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Direct Delivery FAQ


Brooke Linden
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Peewee Musytari wrote:

I assume if deliveries work when we are offline, that they are sent from the database and not actually dependant on how much of our inventory decides to load that day.

At least I hope so lol
:D

Yes - Magicboxs or any form of DD model will all still allow SLM sales to happen if you are logged in or not.  The question would be ... what happens to your SLM sales in the DD model "IF" LL decides to lock or disable your account for what ever AR reason? 

Currently iIn this situation - even though your Avatar account is blocked or temporarily banned - your inworld sales will continue as well as your SLM sales (since the Magicbox operates independantly from your account even being enabled).  As long as the objects stay rezzed - sales continue to happen. 

But I would have to assume that if FOR WHATEVER REASON your account is blocked or disabled or banned, then your SLM sales could stop dead (not your inworld sales).

Now... the big question is how this new independent Merchant Associated SLM Inventory concept (if this is how I understand the new DD API will work and that the SLM system folders in a Merchant's inventory are just Proxy Links to this other SLM inventory) would work.  These new sets of inventories will require some affinity to the Merchant's main account but would this new blob of SLM Inventory be impacted if the Merchant's account is impacted?

On the positive side - IF this is how the new DD model will work and the SLM inventory is simply a proxied folder to our main inventory folder... this has some potential benefits (if LL designed this right or even thought of it).  Since it would be an independent SLM Merchant Folder... there is the possibility that multiple SL accounts could link to this SLM folder in the same simultaneous way as the main merchant.  Your main and your ALT accounts could possibly have the same proxied links to this SLM inventory (with the right permissions).  Your account and your SL Business partners could all have access to this SLM inventory.

But as Dakota mentioned clearly to me this week - all I can do is speculate based on the small crumbs of information that Brooke is reluctantly willing to provide us.  Thing is, it doesnt take much info from her to start calculating & reverse engineering what the LL Development Team is secretly creating.

The announcement from Brooke about this new API and that DD will not / cannot be forced upon the Merchants until the API is fully incorporated by all 3PV players... that was a HUGE GEM of design knowledge released.  It tell us that are on the outside of this secret DD development - what the LL DD team is possibly doing.

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I've been doing a bit of thinking about the design and the implications and the more I think about this the more I think that this little set of folders are going to revolutionise the relationship between SLM and content creators.  Last year they threatened that 2010 was going to be the year they focussed on content creators -  well, I suspect they haven't finished with us yet. OK, it assumes LL has native business intelligence of course and I'm probably ascribing a level of sophistication to their thinking that is completely unwarranted based on past performance but you just never know.

I think I'll see about the ice cream and popcorn concession for this one.

 

 

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>I assume if deliveries work when we are offline, that they are sent from the database and not actually dependant on how much of our inventory decides to load that day.

Even if this is correct, will it not mean that the stuff people want from me will be in one less place to look for it when the other place or places is/are inaccessible?

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Not really Josh.  As far as the shopper will know... if they buy it inworld - your inworld rezzed vendors will service them.  If they buy in from your SLM store, from the hints that Brooke gave in the FAQ, the item will be delivered from a brand new separate SLM MARKETPLACE Inventory as a DB transfer from this NEW Inventory DB fo the Buyer's personal Inventory located on the main ASSET SERVER DB.

What I think Brooke hinted at in the FAQ is a much bigger and revolutionary change to all of our AVATAR's Inventories that goes far beyond DD....

Brooke has let slip that LL is going to release the first edition of what is called FEDERATED INVENTORIES.  This has some potentially huge advantages... (and some related new concerns).  I posted in these forums about it but I cleaned up my posting and created a blog about it...

http://toytalks.weebly.com/1/post/2011/05/slm-direct-delivery-faq-hints-new-sl-federated-inventories.html

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Josh Susanto wrote:

OK, I can get behind the idea of separate inventories, in principle.

Thank you.

I would say the same thing too "IN PRINCIPLE".  This whole concept also introduces several technical issues that would have to be dealt with (as my blog post hinted) like Security permissions and sharing of bought items and issues with synchronization processes.  The other fear behind it is LL's Develpment Teams have a history of not fully thinking through most new solutions.  They seem to half bake it and throw it into production and let their customer find the bugs - which they tend to fix (but not before it causes a lot of grief).

But... assuming this is how LL plans to deploy the DD solution for SLM, we can start thinking what the potential issues could be for the up coming DD.

So to recap on the extrapolated theory, this is how the new DD Service will possibly work when its deployed....

 

  1. Shoppers/Buyers of the SLM will not require a viewer with this API since the new DD service will deposit the purchased items directly into a newly created LL System Folder in the Buyer's personal inventory.  This SLM-INGOING folder will be where the SLM DD will deposit this item(s) as part of a server based transaction (SQL transaction) between Asset DBs/tables.  (as such - the buyer does not have to be logged into SL to immediately receive the item bought).
  2. Merchants will REQUIRE a viewer (LL or 3PV) that has this yet-released API.  The API is required only for Merchants that are pushing SLM Items (folders of items) into this newly created MARKETPLACE INVENTORY.
  3. Since the API is needed for Merchants to use the new DD, one must assume that MagicBoxes will not be banned by LL and DD will not be forced upon us until all 3PV creators like Phoenix have fully deployed this API.  They have too much market presence for LL to go forward without these 3PV Vendors on-board.
  4. As part of DD deploy, Merchants will each get created this new SLM OUTGOING "Special" System folder.  It is not like any of the other System Folders because this folder has interactions with the new "Federated Inventory" API.
  5. LL will be creating a completely new MARKETPLACE INVENTORY that will be the new source of all SLM items being sold on the SLM.  I would hope this would be an inventory on a completely new ASSET DB or even ASSET Server.
  6. Merchants will also likely have to somehow register into the new DD service.  Why?  Because this new Marketplace Inventory will require each Merchant to have an account or presence in it.  Unlike the main asset server which creates an SL account presence when you create your account in SL - every SL account has a presence.... For this Marketplace Inventory it will likely only have accounts of those SL Residents that are Merchants of SLM.  It will likely be permission tied to your Main account.  BUT, from Brooke hinted that No-Copy items cannot be copied over because their permissions, this tells me this new inventory is not just an extension of our main account.  Its like a special SLM Alt form of relationship with our main SL account.
  7. Once everything is setup for a Merchant, basically if you drop an Item that you want to sell in SLM (or even a folder of unboxed items), you simply copy and paste the item from either your main inventory or your current magicbox into this new SLM OUTGOING folder.  What happens next? ... see next point
  8. Any new or changed item in this new SLM OUTGOING folder in your main inventory is COPIED (actually 1-way synched is the better term) via background SQL transactions on the servers to this new Marketplace Inventory - under your new receiving SLM Merchant folder (for you).
  9. The SLM system will now interact directly with this Marketplace Inventory copy of your items... NOT your items in your main personal inventory or anything in the SLM OUTGOING folder.
  10. This copying is actuall a SYNCH process because if you want to remove an item from your Marketplace Inventory, you would simply delete it from your OUTGOING folder and the API would delete the corresponding item in your Marketplace Inventory.  The API keeps the Marketplace Inventory synchronized with your SLM Outgoing folder.  Its the Master. 

So... based on this, we Merchants outside the DD NDA Beta program can start speculating what the implications are with this model.

 

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> The other fear behind it is LL's Develpment Teams have a history of not fully thinking through most new solutions. 

Yeah, that. 

SL is still a pretty new thing, so it's harder to anticipate consequences to technical changes than it might be with things in other industries. We should not be surprised that some things go badly. In fact we should bes sur´prised that a lot of things have not gone worse.

My tone of  unease, though, has more to do with LL failing to anticipate problems that users seem to have no problem anticipating, and the pattern they have established (and are now doing something to get away from, at least, ok) in which they focus on how a change improves the system and they ignore the downside, regardless of the comparative importance of these two types of differences for users who actually have reason to care.

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Hi all,

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback, questions and discussion. I have updated the FAQ with clarifications and additional questions. Note that I have not addressed all questions that have come up in this thread--we'd like to be further along on the implementation and testing process before we share more details on how Direct Delivery will work. As stated in the FAQ, we plan to have this information out to the Merchant community no later than 2 weeks before the Beta launches.

In order to make it easier to identify what's changed in the FAQ, here are the new questions/clarifications that have been added (not counting minor wording changes).

I’m concerned about unboxed items arriving in my inventory and inflating the size. Have considerations been made to sync performance and potential inventory loss issues?
Yes. For products listed on the Marketplace using Direct Delivery, the number of objects per folder will be limited. This will require Merchants selling large numbers of object in the same listing to box objects within their folder hierarchy.

What does no copy item mean?
It means the item is no copy for the merchant selling the item.

Will Merchants need to keep adding 1 unit to no copy item listings each time 1 unit sells?
No. We have simplified this process and created a mechanism for combining units that Merchants may choose to use.

Will it be communicated to consumers whether an item will be delivered boxed or unboxed?
Yes, a mechanism will be provided to allow Merchants to communicate this information to the purchaser.

Will a viewer update be required to view and access contents of the incoming and outgoing folders?
No. These folders will appear as system folders under the root inventory folder on viewers that do not treat these folders as special.

Will Third-Party Viewers need to use the new API to support Direct Delivery?
Not for receipt of items delivered by Direct Delivery. If Third-Party Viewers want to treat the incoming and outgoing folders as regular system folders, no development will be required. The API will only be required for listing items on the Marketplace.

When will changes to Direct Delivery start appearing in production?
Direct Delivery changes will be deployed when the Beta is launched--no Direct Delivery changes will be released before that time.

Will Magic Boxes always be available?
Eventually Magic Boxes will be retired, but no firm date has been set. We have identified success metrics and merchant confidence levels that will need to be met before we set dates for this step.

Brooke

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I have read the posts, I have contributed, I have read the sensible speculations that have been suggested, and all the while I keep thinking of one thing... We have to change the system because it is too complex for new residents when they have an item delivered boxed and have to open the box... at least, that is what appeared initially.

Hmmmm on the one hand, simplifying a system that was already so simple we learn it on day one.  On the other hand, introducing a complexity that is not present with the magic box system.  I don't have three hands or four, so I can't add more here.  It now appears that, if something is white and everyone sees it as white and understands it as white, then it must now be changed to black.

Hell if I can see how this DD can be an improved system, a better system, a simplified system.  And I don't want to hear any whines about delivery failures with the magic boxes, just give the customer another copy and be glad they bought from you in the first place, it's only pixels after all and provided their money appears in your wallet, nothing is lost.  Avarice destroys business, good customer relations enhances it... just like listening to customers (are you reading this LL?), listening is the only way forward.  You will find imposition and intractibility listed under dictatorship.  

What inititally appeared to me as a step forward now, from seeing various angles in this thread, is a total disaster that is as unnecessary as was changing XStreet to the Marketplace.  I don't want pretty pretty dressed in pink with satin bows, I, like others, want stability.  Microsoft introduced pretty pretty with Vista, even they had to swallow their pride. 

I listen to my customers... are we not the customers of LL?  Was there even a need for this thread?  Will not the system go ahead exactly as planned irrespective of what we question, want, request or even need?

The worldwide economy is still in a precarious condition... the SL economy reflects that.  The money for such research and development would have been better spent by another department dedictated to making the inworld experience lag free (if ever such a thing can be achieved).

But I ramble knowing that Brooke opened the thread and said she would review the comments a week later.  I guess only interested merchants will now read anything that is here and then, some months down the road, watch as yet another new idea fails disastrously with the only impact being upon the wallets of merchants.

 

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So I am thinking that based on zero response the theory on exactly how the DD Internals actually works - from several fellow Merchants that I normally would have fully expected to agree, expand upon, amend, or utter disagree with - that we can figure out who of our fellow merchants are participating in this DD ALPHA BETA and have signed NDAs which would force them not to hint to the rest of the Merchant community the secrets that LL has already passed on to them.

But since no one - not even LL - has denied the DD design does not operate this way... seems I am pretty close to the actual way that the new DD will work.

Cool!

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Thanks very much for keeping everyone so well informed Brooke!

 

I hope everyone will take note of what you say about satisfaction levels that will need to be met. That means we will experience having some half-baked thing thrust upon us as we did when Xstreet was prematurely disabled and the MP thurst upon us still in beta state (or alpha).

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