Let's Have Instant Access to Freebies!

Second Life is a wonderful rarity in that by its very nature it attracts highly talented people who are willing bring valuable contributions at no charge! Sadly, despite these freebie creator’s best intentions, distribution is needlessly difficult. If users don’t know where to go, or who to ask, they are effectively denied content that would enrich their Second Life experience despite the best efforts of the freebie creators. This is of no benefit to the users, the content creators, or Linden Lab.

So here is what I propose. The Lindens should create a read-only freebie folder in our inventory, much like the Linden-content folder we already have. If you have a marvelous freebie like Crystalshard’s Freeview or Aimee Weber’s Car the following would happen:

1. You submit your freebie to the Lindens
2. Lindens investigate the item to ensure it is free of trademark violations, malicious scripts, TOS violations, or inappropriate content.
3. They then place the item in the public freebie folder and it instantly becomes accessible to all Second Life users via their inventory.

There are some benefits to this idea.

-As it stands now, new player retention may suffer if, before discovering freebie distribution locations, players leave under the false assumption that there isn’t enough free, fun, and useful content in Second Life. Under my plan new users are instantly given access to a plethora of valuable free content. There are benefits to making a new user’s experience feel like Christmas (or any gift-giving event of your preference)

-Having a centralized location for popular textures will encourage people to use the SAME copy of a particular texture. Because the client will cache these textures, performance will be much improved with ONE copy of a popular “diamond plate floor” texture rather than 50 different copies of the same thing!

-Unhindered by distribution limitations, this system could encourage more people to make more freebies!

So does this sound good? Or am I on crack?

Let's also implement a FREEBIE flag for items.
I'm just sayin'.

Dunno about the crack but you're idea is great!

It's a good idea. I'd stick it in the Library folder.

Blog entry detector engaged.

(Great idea Aimee)

Yes, I have suggested that myself a long time ago, and Cory thought it was a good idea, but how to implement it?
The Bazaar is still there, has been since Beta. But how many people know about it?
I would like something more global but you should not expect to get LL to add a feature that will require manual intervention on their part. A community-driven solution would be easier for them to agree on, but harder to implement and prone to gaming just like any rating system.
Maybe it would be best for us to do what we always do. Set some rules in place and report abusers?
This way we do not force LL to approve every single item, but instead request a review for what we have already screened and deemed inappropriate.

It is a really good idea Aimee, however, the only real drawback I can see is this:



I think the Linden's probably have enough on their plate chasing down griefers, fixing roads, linden land, managing personal conflicts, updating software, fixing bugs, reading bug reports, etc...

Taking freebies, then investigating every freebie against other content, then managing all those freebies, would be yet another thing.



Who is 'we'? The first reaction is to say the community, but the community (as a whole) probably doesn't want to screen newbie items, so then, does LL set up a group of residents to screen content? I can hear the FIC arguements all over again.

I think a better way is a freebie 'flag' on the item.

Jessica

Great idea Aimee.

The only thing I wonder about is the just yesterday ther was a post by the Lindens announcing a new way of distributing freebies at Info-Hubs. I am not so much of a forum whiz as to be able to find this post or put a link to it in this reply, but it might interfere with this suggestion a bit (hope not).

Hrmmm. Eggy and Jessica, you bring up great points. Perhaps the same spirit that brings us these freebies could be used to inspect them? Like mentors and greeters, maybe freebie inspection is the kind of work users would volunteer to do?

I think it's a good idea to have some high quality freebies included in the library, but I see a few of issues with your plan.

1. At what point would it be unfeasible to maintain all freebies in ones inventory? I know that when I have too much in mine it slows my log-in dramatically.

2. Would it be considered biased should LL accept a house design from one creator but not another? We know the creator's name stays with the object, and is a means of advertising their other goods. It reminds me of the issue of Microsoft controlling who has access to the bundled software sold with new computers, and how Netscape was squeezed out.

3. Making freebies widely available may make new users pass up buying from the shop around the corner. If the freebie clothing etc are as nice as the other goods for sale, why should they spend money? We wouldn't want freebies to cut into the business of hard working creators. It would be unfair competition if it's LL supported.

...and then he threw out today's work...

I think it would be an unfair advantage over people selling content. If getting freebies is so easy, I can see lots of people suffering from it.

The freebie folder would likelly be gigantic and contain all maner of things, and people wouldn't find the need to go look around merchants and buying stuff (some freebies are pretty good quality).

I can see the content seller deserting Secondlife quickly if it happens ; and then secondlife will be the land of freebies, money will become obsolete and soon everybody will turn communist!

Remember, giving freebies is giving communism.

This is an awesome idea.

And yes.

I think it's a great idea Aimee. Alot of new peeps wouldn't know right away where to get freebies, so this could help them alot.

I see what your saying but don't know that it would play out that way. I mean, the person who suggested it ... ME ... has been known to occasionally sell content from time to time. So either I am suicidal or I don't really think freebie clothing would impact my clothing sales.

The concept of player-created official freebies is fraught with political pitfalls. Perhaps some controversy could be avoided by requiring the original creators to surrender the credit for the freebie items. The creator would become Governor (or whoever) Linden. This would deflect criticism of free advertising.

comments:

- LL's freebie hub idea is being implemented, I would guess, as a way to encourage traffic back to hub regions and thus provide some sort of longer-term informal recompense to hub land owners, which is cool by me. This would conflict with that plan.

- I can easily see this folder(s) becoming a quagmire... huge, slow to load, full of ancient stuff some good, some bad

- in terms of LL's checking freebies, well they're doing it for the freebiehub idea... or at least so Libby Linden's post implies

- freebies have an impact on the economy, and at one level this is a good thing -- they keep creators from getting too complacent -- but I wonder if TOO efficient a source for freebies might actually go too far. I don't think one would know really until 6-9 months in.

- when it comes to freebies, I still want to see a "transfer, but no resale", or "transfer, but no resale above x" option. This would perhaps be less important if everyone could see the freebies available, and thus markup-scammers would have a harder time. At the same time, given expected freebie folder bloat... i would imagine this list gets too big to make sense of... and the search engine only works by name right now. I think it would start out efficient and in only a few months time become a mess.

Doesn't the announcment, and call for content submissions, made yesterday at /3/83/76004/1.html go a long way to doing just this very thing? Easy access to resident created freebies?

Or have I missed something?

The final build going up on Help Island has this in a way as I'm sure Aimee already knows.
There is a kiosk available with Free content for new folk. I don't see the need for this in world and echo the sentiment that it will bog down the inventory folders as well as what Libby posted yesterday as to the telehubs being converted to free content kiosks anyway.

Cool idea. Any freebie creators want to weigh in on this? Would sacrificing credit for your work discourage you from offering freebies?

There may be a point of diminishing returns on this. Political fallout is bad, but is it so bad that we are willing to end up with few freebies just to avoid it?

Already done!

http://SLBoutique.com/free/

All items listed there are L$0 or L$1, and its a distribution system that is highly scalable.

Enjoy!

-Flip

Oof. Yes. I hadn't thought of some of the OTHER political fallout.

I guess having freebie creator's work automatically available in our inventories would thwart efforts to use them to influence/direct users towards special projects and areas.

Sorry bout that

On a related note, there's still room for more freebies at the revamped GNU dollar store in Indigo. Jai has a few free walls yet for any content creators who have things they'd like to give away as freebies or for a dollar. Just contact me if you're interested in having your free stuff there for people to grab.

Well, on the one hand, it'd probably free up about 100 prims at the Shelter

I've used freebies as a way for content creators to inexpensively help support the Shelter, and advertise their product at the same time.

Essentially, they give us a box of freebies, along with a landmark & notecard to their store. I place it out on the freebie table at the Shelter. It helps everyone because:

-The freebie table draws new residents to the Shelter
-New residents get access to free stuffs
-Content creators get inexpensive advertising

In thinking about it though - I don't see any reason why the model I illustrated above can't coexist with the 'Library' freebie idea. If you want to just donate something to the community with nothing in return - fantastic - that's what the Library is for. If you'd like inexpensive advertising by providing a landmark/notecard as well... you can still donate to the Shelter.

Everybody wins

Well, actually, I have a few...cuz after I talk to a newbie, I then decide which ones to pass to them. (some are for guys and some are for gals, some are techy, some are events, places to visit...stuff like that)
I drop in on the welcome area once in a while, or when I see a newbie wandering..(they are pretty obvious)...I talk with them and drop the LM folder on them and tell them that is where they can find many freebies to get started, and that there are other places to find freebies too.
I drop some other stuff on them and they are usually really happy and excited...I like to leave some of the freebie hunting to them, as I enjoy finding them randomly myself (it's like finding treasure!).
I like the idea of freebie content at the telehubs, but I wish it would rotate or something...and I am soooo tired of finding hoverboards all over the world for sale for $50 by some noob trying to make an extra buck.

I liked your idea Amy, but then I have to agree, it's a great marketing tool for those of you with items to sell..to have folks come to your stores for more coolio stuffs.