stop a court from hearing the case. So just imagine your average SL griefer thinking "hmmm. This sounds like fun." No need to actually have his argument win; just tie up SL in legal action. What if LL doesn't have the cash to fight a bunch of legal battles? What if the merchants that depend on SL for their main income face a potential shutdown? I believe SL would be a very different place.

Not sure what you're saying there :smileytongue: I started a thread on SOPA and PIPA in the Merchants forum, because I think we may need to organize in defense of SL when crazy legislation like this comes along. If it cost $50-$500USD to upload a file because Linden Labs had to check it for Copyright infringement before approving? Those digital outfits I make would have to cost RL money. The economy would change drastically.

Temp Rezzers = bad. I used one for a while for bits of my sky box, and if it's not set to create another copy of the item before the last copy times out, then you get a second where there's nothing. Or maybe the server takes too long to rez the new copy even with an overlap because it's too overloaded. I think people can AR (create an Abuse Report) on an object on Mainland that is hogging an unfair share of resources. So if you don't mind having LL come and take your Temp Rezzer, and you don't mind your stuff disappearing every x minutes, then go right ahead! :matte-motes-wink:

All I recall from setting it up a few years ago was having a PayPal account login, and that was it. I didn't think Paypal could report to LL what funding source they use behind the scenes. BUT: Why not set PayPal up with a link to an account? I was paranoid about it at first, so I started a checking account specifically to tie to PayPal. That made it easier to track what I earned from SL. After years of no mysterious unauthorized activity, I have a lot more trust in PayPal. They only charge something like $1 to transfer money out to your bank, and I think transfers IN are free.

Ok, all this mention of SOPA and PIPA on Google and Wikipedia has me freaked out. Has anyone thought about what the ramifications might be to SL? If we had to pay maybe $35USD to upload a file so they could check it manually for Copyright infringement? That would mean L$8750 or so for an upload... but what if it cost more? Like $500USD per file? If Linden Labs had to start charging a lot more for uploads, what would happen? Am I just worried for no reason? Should we be rallying to tell our Congresspeople "Vote NO" to save SL? I hear there's a promised veto, but what about the next time? Can we, should we, band together to protect SL from having to face scary new legislation? Should we have an SL Political Action Committee or suggest something like that for LL? A lot of big companies have PACs. Comments? Thoughts? Too off-topic?