The Developer's Incentive Award, dubbed the Dwellopers' Award by Second Life wits, is about to go the way of the dinosaur. The Lindens are weaning off their tit the hundreds of top producers in our virtual world, saying that the incentive was part of the "priming of the pump" meant to kick-start the virtual economy that cashes out to real-life dollars, but can no longer be justified.
The Forums FIC are happy to see it go, mainly because they are jealous of it and aren't on it themselves lol (when people always accuse others of jealousy each time they criticize the FIC, we get a window into their own fetid brains, consumed as *they* are with jealousy).
Yet much that is compelling and even beautiful will be lost from the world when this incentive goes -- and I continue to view it not as welfare, but the kind of incentive that unpaid partners in this Grand Expedition really should be getting given the incredible people hours they put into this game. I mean monetarized socializing platform thingie.
Many people believe that the end of Dwellopers is due to the camp-chair phenom, where scripted chairs can be utilized by the hordes of poor masses in SL to earn dollars for doing nothing. They park their asses in the chair, it runs up $3 per 10 minutes or $10 per 15 minutes, or forces you to play casinos and lose your gains or prove you are awake periodically. Yes, camp chairs are partly a cause of inflation, but far from the only cause (I view the land glut as the chief culprit) and partly a devaluation of dwellopers -- but not a reason for having to kill it.
I think the Lindens should give -- but revise Dwellopers. They should continue to find ways to give merit for traffic -- traffic does continue as a meaningful indicator, even when it is gamed.
I don't think a $4000 US prize for an artistic teen, or subsidzing educational sims that benefit SNOOPYBrown Zamboni and Satchmo Prototype and other Special Friends, are a good substitute for Dwellopers. That is, they're great, they're fine, and they no doubt serve a purpose, especially the teen grant, but they aren't the point when it comes time to find ways of really incentivizing and rewarding the people who pour huge amounts of not only their time and talent but often investment funds into this world.
I think the Lindens should have some kind of Business Improvement District or Chamber of Commerce Awards or something that emphatically appreciates, incentivizes, and rewards business very frankly and unabashedly, so that the social engineering/utopian/hippie commune pinko sort of taint that constant clings to their breast (in part becaues they *are* some of those things) can dispel a bit so that their world can grow wider and they can get more ordinary investors, too.
This Chamber of Commerce type of thing should be live, in person, and manual, not an automatic thing from traffic. Traffic should serve as one indicator only. This panel of Lindens should get up off their asses, go out in the world, and spend time in it. Yeah, I realize their time is valuable and critical, but so is the time of people doing all these lots with the compelling content on it. They should review it, and pick winners each month. No, they shouldn't worry about screaming on the forums about their favourites if they rotate it each month.
And frankly, rotating it each month doesn't mean having Adam Zaius and Ouranos builders like Oz Spade win all the building contests month after month, and it wouldn't mean just applauding Anshe Chung month after month, even though she does deserve a huge round of sustained applause from these scientists at the Lab each month for just making it possible for thousands of people to stay perched on this Pet Rock in the Sky for long enough to overcome their initial confusion if not disgust at the complexities of this tekkie-centric game.
The awards could be made considerably smaller, and given out even just in Lindens. They should emphatically reward BUSINESS because that's what these people are in the dwellopers' list.
Look at them. These are not people who study 18th century poetry by candlelight. These are people who grab sim bulls by the horn and wrestle them to the ground and actually make money off these laggy, crashy, money-sink holes in the Internet called My Sims. Reward them, please. They actually make money -- after first spending money, and often lots of it! -- and pay tier -- most of the tier.
What these people are in, is not just content creation -- note that you don't find actually a lot of content creators as such in this list. What they are not in is merely casinos and camp chairs -- again, study the list and you'll see it's not wall-to-wall camping. What many are creating is not just inventoriable content, but non-inventoriable content in the form of theme sims, entertainment sims, rentals, worlds. These are the creators of worlds -- worlds within the world that LL itself made. They are the "your world/your imagination" people. They should not be shafted, nor should LL turn their backs on them in the name of some higher, elusive social goal.
They may not be as aesthetic as LL had hoped. They may not feel they are as bleeding edge as the Suicide Girls. But they are the working middle class of SL. Cherish them. And help make it possible for more of them to come into being.
Some Lindens will tell you that camp chairs didn't really factor into dwellopment removal. I think that the phase-out of Dwellopers was part of a long-term plan the Lindens had in their minds even a year ago, as they have methodically gone down the list, getting rid of ratings stipends (picking up bonuses to your $500 stipend just for being pos-rated in a club), getting rid of events grants (which club owners picked up just for giving prizes to their friends for wearing tartan in the tartan contests, etc.).
No doubt other incentives and subsidies are also slated for removal: first land for $512; the free 512; the $500 a week stipend; the $50 a week stipend; the low cost of $10 texture uploads (their wear on the asset server costs a lot more than what the Lindens can take out of the economy this way)
With all this prattling about the welfare economy, I never hear any of these armchair math wizzes think of the following (and I'm really bad at math): yes, I get a $500 stipend. The Lindens just print it up. When I take it out of their economy into USD, I suck out their fake money and get real money for it, or I spend it and others do the same thing -- that's said to be inflationary. But another thing I do every week is spend $10 on texture uploads, including turning snapshots into the textures I need to put in land for FIND ads, etc. Do I spend $500 a week on texture uploads? I do, as I maintain anywhere from 25 to 50 or more FIND and CLASSIFIEDS ads per week, all requiring texture uploads, and usually fresh ones to keep the interest. People use the texture uploads promiscuously, sometimes seeing something funny in the game, and paying the $10 just to send a snapshot to their friend right in the game who they could just tp to see the same thing for free with their own eyes lol. So the $500 I get from the Lindens, a good chunk goes to their "money sink" of texture uploads.
Maybe if the Lindens are so worried about their own bottom line, maybe they should stop burning the dollars that come in from texture uploads and take them as real cash? But...that would upset their careful mathematical game called "sources and sinks" which they keep playing with their toy world, oblivious to the fact that for a lot of people, this world has become very real in all sorts of ways, reflected in money and not reflected in money.
Look at the Dwellopers list. Many of the names are famous -- the same names that were on the Leader Boards which the Lindens have sequestered and secreted away, like so many bad forums posts being modded by resmods. Part of the Special File, like the Kremlin used to keep, which we hope some day historians will be able to glimpse.
Meanwhile, take this snapshot of what our life was like in February 2006. Looking at these names seriously and carefully, you'd have to say that in fact, camp-chair kings are far and few among them. That is, some of them use dance pads or money balls or camp chairs as part of their menu of activity on their parcels. But long before camp chairs existed, and long after they stop being meaningful, they had other activities and "content value-add" that sustained their sim economies.
The Lindens say the Dwellopers didn't work as they planned. They probably imagined some sort of high-minded set of people in 100-percent cotton longjohns made by unexploited Guatemalan peasants working on socially-beneficial communal projects that only used 1/5 of the electricity of many third-world countries, even being part of a high-wired, highly-connected Internet thingie. They probably figured all kinds of educational, cultural, artistic, and high-tech projects would emerge on this edu-grid that they subsidized like a non-profit with very high-minded ideals.
I'm sure it's been a crushing blow to them to see that even those people drinking the non-exploited organic whole bean coffee grown by cheerful Colombian peasants who are recipients of MacArthur Foundation grants subsidizing micro-credit schemes turn out to just like sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. I mean, whoops, let me update that: sex, addictive online worlds, and techno and world music -- which is what they get in SL.
People came and developed something different. They didn't develop what the Lindens wanted to be developed. But they didn't develop what the scornful forum FIC claim they developed, which is just Tringo and sexay avatar contests that cause Lordfly to have eyebleeds.
What they developed can be seen in this list. I don't even know half the people in this list, so I hope readers will correct and add so that we can understand, just what it is that the top producers of SL developed, as we can tell from this snapshot, and what the Lindens sustained in these months of developer awards. If I don't know the person or have nothing to say, I'm leaving it blank for others to fill in.
Anshe Chung -- the premier real estate developer and creator of Dreamland, a separate realm with its own themes, rules, values and a brisk internal resident-to-resident land-sale economy. Anshe is said to make $150,000 a year and to have millions invested and remaining in SL; she probably runs 500 servers (more?) and owns a reported 40 percent of all land sales.
Nexxus Ambassador -- I believe this is the alt of the Azure Islands GIGAS project, another huge island deeds dealer with a separate realm of homes, shops, and businesses including their secondserver.net shopping site
Hiro Queso -- Among the most praised landlords on the islands, creator of island realms who returned to SL to deal in mainland parcels, then left for the islands. Unlike Anshe, he does not sell the deeds but gives them free for tier.
Jvizzle Jacques
Mike Kraken
Tony Beckett -- Owner of the Alliez islands, also praised in the forums (though some of these posters may be shills as they appear very methodically) -- a separate realm of islands with beautiful properties and great customer service.
Jenna Fairplay -- SL's premier club owner and creator of magical sims for rentals and special events, the Edge is probably the first club most newbies go to and many find employment there
Stroker Serpentine
Obscuro Valkyrie -- one of the top furniture makers and creator of Goth shopping areas and homes
Jamie Otis -- long time and probably top-earning mainland rentals agent, helper of newbies
AzureIslands Ambassador -- an alt of Nexus Nash and Adam Zaius in GIGAS/secondserver.net business
Merr Muromachi
Aradon Psaltery
Stacey Sugar -- owner of the Barbie Club, consistently the top traffic-producing sex escorts club in SL. The club also features games, prizes, special events, holiday parties which gives it a feel of being more of a place for entertainment and shopping, not just a whore house. She also runs a business mentoring call girls to upgrade newbies into stunning dates. By her own admission, dependent on dwelloper, and yet her sidelines in content, including porn DVD to play at home on SL's thousands of personal residences with video players, means she will probably long survive the demise of camp chairs and dwellopers.
TequilaRose Bunnyhug
Lovepeace Languish
Shaft Jackson
eltee Statosky -- manager/leader/um what do you call the person forced by the tools to actually found the group, but equal to others. Facilitator? of Lusk. Lusk is probably the premier theme-related mainland sim, with furries, beautiful nature builds, furry avatars and other content for sale, etc. Probably quite dependent nevertheless on dwellopers and the 10 percent bonus. Given their role in bringing in new accounts and sustaining newbies, the Lindens would do well not to kill off this type of themed sim by coupling removal of dwellopers with 10 percent bonus removal off group land.
MarmelaGramela Doesburg -- always available 24/7 to buy land -- even that crappy land next to the Bush Guy's sign -- at a decent and fair price, even $4/m. Marmela bought most of a half sim when I decided in one day to tier down 2 sims in protest against the Linden's various policies ranging from GOM-killing, killing telehubs, and competing with resident business. She also bought some of the bulkauction sims and has been selling them like hotcakes. Marmela rents and owns -- she has these ugly smut boxes on all her properties, but it's an unabashed catering to the market -- sex sells.
Jade Steele
Sensual Casanova -- the first person I ever met in SL the time I came back as Prokofy Neva (my first account, Dyerbrook Parvenu, could barely move with a crappy graphics card). Organizer of bingo and other games, entertainment and theme sims.
Dane Zander -- An extraordinary artist, architect, and entrepreneur as creator and manager of the Lost Garden of Apollo. The kind of person no doubt the Lindens hoped to sustain with dwellopers. A visit to Apollo is among the most beautiful and immersive in SL. Yet the traffic on the sim -- 5000-8000 doesn't approach that of the sex clubs or the best shopping sims, even though he has some spectacular shopping of his own. One issue may be that only word of mouth seems to bring visitors to this sim -- I only heard about it after being in SL more than a year, so maybe it just needs a good advertising campaign. On the other hand, maybe they keep it from lagging and appealing to mass taste by not consciously chasing traffic.
Kelly Cole
Quidel Cela
Jim Mann
Shadow Garden
laurionna Beckenbauer
Forcythia Wishbringer
Nase Sleeper
First Page
GEOFF Frost
Nyteshade Vesperia
Tim Marat
DaRealNeo Crossing
Dennis Bertone --
Munchflower Zaius -- Said to be SL's top designer. Possibly the designer with the most sales but not certain if she is the designer with the most traffic or volume. Doesn't seem to be, judging from what I know of traffic and sales of other lesser-known designers. Certainly covered by the media as such, though.
David Golding - Real estate dealer who appears to have purchased the bulkauction sims.
Schwanson Schlegel -- Schwan probably makes a lot more money from SL than he'll ever say, and we can't know his alts. He was the first, as far as I can tell, to deal with private island renting by having people spend just $75 to rent part of an island. He also buys cut-rate used islands and recycles them. He has garish casinos and can also be found in the wee hours flipping little crappy pieces of land in aptly-named slagged-out snow sims like Ohno. Schwan is certified FIC, hates me, and has turned up in my view a fair number of times so I've been forced to buy his land lol..
Letum Zuma
Tashie Oddfellow
TOmmy Fairplay -- Nightclubs, and a booming television/video business. I once had to confront him on behalf of a tenant to complain that his TV simply didn't work when deeded to group land despite his claims that it did. He didn't have all the perms/textures/issues fixed up, but seemed to finally address them later. To give you an idea of how SL works, the tenant, who was part of TOmmy's circle in some fashion and had gotten the TV for free, preferred to move out of my house rather than have me get her TV fixed by facing down TOmmy. TOmmy may be a nice guy, who knows. In SL, power can seem larger than life.
Tin Bling -- Tin is the only denizen of the Teen Grid on this list. He owns a good chunk of the Teen Grid, and is considered the Anshe Chung of the pubescent set. Tin gets inside deals from Blue Linden, who gives him a heads up when new and desirable TG land comes up on the grid.
Malakira Ixtab
Arito Cotton
Kazanture Aleixandre -- would it be fair to call Kaz a baby baron because he's one of SL's new barons? No, he's not a baby anymore, having walked through the fires of land devaluation and cut-throat competition on the not-for-the-faint-hearted LL auctions and inworld deals.
Travis Lambert -- the loveable white dog, red-collar guy and manager of the Shelter, the first stop for newbies. We've all done our time at the Shelter, picking up freebies and generous contest prizes. I'll always remember the Shelter for winning my very first dance prize for a drag contest, where my male avatar came dressed as a female hahaha. Travis deserves Dwellopers and is an example of how Linden developer dollars were probably supposed to be spent, sustaining newbies. I don't think either he or they realized just how much of a learning curve newbies require, however. Another project that shouldn't be whacked by removal of the 10 percent bonus along with removal of dwellopers and a project that deserves some kind of sustained way to make steady income.
Games Prototype -- Games is unabashedly a camp-chair king. He may disappear when dwellloper ends; he may not. Apparently he is able to program and create the casinos that he flushes newbie income out of, so probably camp-chairs and dwelloper will not be required to sustain his business. I'm not sure if he reached any new programming heights such as to warrant the Lindens' R&D budget siphoned out of Dwellopers, but casinos are very much an integral part of our authoritarian third-world country economy so Games will probably long remain a stable. Games should be particularly commended for taking absolutely worthless butt-end snow in Cottonwood, and parlaying it into one of SL's top producing properties.
Moonshine Herbst -- another creator of casinos and a camp-chair king, but probably not so much by ideology as by default. I charge Moonshine with usury, an offense that is largely a moral offense, but is punishable in some countries under the law. Charging 5 percent or even 3 percent commission on every single rental transaction from a rentomatic, just because you scripted a rentomatic, is an unseemly gouge out of the businesses of other residents who heavily depend on your product. Charging $10,000 or even $5,000 over and over again for the copyable version of the rentomatic, which doesn't appear to be on mod so its ugly red-white-yellow texture can't be changed, ought to be enough of a windfall without also gounging on the non-copy version. Moonshine is certifiable Forum FIC.
IceMan Resistance
Guni Greenstein -- Anshe's husband spending a good deal of his time on this vast and complicated business empire of anshechung.com
Fidelio Matador
Elikapeka Tiramisu
Nage Archer
RedFox Costello
Elex Dusk -- owner of the Elbow Room, a bar located on only a 512 of land, or at least, what was originally a 512 and probaly didn't add more than 1024 m2 more. An example of doing a lot with a little. The Elbow Room gets to put ads on the events list that in fact are essentially repeating "events," closing or opening or running 24/7, which Flipper allowed on his sanitized events list on this website, and which none of the Forum FIC every complain about because this is the sort of more genteel socializing club free of overt sex where Pendari can go and dance comfortably. I can only laud Elex's success, wish him well, and endorse his appearing on the events list in any way he wishes, as many times as he wishes, as I support events list freedom; I merely point out that the FIC is being inconsistent in giving a pass to the events' listing habits of one of their own favourite watering holes.
Felix Sholokhov -- another baby baron or alt of a real estate dealer and frequent winner of these add-to-my-chopping-cart $1000 sims. Oops was that a typo? No.
Janie Marlowe -- I *think* she's a fashion designer and I *think* I saw her at the FIC de la FIC grand opening of the Larsen shops.
June Dion
Pounce Teazle
Prokofy Neva OMG the Infamous Antagonist. No. 60 on the list, down from no. 59 last month. Described by the Herald as "bilious and belicose" and a "medium size land dealer" by the Herald. Ravenglass Rentals is among the top mainland rental agents. I won't say it's THE top because I'm thinking Jamie Otis or Anita Langdon could well be above me, just don't know. I do get LOTS of traffic that my hundreds of tenants create with living, loving, content-creation, and business on their parcels -- not me. However, I don't feel any special compulsion to take my $38.17 from the Lindens and use the hippie tools to distribute it all to them equally. Why? Because my dwellers already get all the dwell from the group divided equally in their boxes each week.
Chilly Charlton
Alex Harbinger
Random Unsung -- no. 61. My alt, and demonstrably so. He runs the SL Public Land Preserve, some 50,000 m2 of parcels devoted to wilderness, interesting builds, shopping in rent-free markets, etc. I would think dwellopment would have in mind sustaining something like this, enabling newbies especially to live for free, explore, picnic, boat, etc. and enabling many others without land to have relaxing times and events on the events list. But, I'd be wrong...
YadNi Monde -- owner of the leading Junk Yard and giver away of freebies. Well, giver away of $1 items that he says he has to price as a dollar in order to um check inventory or demand or something. I have no use for Yadni. None. I didn't even when I was a newbie and went to his junkyard exactly once, and got my requisite freebie rations. And never again, because I then bought from other newbies who had good content who I wanted to support with my Linden dollars -- something we need more of in our third-world economy. YadNiruthlessly scours SL for freebies and then gives them away for $1...and slams everyone else for reselling newbies for $1. While I have no problem with someone deciding they are going to be the top yard sale/junk yard/freebie king and spending all their um selfless hours helping newbies, they can do that without haranguing others who wish to do the same thing on a much smaller scale. YadNi is a premiere example of the creator-fascist camp that says that you can never change or alter or re-sell anything you got for free. If you get a bundle of freebies from YadNi, you cannot decouple anything and resell it or transfer it in other form even for only a $1. This is just way, way WAY too controlling (hence my namre "creator-fascist").
Dwelloper removal is unlikely to take him out of business (hard to know what he got with owning this place on the dwelloper list; if I only got like $57 or $38 or something each month on one account for being at no. 59, he couldn't have gotten much). The overwhelming desire to be seen as altruistic and a Friend to Newbies sustains many an ego in SL, however -- including mine : )
Jack Feaver
Asmo Serpentine
crucial Armitage -- crucial runs several malls, including my favourite mall in SL, which I find to be the most attractive, fastest rezzing, easy-shopping, great value mall in Ross and Clarksburg called the Promenade. To me, crucial's mall gave the lie to all this crap about ugly telehub malls. It was anything but. His business took a huge whack from the telehub bork and precipitous p2p put-in -- but I'm not sure he got any buy-backs. crucial is one of those lifeblood people of SL that is sustaining the world with sheer amounts of energy and hard work that is not paid -- the kind of person shafted by the Lindens again and again, usually unconsciously.
Clarrice Cinquetti
Verbena Pennyfeather -- I'm not sure how Verb got on the Dwell list but probably for some kind of furry themed war action kind of stuff on her sim which has a name I wish I'd thought of -- Satyr. She's also a RL injured war veteran.
Smerk Gorilla
GeordieJohn Anubis
GF Ambassador -- ah, the evil Ginko! The home of my own person nestegg : ) OK, it's $0.87 which they don't return, but, I think it's growing by the day : ) You gotta love Ginko. They take all our money, and they give more of it back. That's more than the Lindens do! And I'll bet they'll start to get more of it with the end of Dwellopers. No doubt they got dwellopment not just for the traffic to their terminals, but the traffic to their kick-ass home rentals/business/shopping sims which they've created after a few false starts like the lovely Paris sim, which I was really sorry to see go (home of the Louvre, the sort of thing in theory the Lindens are supposed to be sustaining with dwellopment but which is really sustained more by the deposits of thousands of small-time savers in SL in this business -- interesting, eh?) Ginko has lasted a year, and is going strong. They may give the lie to the forums pundits and haters who think pyramid schemes always crash. They usually do, which is why this is a huge and risky investment (but then, land in Second Life is no more or less risky LOL). Maybe in virtual worlds, with the growth rate and the churn, pyramid schemes might have a good long run?
Wraith Unsung
Anita Langdon -- a rentals agent with high-class property who is also willing to buy and hold the view in ways most land dealers can't justify. I'm very happy to have her as a neighbour on many sims such as Zephyr. Her communities and rental properties are examples of the development of the world that is not really very much valued by Lindens and FIC who only think of inventoriable content and the platform itself when they think of dwellopers, but they really need to think about the more sophisticated model of the world which includes a realization that after all that software is deployed, the users come in, and they buy the content...they need a place to put it, and that place is more often than not likely to be a rental!
Adam Brokken -- I believe Adam deals in land, themes, furries? Not sure.
Tink Buttercup
Spike Nico
Aimee Weber -- Nemesis on the Premises! Aimee finds herself way down on the list, but then, Midnight City never gets more than 5000 traffic even soaking wet with her own armed posse. Owning her own island now gives the Preen Queen some kickbacks that she surely never got from LL by being on the front page of the website and being its chief media mascot. Wait. I mean. Hmmm. Well, she only got probably $21.22 anyway not even enough for the Prixe Fixe luncheon in the neighbourhood where she works in New York City stalkstalkstalk muahahahahahaha.
Sarah Nerd
Elphesius Madison
DamagedRose Neville
bladyblue Bommerang -- an events organizer, educator, themed sim owner, etc. -- and leading the charge to get the Lindens and the FIC to realize that non-inventoriable content is just as important -- if not more important -- to sustain in the world as created inventoriable content and the platform itself. She has had the persistence and foresight to keep holding events twice a day just on this very issue of content development -- with the broader meaning of content -- and how to sustain it after the demise of dwellopers. This is the kind of person sorely needed in SL, and underappreciated by LL.
Mash Mandala -- creator of furniture that everyone in the better homes has -- probably traffic to Home Depot in the colour sims got him his spot and he has no objective need of dwelloper as he probably coins money since p2p anyway.
Pleasure Semple -- this person had the bright idea of making a free sex lot in McFee -- democratizing the whole club scene in an interesting way. The traffic is staggering. Most nights you can't even get near the place so that you can hump one of the many gorgeous hoochie-hair girls on the lawn chairs right out in the open, with prepubescent candidates for the teen grid flying around goggling at your detachable dick. No, I don't speak from experience : )
Abramelin Wolfe -- creator of clothing, avatars, and I think animations, compelling stores, visually attractive builds, the sort of mix of creativity/artistry/merchandising that epitomizes the best of SL and should be sustained in some way by LL, but most likely, in their social-engineering concepts, represents too much of a merger of their socialist/capitalist brain hemispheric wars than they can understand.
Heaven Lily
Brian Engel
Diamond Holiday
Simon Metalhead
Shaun Wallaby
Starley Thereian
Ashley Petunia
Raven Welesa
Blue Burke Interesting that Blue, who sold off all his telehubs, still gets a spot here. Probably he still maintains some sims with a stampede to buy his jewelry, which I find is the most compelling to newbies, judging from the actual shoppers I see in his stores often. Yet, on some sims I see 0 or low double digit traffic. So I think it probably has to do with other factors, perhaps he provides other content. Blue made his fortune on telehub stall and store rentals, but they were less costly than Anshe's.
Lumiere Noir -- an example of old feted FIC. I have only one thing to ask of Lumiere Noir, who is too cool to answer my IMs. The spy-vs-spy build in Brown looks like your junior highschool project, your beta first-attempt build. Could you consider upgrading it, with your considerable skills, for the good of the community, which would be happy to view it constantly and even give it traffic? Lumiere made the Ivory Tower of Prims...right?
Cherry Charming -- An example of one of the many 30-something entrepreneurial women in SL coining money (and therefore loathed by the male 20-something tekkies who don't coin money with their robot avatars). Cherry was the first person to use the camp-chairs, God bless her, but she has a million other gimmicks going and is an advertising genius. Everybody goes to her clubs and her activities, she sustains many newbies by giving them ready-made instant networks to join, something you can't put a price on. Yet this sort of thing will never get the love and feting of something much less appetizing than the Suicide Girls. The girls at Cherry's at least have boobs.
trix Zuma
Rizado DaSilva
Jac Jacques
Ben Stravinsky -- Given the agility with which a huge chunk of the SL population has acquired in jumping on the product that Ben makes (sex-pose balls), you would think that Ben would be no. 1 on the traffic list, but he's kinda low-key. His store, Lost Dog, is one of those places where you can actually comfortably test out the balls yourself, before you get to the a deux part, and not feel like a chump. Should LL help develop sex balls? Um. If most of the public were polled on this, they'd give an emphatic YES.
Curt Harker
Gran Belvedere
Craig Altman
Mekare Duck
Tena Keegan
KatanaBlade Anubis
Zyrra Falcone
Faeros Caligari
Jenny Kaos
Dirk DaSilva
Blonde Vixen
Scar Statosky
Jana Fleming
Duke Dingo
Xero Quatro
FlipperPA Peregrine Why is this premiere FIC de la FIC character so far down the list? Well, because the FIC is dead, long live the FIC! And because, um, Indigo is just a residence, and not a business...except where it sells stuff...including serving as an events hangout (from which I'm partly banned) for high-end buzz activities like Future Salon which are really about selling non-profits as business anyway. SL Boutique.com, which Flipper used to own is now sold to...himself..I mean...his group...his friends in Electric Sheep Company where he remains actively involved. Despite saying he was utterly burned out, Flip signed up to run the SLCC again, this time right in the laps of the Lindens in San Francisco -- which is the chief reason I will definitely not be going to SLCC next year. (I want to go to a users' conference, not a Linden conference; if the Lindens need to consult with me a deux, they can pay my airfare ROFL.) Gosh, let's hope at least SOP IV will stay in New York, or people like me who haven't had all their shots to go to exotic spots like California will be screwed; heck, I get altitude sickness even if I go up above 59th Street.)
Does Flipper need to be on the dwellopers? Um, no. But they just do it by traffic, I guess. Of course, they have his face on the front page of the website, too!
Calranthe Charlton
RICX Curie -- Maker of beautiful jewelry and lovely cabins, his old complex of cabins and spa-type furniture in a snow sim used to be a place I would go to not only to shop but to hang out in. I could never figure out why he made such ugly stores that looked like giant steel flamingos on stilts but they sure worked as telehub av traps.
Bill Stirling -- another premiere content maker and provider in SL. An architect who not only makes available many reasonably-priced and sturdy prefabs but creator of some of the best rentals properties on the mainland (of all places!) and on island sims -- whole worlds with everything from trollies to boat launches to homes where you can actually not knock your av's head on the ceiling. He is also builder of some of the most romantic and mystical places in SL such as the pub in the elven lands. An example of the kind of creator of a mixture of inventoriable and non-inventoriable content the Lindens should be sustaining, but may not see their way clear to sustaining. Bill wouldn't need to be on the dwellopers' list as such, as his income from customized builds and prefab sales is probably pretty good but he's the kind of architect that may not make it to the A list merely because he isn't on the same time zone as some Linden or something.
Kamael Xevious
Earl Bellow
Marc Walcott
Kithylin Perth
dove Glitterbuck
Mikhail Pasternak
Brandi Ritter
Ravenous Dingo -- a real estate seller, at first involved in selling small parcels that the Bush guy, Lazarus Divine, would buy up and put out again at fantastic prices, but to his credit, when this was pointed out, he stopped chopping his land up quite as much for sale and put out larger parcels.
Camel Shaftoe -- another real estate dealer, winner of a lot of the sim auctions now, whose traffic comes from the sheer number of parcels out in the world which people are walking around on and thinking whether to buy. And in most cases, they are good buys, his prices aren't insane.
Balan Kavanagh
Land Control -- private sim owner and creator of a beautiful world.
Flyingroc Chung -- the Other Chung. Realestate. And Neualtenberg. How does he get traffic?
tom Heaney
Drift Monde
Lollypop Extraordinaire
Annora Chatnoir
Ayana Zidane
Vx Shaw
LilyRose Pavlova
Willow Zander Willow is famous for being famous. I know she's FIC, I know she's on the forums, I know she must make clothing or something, I know there's whole fan clubs devoted to her. I just don't know where it is you go to give her traffic, but I suppose I should find out.
Andy Sieyes
Comments welcome!
Prokofy, you amaze me with your encyclopedic (if sometimes biased, but hey, aren't we all, to an extent) knowledge of SL. I am only halfway through this exhaustive listing of SL "players" from the DI list, and I've already learned a lot. Always a low-profile player myself, I am having a very hard time keeping up with current events in SL right now due to a PTA project from hell that I took on at my son's school; thanks for the Cliff Notes version of the DI list, in one convenient location. :)
Posted by: Beryl Greenacre | 02/16/2006 at 02:17 PM
I can help out some in this cataloging effort:
Jvizzle Jacques - a nice guy, who runs a lot of game-type things (and I don't know what else). I ran into him as a new player when he was doing trivia. (Wish he did more of that!) Later, I went on to play Bingo and Slingo at his places. He stopped playing the games I enjoy most, and so I stopped going (plus I no longer have time for many games) - not sure what games or what else he is offering now.
KatanaBlade Anubis - I know this person from Treasure Hunts they used to hold on their land, which was near Spitooney, and the name of which I can NEVER remember. But it was like a whole city, with lots of shopping.
Drift Monde - owns a premier texture store. Judging by the amount of time I spend in it, it probably collects lots of traffic!
coco
Posted by: Cocoanut | 02/16/2006 at 02:18 PM
Thanks for all those additions. I'm going to try to get online later and see if I can't do some more basic research on the others -- I know many have themed sims, stores, clubs but I just didn't have any direct dealings with them or enough knowledge to write more than "a store owner".
I think even if we fill in all the blanks, the picture we get will still be incredibly far more comlex than: camp chair king.
Indeed, some of the most notorious camp-chair kings aren't even on this list!
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/16/2006 at 04:27 PM
Amend this entry if you like...
Flyingroc Chung: Owns Heisenburg(?) casino. A very ugly looking non-traditional gambling den. Where does he get dwell? Money ball/chair camping.
Posted by: Dwell | 02/16/2006 at 06:16 PM
Regarding Flyingroc, I'd have to check out that claim inworld, not sure he does the camp-chair thing, but doesn't he script stuff too?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/16/2006 at 08:02 PM
Yeah. Don't take my word for it. I encourage you to go check out the casino for yourself. Check his picks for a teleport. (The casino pick says "no parcel" but I guarantee you it takes you right there)
I was there earlier, to verify (as admittedly, I haven't been in a while). There weren't many campers, mind you, but they were there alright.
He scripts (I assume) and sells casino games too, yes.
Posted by: Dwell | 02/16/2006 at 10:55 PM
Dwell, the rule here is that you must post with your Second Life name or your posts will be removed.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/17/2006 at 12:19 AM
Then remove my posts I guess. I was just trying to be helpful.
Besides, I was under the impression you were only upset with people posting anon. while taking stabs at you.
I can appreciate the desire to have those who would question you or naysay against you post with their real SL names, so you know who they are.
But for something like this? It was just a contribution for an entry that you asked a ?tion about.
Do what you will.
Posted by: Dwell | 02/17/2006 at 02:07 AM
you forgot someone in this list of peoples you hate and disdain , me ^^
one day you will have to explain me what is wrong into the whole tekki thing (as you like to call it)
Posted by: Kyrah Abattoir | 02/17/2006 at 06:17 AM
I can see there's a fair point to the loss of DI based on what you've posted, though.
In a lot of the cases, the people whose names you've posted are not the people who created things, but just the people who happen to own the land. For example, Calrathe Charlton. What does she do? Well, she owns the island Bizarre. But a major traffic draw on Bizarre is Curious Kitties - Ameshin Yossarian's store. But, because Ameshin doesn't own the land, she doesn't get to be a "top developer".
Wraith Unsung owns Aurora, another multibuild sim. Wraith has some very good stuff there, but again I suspect a good part of the traffic draw is the work of Amethyst Rosencrans.
Now I am not saying that Calrante and Wraith are "ripping off" these people - I am pretty sure they get payback and preferential land deals for attracting the traffic - but DI does result in what's just happened here: when someone builds a list of the top developers on SL and posts it on a popular site, the non-landowners get left out.
The fact that DI favours land barons and network effect (and thus, early movers) is probably is much to do with it being phased out as the camping chair issues.
Posted by: Yumi Murakami | 02/17/2006 at 08:33 AM
Oh yes. Chilly Charlton's another casino/entertainment operator, and Ashley Petunia runs a BDSM club/store.
I'm rather worried by the huge amount of stuff I've seen in SL that ties into names on that list. Is this this the Pareto principle illustrated?
Posted by: Yumi Murakami | 02/17/2006 at 09:10 AM
Forcythia Wishbringer is head of the Elven Glen sims. That's about all I know.
Posted by: Doli McGettigan | 02/17/2006 at 11:56 AM
Jvizzle Jacques - Doesn't he own the Ice Dragon sim? Cool dude - really nice peoples to hang with.
Stroker Serpentine - Isnt this the Stroker who sells/creates the stroker sex stuff?
Shaft Jackson - Owner of South I sim would be my guess. Met him back when South I was mainland club. Great folks - kick ass events :) They even have and sell housing/homes. And there's a mall.
laurionna Beckenbauer - Owner of Mahalai Goth Resort and a few other sims I think.
GEOFF Frost- Designer of clothes! GEOFF and DEEDEE are a trip to hang out with lol THEY ALWAYS TALK IN CAPS. ALWAYS. I'M NOT KIDDING!
Letum Zuma - major club owner would be my guess. At least when I met him thats what he was doing.
Malakira Ixtab - owner of Lestat Night club and mall.
Starley Thereian - makeup, hair, skin and clothing diva!
KatanaBlade Anubis - the Crying Rose sim owner? Fabulous skins at anyrate. Absolutely beautiful.
Posted by: Brace | 02/17/2006 at 08:03 PM
The rule is that you have to post on this forum with your SL name. The first few times a person posts without it, I don't erase them. It's not only about "Besides, I was under the impression you were only upset with people posting anon. while taking stabs at you." If you follow the actual jurisprudence here, you'll see I've cut out positive as well as negative posts merely on the grounds that they don't have the names. I've urged people who feel intimidated from posting and don't want to use their SL names to write me at [email protected] and I will summarize their comments if they are relevant to actual discourse and not just the usual silly rant about my mental health and my cats' brand of petfood. (Yes, Nolan, it's Alley Cat, the generic brand.)
Um, Kyrah, I cut and pasted that list right off the Linden announcement forums. It's not my list. It's the list of people who won the dwelloper. Geez, you're stupid. If I somehow cut and paste wrong, geez, shoot me, but I don't see you on there.
Yes, South is probably the most top producing traffic -- and I dare say sales -- sim there is, by a guy that few people really know because he just doesn't bother with the forums (God bless him, he has a Second Life and doesn't need a Third lol).
My failure to include someone like Forsythia is merely that I don't have the info at my fingertips and didn't want to start writing stuff like "isn't she the elf queen" or something because I'd get it wrong. Haven't had time to log on and check out all these names, more to come. Keep the insertions and corrections coming.
Re: Yumi's comment, "In a lot of the cases, the people whose names you've posted are not the people who created things, but just the people who happen to own the land. For example, Calrathe Charlton. What does she do? Well, she owns the island Bizarre. But a major traffic draw on Bizarre is Curious Kitties - Ameshin Yossarian's store."
Well, I disagree. I see enough creators of inventoriable content here to give pause and correction to the silly idea that it is just "camp chair kings" and I also frankly don't see a landowner as merely that. A person who owns land, commissions a club or mall to be put on it, and finds really top design talent IS a content provider! It's a management job that is hard and really undervalued in SL. This is the hard-working middle class we're talking about -- sim management, event organizers, etc.
My point, Yumi, is that it favours land barons because these land barons on it, for the most part, whether Anshe Chung or these others you mentioned, aren't just low-life speculators and flippers of parcels. They MANAGE. They plan and execute themed worlds and interesting club and shopping sims. Indeed they SHOULD be incentivized. Indeed that's what IS worth developing in online worlds where ordinary people want to live -- not be in an endless beta test with sandboxing geeks.
Geekworld has plenty of its own incentives. You're forgetting, first and foremost, the miles and miles of ad copy they get out of Hamlet's blog -- which had Max Case featured many times, and Frans Charming and Aimee Weber and all the rest, over and over, for their content creation. Imagine a five-part series JUST on HUD or JUST on architecture -- it's mind-numbing. These people have WAY more than their share of ink on the company's dime.
If you also look at the games contest which gives the winners a sim, you have to admit they have gotten the greatest of prizes -- free land, that costs a whole bunch to buy. When you add to that the non-profit rate that some of the pets have enjoyed on their projects, it might be more visible to you. To be sure, the list of winners in those venues is shorter, but then, when you think that my dwelloper award was all of $37.12 or something most months, that really ought to put it into perspective.
You're right that if something is viewed as "favouring land barons" the Lindens, egged on by their pets in the FIC and SIC, are likely to whack at it hard, and that's partly why they are ending it. As I've often pointed out, they are always about breaking the back of the land dealing class.
But they are the backbone of the BUSINESS of Second Life which is, whatever you want to whine about the importance of creativity and sandboxing and geeking, about BUSINESS. And BUSINESS, to be worthy of the name, has to have this funny thing I like to call CUSTOMERS. There just aren't the CUSTOMERS for high-end art stuff and geekiness such as to sustain a world this big and expensive.
My point in publishing this annotated list and analyzing it is to show a) that the people who provide a great deal of the "worldmaking" of SL are in this list b) that they create very compelling content, be it inventoriable like skins or non-inventoriable like a themed sim or rental housing; and c) many of them are unknown on the forums, not FIC, and therefore underappreciated as to their role and d) most of all, they are not people who just crassly put out camp chairs and casinos -- those who *only* do that either aren't on this list or at least way down on it.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/17/2006 at 08:26 PM
Near-to-utter noob here. Here's an idea: edit your posts. Cut out half the words to start with, then cut the remainder in fucking half again. Get to the point. For fuck's sake.
Now to less constructive matters:
Jade Steele--Co-owner of Dreamer's Escorts, along with husband Aiden Whatsisname.
Posted by: djangone gjellerup | 02/18/2006 at 06:21 AM
Year-long resident here. Here's an idea: shut the fuck up. I am not required to edit or cut my posts to suit your tastes. Go read something as long as your attention span, like the back of my hand.
Go construct your own blog, asshole.
As to any additions/corrections to this list -- keep them coming. I'm absolutely confident from eyeballing some in the FIND list inworld that these do not include exclusively camp-chair low-life scum, but on the contrary include many hard-working club owners and entertainment managers just like this Dreamer's Club which I visited which has a lot of nice features and offers. Anyway, what I can't do is spend the time to personally update/correct/fill out this list so I invite everyone else to help to get a picture of our world, and how it is being destroyed.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/18/2006 at 03:38 PM
That last paragraph is a good example of burying a simple thought in excess verbiage. Read it again: what do you really say?
I'd love to read what you have to say. But you frustrate the reader.
I apologize for venting on your comments section.
Posted by: djangone gjellerup | 02/19/2006 at 03:05 PM
If the reader is frustrated, they can go look for other sites with the kind of pre-digested pablum that is all too common in this ADD online-addicted distracted entitlement-happy multiverse.
I'd suggest the Herald, which under Walker is getting really good at delivering shiny pre-masticulated chunks for those unwilling to look at posts bigger than their tiny avatar hands.
I'm not here to provide you with a clipping service.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/19/2006 at 03:59 PM
Hi hi. Yes, I co-own Heisenberg Casino in Ohno... ugly is in the eye of the beholder, of course. :-) I have a money ball (not camping chairs) in the casino, mostly done to gain visibility in Find rather than get the DI award (this is only my 2nd time to get it).
Yes, I script too, and do some small time land trading, etc.
Posted by: Flyingroc | 02/19/2006 at 04:33 PM
As far as I can tell, if the people (i.e., the "masses") like it, then a large percentage of forum regulars are agin' it.
This includes clubs, games, garage sales, malls, money balls, non-creative contests, and people who deal in land.
It leaves as acceptable their own products, plus their own events they consider worthy based on cultural, educational, creative or charitable causes, as well as all Linden-sponsored events. If they put up money trees, that is good; if clubs put up money balls, that is bad. If casinos have free slots, it's the end of civilization as we once knew it in beta.
If the people (i.e., the masses) are against something (like the Impeach Bush signs), then the signs must be a good thing, according to a large percentage of forum regulars. Because everyone knows the people are dumb. I got it - must be free speech!
If the people want something (like ratings bonuses), then they are "gaming" that thing, and it's a bad thing to want. If the people pay for more than one account and actually use what comes with those accounts, they should be flogged in the public square.
If the people want an events schedule they can actually use to put their events on, it's because their idea of "events" is faulty (i.e., includes Tringo), and causes eyebleed and profound psychological distress among more refined residents.
If the people catch on to favoritism or corruption in any Linden system, they are just too unenlightened to understand why that is okay in SL, though unacceptable everywhere else in the world.
coco
Posted by: Cocoanut | 02/19/2006 at 05:05 PM
Good summary, Coco, covers just about everything, and could be extended to a discussion of taste along the lines of the "Bobos in Paradise" concept if you know that (amazon.com it).
Of course, RL works this way too. There are always the cheerleaders and the jocks and the frat boys, and the science nerds and the geeks and the hippies and goth and such. And there always people succeeding for no reason other than their good looks, or their coolness, or who they know, but also because they might just be more talented and good at networking. That's fine, that's just how life is.
The difference in SL is that it is a tiny, vicious microcosm of this phenom of the kewl kids. They aren't content with being on top, or being the best, or getting the lion's share, they want to suck up all the oxygen in the room, squeeze you to death AND trample on you. It's insane. Because you're their customer too.
I could understand being philosophically opposed to camp chairs or Tringo or yard sales or sex balls, and wishing to make your own world without that. But why go about doing that by killing all those other things? It's the epitome of intolerance.
And it can only be explained by the economic factor, fear of loss of market share I guess, the belief that other sectors and tastes and classes will drive away business for the elite. They'd like to keep it a gated community, a garden party for the preppy set and make it ONLY like that.
And they may get their wish...
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/19/2006 at 06:25 PM
Forcythia Wishbringer owns the Elf Clan group sims, which at this point number 4 in total. Originally the group was part of the old-grid Darkwood sim elven landscape (I am a land owner in Darkwood.) It grew from it's roots there by slowly creating a community, holding events and fostering a network for members and a good stumbling block for the newbies that would wander over from Ahern. The group is now over 400+ members and still manages to do these things and now with an even bigger extended 'elven', fantasy themed community in which she also rents land and merchant areas. The whole thing is overseen by her and Wayfinder Wishbringer.. yes, I guess you could call them 'the king and queen of elfdom.' But they have contributed to the SL world at large by providing places/content like the Elven Glen sim(s).
And, funny enough.. IRL she is one of the 'older women' that has slowly become quite successful and even holds the adoration of quite a lot of the 'tekkie' twentysomthing males who find a home within the group by being able to foster and live out some of the more 'game-like' fantasy themes that SL.. since it is not a 'game'... (hmm) does not encourage. She has become a nurturing and respected matron to her group's members in fact. I guess akin to 'Wendy' amongst the 'lost boys' in Peter Pan.
She is a woman I hold a lot of respect for in-world and happy to call a friend.
Posted by: Rhiannon Chatnoir | 02/21/2006 at 02:11 PM
Rhiannon, that's a very interesting post about a world-within-a-world of SL that in many ways seems bigger than the sprawling, suburban world of SL itself.
Would you say the the end of the dwellopers is going to impact the elven lands adversely? Will there be ways to pick up the slack?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/21/2006 at 02:30 PM
Regarding the comment about "owning land and commissioning stuff to put on it", you're right that that CAN be a skilled job. Unfortunately it isn't always done with skill, and usually (like most things in SL) the tendering process isn't up to scratch and tends to leave the buyer nursing burned fingers and/or generalised resent that's acted on in various ways.
Another possible defence for the loss of DI is the idea that it's a "Development Incentive". Looking at the list above, most of those people - and the things they run - have been around for months or even years. It's hardly a "development incentive" if all you have to do to get it is stay as you are, now is it?
Posted by: Yumi Murakami | 02/22/2006 at 08:31 AM
Yumi, I disagree. Not everything has to be 100 percent perfect, 100 percent beautiful, the A-team, etc. It's good if there is plenty of space in a growing and changing platform like this for FREEDOM and that means freedom to be amateur, tacky, and even fail, too. If it is only the best of the best, it limits the start-ups and the audience. Part of the joy of SL is that anybody in theory can come in and have a SECOND life -- remember that concept? And that amateurs who are stock clerks or bank clerks or something by day can be dress designers or disc jockeys or real estate tycoons by night. And that energy should still be made available.
The idea that all these people "stayed the same" doesn't wash with me, either. Each one of these lots, to keep that traffic has to constantly jump over their own knees to compete. I can only surmise that you haven't ever tried to run an event or keep a parcel with traffic going on it in SL. It's a tremendously hard job. You have to think up something every day, and like a colicky baby, no remedy ever works twice. The camp chair disease forced many people like me, who refused to use them to invent other things (not only because they create an atmosphere of stupidity, but because they just cost more money than you can get back!)
I honestly don't care if the Lindens stop giving me my grand $33.17 US or $77.19 or whatever per month. Obviously, whoop-de-do, I didn't go wild and spent it all in one place, tier. But it isn't much tier and there are less frenetic ways to make the same kind of tier. What I do want them to do is to stop their DIS-incentive that comes with all kinds of things, ranging from letting the FIC run roughshod over the forums, to setting up mentors with sweet insider deals to pipeline their stores to newbs, to competing with resident businesses or even destroying them needlessly, to making radical shifts that seem ill-advised and ill-timed even if the rationale is their own running in the red.
Everybody always has lots of prescrptions for how to make a money sink for MY money, not their own, to take away an incentive for ME to run myself ragged, not to work themselves, for THEM to get paid, not me. So I've learned to take a very weather eye to all these forums pundits and pay attention to what keeps people in the game: social circles that people create or plug into as they follow friends from other games and how to keep them both open and alive.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 02/22/2006 at 05:24 PM