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07/27/2010

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twitter.com/iliveisl

"There isn't any competition."

regardless of their size, there is competition

in the competition for where i spend my time virtually, SL lost me . . .

purely from my perspective and solely my point of view (what other viewpoint could i have?)

well written post and the rich are indeed rich - philip lives in a 4,600 square foot home near golden gate park - that is rich!

Darien Caldwell

Lets do a serious comparison:

https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1772478

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Cynister-Xpressions-Bloodlines-War-Cry-Dead-replacement-death-animation/36339

Oh my yes, the new marketplace looks terrible. The lack of BBCODE a death knell to commerce as we know it.

Shame on LL for creating such a terrible looking marketplace.

Btw, the above is sarcasm. Sometimes people do need 'dragged into the 21st century'. If people would actually be objective about it, they would realize the new marketplace is pretty darn nice. Does it have bugs? yes, it's beta.

I give LL hell for a lot of things, but the marketplace overhaul is a long time coming.

There are legitimate things to be complaining about, like the whole Viewer 2 bullshit. The Marketplace fuss is just 2 or 3 people who constantly stir the pot, for no other reason than they aren't getting their way. Sure, they are free to complain all they want. But we're all free to sigh and shake our head just as well.

Reminds me of when kids fight, kick, and scream when you try to give them a bath. It's not hurting them, it's for their own good, but they are too immature and stubborn to realize it. You just have to criinge and move forward. And next thing you and they know, they are having the time of their life, splashing and laughing. Because the root of it all was fear of the new, and the unknown. Once they see it's not so bad as their imagination built it up to be, the tension leaves.

Prokofy Neva

Darien, what other, total, raging, bullshit.

It isn't just two or three. It's hundreds. Read the damn forums. My God, you're terrible. How dare you say there's only two spoiled brats?! You're the spoiled brat, thinking you can get *your* way and back this outrageous mess-up.

The new marketplace, however "sleek" it looks is a sinister driving of the paying public away from resident properties to Linden properties. It completely neuters many of the things people used to make their pages unique and liked and fun. There is no good reason provided for that neutering other than some fussy geeky sense of conformity.

Fear? Fuck no. It's hatred of something because it's stupid and doesn't serve the public, the paying public that has to use it.

Desmond Shang

There is one unavoidably fundamental way to understand what is happening on the grid, which is powerfully predictive.

Look at value and equity.

Linden Research sold its foreseeable future when it overprinted land and $L.

Whatever happens next, it's either going to a) strip even more value and equity out of customers (a seriously risky endeavour at this point) or b) restore some of it, which will be painful to the parent company but good in the long run.

The expression used when the recent disaster occurred was something to the effect of "the company is safe" ~ and for short term profits, sure, that's true.

But it's about like saying "By eating this seed corn, we won't go hungry!" The value and equity for residents has to be safe *first* or there isn't any safety for Linden Research.

The good news is, this is correctable. It's a microeconomy and thus highly sensitive to changes.

An effective Search is a no brainer, it has to be sufficiently functional or the world is toast. That point, and all others like it, is not even worth discussing further.

As for the rest ~ the economy can be fixed fairly quickly. Here's how.

a) Not return a single scrap of abandoned mainland to the market until land valuation breaks $L 5/meter. Instead it needs trees planted, or something sufficiently non~vile done with it in the interim.

b) Not sell another private region again, until the *secondhand valuation* of standard regions crests 1000 USD each, for resident~to~resident sales. And yes, we'll need a LandeX market functioning like the LindeX, to accomplish that.

c) Linden Research needs to sell $L again, to peg its currency. But in moderation, so it doesn't flood the money supply and crash the market again. How to do that safely? Via larger 'levers' on the economy, more coarse than Supply Linden, allowing the market to return to equity and value. Again, the LandeX would solve that function more coarsely by varying fees, limiting market velocity and so forth. Eventually, once equity has returned to the market, abandoned land can be sold for X/meter to provide for a significant $L sink.

I don't think they will have the guts to do more than that.

c3

""We are bound by the laws of reality. We are customers of a software company. The End."

well, almost there...:)

but Erics not there quite at the end either.... the reality is that the cult was already funded, it never concerned itself with anyone who wasn't "of the body" and has an endgame of virtual valuations that never needed any of the machinations within the "software product" by any "customers".

The system, the machine of power and value is completely virtual within itself and its components.

there was never any real "there" there. but that was the intent.:)

Ann Otoole InSL

To understand what I mean about "search works but is broken" you have to separate the actual search engine devices (GSAv6) from the data they are fed.

The (very expensive) GSA units work. They do exactly what they are programmed to do and do an exemplary job of it. What matters is the way they are configured and the data they are fed. It is, perhaps, the ultimate case example of garbage in garbage out.

Up until a few weeks ago we were unable to make any sense out of the results because of them defects LL did choose to correct. Now we can actually analyze the data. There remains a very debilitating defect that none of us blindfolded residents can figure out that results in parcels just vanishing from seach for periods at a time which results in them not having any clicks which further erodes any chance for them to be seen. But we might have a clue about that. More on that later.

One very major problem with the search today is there is a condition none of us nor LL could have anticipated. The problem is formally declared and identified to LL at http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-20320 which continues to be unacknowledged.

To understand this issue perhaps it is good to do a little in world exercise. Do a search on "REAL GRASS" and look at how much of that stuff is all over the grid set to search not for sale in parcels. All with links that point to a dead merchant account on xstreet that belongs to a resident no longer found in sl search. Go to a few locations and load the web page for the parcel. Look for the grasses and teleport to it and edit them and look at the name and descriptions.

It is really amazing. Every one of those locations that come up have the same stuff with the same url to a dead account and it is all created by different accounts. Apparently this stuff is being imported to SL and the object name and description being left as is after import. "import" of content you did not create seems to be a disallowed action lol.

When you run a search that is affected by this particular "stuff" the results for a G and M are undesirable and somewhat bizarre. Which means the GSA has probably incorrectly learned a huge amount of false relationships.

So, just for the "GRASS" with the dead merchant "In Bound Link (IBL - GSA loves these critters)" there are at least around a thousand disparate locations that are now all learned by the GSA to have a strong association not only to one another but to a dead resident account (so the 6 degrees of geekdom separation kick in). And, in a case of horrific irony, it all looks related to copybot.

Oh it gets worse.

To fix this requires the indexers to no longer look at anything not set to sale (previously discussed) but since the GSA already learned millions of utter crap relationships the entire thing has to be hard reset and the GSA start all over once again like they had to do because one resident got associated with Nazis.

What will be the next reason LL has to wipe out "relationships"? And start all over again. And then the next one and the next until there is nothing left but a no relations search based on names and descriptions.

And these GSA units are like a multi million dollar per year thing.

Oh wait it looks like part of the issue might be LL rented a cheapie and it can't even handle the number of resident pages in SL much less the amount of content that must be indexed. You see the GSA units are licensed as per the number of pages they can index. (see post at http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/318932#318932 ) To handle SL's data volume LL would have to have licensed an array of GSA GB9009 units at a cost of over half a million each. My gut estimate is LL would need more than 2 so they would likely have had to pay 2 million dollars or more just so residents can hunt for prim hair and whatever other items and activities people in SL wish to find. Since I doubt LL spent that much money on search my bet is the number of pages (everything in SL search has a page or is on a page so to speak) vastly exceeds the license. Speculate away on how LL might be trying to get around the document number limitations. So, if LL did not pay the ferryman for the correct level of capability then, depending on what you look for, a chunk of SL will never be in the data considered to develop the 1000 results that are ultimately presented in response to a search. Relevant or not. Which is probably why some locations are never indexed and probably why some disappear from search for random periods of time.

But the GSA units do work. And they do a damn good job and do it really fast. The problem is what the GSA units are fed. So call it what you want but there is the actual situation.

I'm burned out on search related data analysis now tyvm. Knowing LL probably will not acknowledge these core issues because LL would "lose face" pretty much means it is likely to remain this way until LL has to close because everyone quit and stopped paying tier because of LL's manner of attention to customer requirements.

Eli Schlegal

"Because I found that if you said something he didn't like or thought was "too negative" or whatever -- he just tuned you out."
It's a shame that your would choose to stop talking to Phillip rather than modify they way you talk to him. Framing your thoughts in a positive and respectful way does not automatically make people a "suck up". Yes, you and Snickers say some of the same things but with very, very different tone, demeanor and level of respect for the Lab.

Desmond Shang

Eli, thing is, respect goes both ways.

I've meticulously planned an estate across years, only to have 50 USD/month regions turned into 95/month regions. Linden Research essentially took my margins... because they could.

My land equity was destroyed, even the value of $L has been devalued (just *try* raising $L rates on residents these days, see what happens) and Linden Homes has pulled 30,000 small parcel residents away from everyone.

And that business with Search ~ it's a past tense thing now; essentially the damage has already been done to tens of thousands of resident businesses. Merchants quit over this. They aren't coming back.

Hey, civility is a wonderful thing. I'll be the first person to say very, very good things when I have reason to.

cube3

http://www.physorg.com/news106931835.html
lots of stuff here ill assume needs a better look.. but...
the overall storyline seems accurate.

are what we eat.

Adric Antfarm

It seems like we read different Crap posts, but look; Crap took 415 words to make a point. You are not entitled to 2350 to reply. It just fucks with my head. Please stop.

Hey Des, how about a disclaimer when you dis Second Life land that you happen to sell Blue Mars land? We all know, but it helps me suppress a giggle. In fact, just put **ADVERTISEMENT** at the top.

Darienn Caldwell

"The new marketplace, however "sleek" it looks is a sinister driving of the paying public away from resident properties to Linden properties. It completely neuters many of the things people used to make their pages unique and liked and fun. There is no good reason provided for that neutering other than some fussy geeky sense of conformity."

Can you explain this? Because as far as I know, the businesses in the new marketplace are exactly the same businesses in the old marketplace. They are all resident businesses. Nobody is driving people anywhere else. And if you mean the few placeholder ads at the bottom, that's just filler LL put there until residents are able to buy ads there, just like they can in the old marketplace.

"Fear? Fuck no. It's hatred of something because it's stupid and doesn't serve the public, the paying public that has to use it."

You'll have to explain that too, because, it gives people all the same tools they have now. So if it doesn't serve the public, then neither did the old XStreet.

"It isn't just two or three. It's hundreds. Read the damn forums. My God, you're terrible. How dare you say there's only two spoiled brats?! You're the spoiled brat, thinking you can get *your* way and back this outrageous mess-up."

I read the forums. And I see the same two people starting all the threads. Ab Vanmoar, and Pamela Galli. They are the two main instigators. Everyone else are either chronic complainers latching on to yet another thing they can complain about, or people getting wrapped up in the fear and rhetoric. Sure they may honestly feel they are somehow being 'wronged', but it's all on Ab and Pamela's say so. And of course, there is a healthy helping of sock-puppetry going on as well.

No sane person would be against the new marketplace. And in one of *my* many discussions with these people in the forums about it, it became clear the reasons for their 'displeasure'. Ab even directly admitted his main beef was the fact that he would have to 'do work' and redo his listings. Cry me a river. That is part of being a merchant, you have to do work.

You may not agree with my conclusions, but I don't really care. I take up valid causes, theirs isn't valid.

Prokofy Neva

It's always the case that rebutting people's points, if line-by-line and with complex and nuanced points, that they take up more space than the original item. That's what polemics is all about. That's why it's boring and people don't like it. But I don't care, it's about making a record and about pushing back when people like Crap do shit like that. He's merely positioning the Grace O'Clocks in their usual not-so-subtle effort to grab mindshare and power over public opinion in SL, deciding what the "culture" will be and even deciding what forms "political opposition" will take -- and only within their channels. I will take as many or as little words as I need to take to slam that shit.

Um, Darien? Go and look on the new beta. It's all white space where resident stuff used to be, and Linden Homes and other Linden ads where resident stuff used to be. I don't think it takes huge analytical ability to see what's up there.

People don't have the same tools when they cannot upload pictures of the size they wish, of the size that -- guess what! -- SL itself makes, or rather, what you get after you turn a bmp into a jpeg. So it's creating an additional nuisance making that sizing. Even I have found that and I don't have much to sell.

Are you daft? Pamela Galli is definitely not one of my favourite people and is constantly pushing her own agenda there, but the post by Snickers which Crap so praises as "positive" and "constructive" *raises exactly all these same issues* that you claim "only 2" are saying on the forums.

I have a lot of respect for ab. He makes good products and has good customer service and also helps other merchants to sell in his malls. So I pay attention when he has something to say.

Of course sane people are against the new marketplace. I'm sane, and I see what's up with it -- a blatant Linden sanitziation and power grab over residents, with a privileging of a minority of big merchants who benefit.

Um, what are you selling on there Darien that you benefit from this change? Hello?

Do work? The doing of work will cost thousands of items to have to be done -- the big merchants in fact will be most inconvenienced. There is plenty on the forums about this from a wide variety of sources. But obviously you have some vested interest yourself. What was it you sell again?

Ann Otoole InSL

Actually the new marketplace is privileging anyone willing to undergo the effort required to leverage the way it functions. Assuming they deliver on certain promised functionality. Yes it will require effort. And yes to do well you will also add marketing and brand presentation to the resume. And yes there are insane issues with it like no link outs and being expected to load probable trojan laden pdf files for more information. However for those capable of producing a branded store on the platform that works and knows how to use the imagery correctly will do well. And it is not limited to LL buddies.

As for the gigantic ads for LL? That just makes LL look stupid and I wish they would fix that. But it won't change anything about how some will be winners nor will it cause anyone to buy something from LL.

IMHO anyway

cube inada

enough already..just let LL sell this crap off to the scientologists in LA... at least theyll allow mass media money around it to be made by many.;)

these bozos cant even be a good cult...;)

Amanda Dallin

The Market Place works well for the consumer. After trying it a few times, I prefer it over Xstreet. It's easier to use.

Hopefully LL will allow resident merchants to purchase the sponsored links but we shouldn't be surprised they are advertising their own services. Why would they buy the two biggest web based marketplaces unless they planned to leverage them to drive business to themselves? I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, just predictable.

If Ann is right and LL's google appliance does not have enough capacity, then the removal of Picks from search makes some sense. Removing Picks was just a way to reduce the amount of data going through the appliance and had nothing to do with the relevance the information.

cube3

"then the removal of Picks from search makes some sense. Removing Picks was just a way to reduce the amount of data going through the appliance and had nothing to do with the relevance the information."

ah perfect logic from the machines POV.
;)

the problem with the iphone wasnt the iphone...it was all those human hands...lol --- and they now believe it.

btw- why is JEEP -sponsoring all those ABC world news ipad app commercials ? are they advocating driving and using ipads at the same time? just kinda odd...eh?

Desmond Shang

>>"Hey Des, how about a disclaimer when you dis Second Life land that you happen to sell Blue Mars land? We all know, but it helps me suppress a giggle. In fact, just put **ADVERTISEMENT** at the top."

WTF? Adric, are you on drugs?

~ I didn't bring up Blue Mars *at all*, you did.

~ You've clearly been reading Prokofy too much. I've seen the statements too, that I've "fled to Blue Mars" and so forth... erm... that's fairly amazing, insofar as we donated over $L 1 million to SL RFL 2010, I have a gateway which incidentally now has more classes than NCI does, and 50 regions are very much in my name. I don't even bother respond to such claims.

~ Fact is, I'm about as close to a permanent fixture in both worlds as you'll find. Through excellence and business success, not blind trust. I have no plans to vacate SL. Or Mars. It's called diversification, which allows the platforms to compete for my business, rather than leave me a helpless pawn of just one. Of course, this isn't something you would have to think about much, at your scale of activity.

~ Damn straight I'll call it as I see it, wherever and however. Few are as financially involved as deeply in SL as I am; far less than 1% of everybody. I've got clear interests to *not* mess up a 50 region estate, yet I still call it as I see it. There are plenty of suckup estate owners who never say a dissenting word. That's not me.

Full Clarification: this is a clear advertisement of your lack of insight, Adric.

Darien Caldwell

"What was it you sell again?"

Well since you ask...

"LOGOS cards™ is an exciting new cyberpunk themed Collectible Card game which takes all of the fun and excitement of traditional games and brings it into the collaborative virtual world known as Second Life®. Collect your scifi cards, build your ultimate deck, then be prepared to go head-to-head with your adversaries, in a no holds barred battle for universal domination! Mount your attacks using the Logos Cards in combination with the advanced HUD (Head-up display). All actions are projected onto the the players avatar using visual effects, animations, and sound effects, for a truly fun and immersive battle experience.

The aim of the Logos Cards team is to provide a professional, engaging, and dare we say, fun gaming experience inside the world of Second Life® that takes full advantage of many key aspects of the medium, including a heavy focus on social interaction, user generated content and unrestricted maneuverability. The game was first conceptualized by Oni Horan in 2008. Development began in earnest early 2009 with the addition of Darien Caldwell to the creative team. The full game was released on July 1st 2010."

Check us out at http://www.logos-cards.com

: )

Robustus Hax

Ive spent the past 3 years of my life building up Metaverse TV as a media company in SL, and we have sent several emails to Philip about broadcasting his town hall meetings do the 30 people that can enter a damn sim out of the supposedly 2 million SL viewers can see the damn thing, we get no response and not only that they say they are partnering with a media company in world and the rest of us can enter a lotto. I might as well go out of business right now or leave SL behind. What the hell?

Prokofy Neva

That's truly fucked, Robustus. Why they can't be grownups and let ANY media that wants to bother to come and stream this to come, like you would in real life, is beyond me. It's only in their interests to foster more plurality of media reaching different audiences with more advertising space that helps the economy. It's insane that they pick only one media streamer. There's no reason for that.

One year when the Lindens were holding a town hall (they used to hold them constantly practically every month), there were so many unsolved issues and so much outrageously awful problems that I called for a boycott of it, and I called for people to hold their own town hall in opposition to Philip's. We did get at least some small following. Maybe you should try that.

Steam Bunjie

LL should be buying up last names in .tel & offering them as an active account add on.

Which adds to your in world search relevance.

prokofy.neva.tel
jack.neva.tel

Which are searchable in every search engine which residents now have to resort to!

And use the DNS data for mobile apps, give the resident a global avatar/inventory based under it, that they can use in 3D facebook games e.t.c. or other VR worlds.

Amanda Dallin

If they must pick a single media outlet to provide the video stream they should make it like a press pool camera where the stream available to other media outlets. The SL media, video and bloggers, should get together and form a Press Pool and demand equal access.

cube3

well i guess once found out--
i was expected to suck up ..and take a e-meter weekend-- the "destination pick" given to the SKY CINEMA FLYIN 2 weeks ago...has been revoked...lol

seems its no longer listed? in the destination guide....

i wonder why?

anyhow--- which anonymous letter of the alphabet should i blame.?

reference the "capture" in the blog linker..lol it was there...lol


http://cubicspace.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/c3-sky-cinema-made-a-sl-destination-pick-of-week/

more of a shame for Kilandra, whose parcel it resides at and who was finally making a little in sales percentage of stuff sold there..enough to help pay for the parcel... oh well... pay for the cult i guess....

Gwyneth Llewelyn

My thanks to Ann OToole's excellent explanation of *why* Search is broken down, and why it's also so hard to fix it (without resetting everything) — thus also explaining why LL is taking so long.

Yes, I know it was a rather technical comment. But up to today, I had no idea on *what* was wrong with Search, just that it was "broken" — which obviously covers a lot of possibilities.

Now I think I understood the issue, and probably believe that LL won't ever be able to fix it completely — just "patch" it with unpredictable results. It's thus more likely that Search will get worse, not better. :(

Darien Caldwell

"the "destination pick" given to the SKY CINEMA FLYIN 2 weeks ago...has been revoked"

It's still there Cube. It's been moved under "Editor's Picks", just like LOGOS Cards was. We started out under Games and Sports.

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