Classifieds Forum Is Closing

How will this affect how you advertise your stuff?

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It will pretty much end my advertising. I already pay for my store to be in Find, and I've never once found it higher than the 12th page, despite having high dwell for a store. I don't imagine the Classifieds will be any less populated or stuffed, and I'm not going to pay to use them if they aren't.

I've got mixed feelings about it - but willing to wait & see how it goes.

My initial thoughts are:

-This will make the incidence of using Event Listings (free) and Land Sale Listings (free) for Classified purposes more frequent.

-This may move closer towards consolidating all the classifieds into one, easily accessable location - which could be good for everyone.

I think it sucks, I love trolling through the classifieds all day at work planning my shopping trips...

Very interesting.

It doesn't affect me at all; I don't release with enough regularity to need the classifieds forum, nor do I use the forum to inform my shopping.

I understand where Linden is coming from with this, but it doesn't seem like an ideal solution. For one, the new classifieds system doesn't really replace what is being lost. There will be no opportunity to discuss new products or share testimonials.

Then again, seeing the mostly brainless cheerleading bump-fests most of the classifieds threads are, I don't know how much of a loss it would be.

Then again, the classifieds forums might be a real pain in the ass to moderate. Especially with the spam problems. (Whoa, someone showed me this amazing spam fest last week. An entire page of the clothing classifieds filled with brand new threads from a single designer. That can't be fun to clean up.)

Doesn't effect me in the least, my advertising already went in the toilet 3 months ago, though I'd have to say i'm looking forwards to seeing how this turns out, explode, implode, expertimposions,

I dare say, what comes will come, unless it doesn't come, then it'll be late, O.o

hmm does this mean you have to be in the SL client to browse classifieds? that would be a shame.

It'll end my advertising too, the forums is the only means of letting people know about my new items out....but I guess we'll see...

I originally created separate sub-classifieds forums on SLuniverse to deal with the massive New Products forum, which later had sub forums added. I recently hid that section of the forums because there was no reason to leave them active once the main ones were subdivided. However, they do still exist. One advantage they had over the main forums is all the subforums are set to sort by thread creation date, so you don't have the problem of bumping. Hopefully the new classifieds feature will be useful, though so far I have not been impressed. Regardless, the SLU classified forums remain. If people are interested in using them, I can add more - though the new products forums were already pretty complete.

http://forums.sluniverse.com

But, sez u can PUBLISH TO WEB. So maybe there'll be a new area set up to browse.

This absolutely sucks! As a avid consumer, the only way I seem to find new products is on the Classified forums. I do most of my SL shopping from work now, based on the ads I see in the Classified section!

The classified forums are the first place I go to when I come to the forums. I love seeing the new items and I definitely have made purchasing decisions after reviewing the "ads" and then visiting the shops. I hope this will be reconsidered.

I visit forums everyday and altho I don't post much the classifieds were unequivocally the highlight of my forum visits.

*hugs to the designers/builders*

Ash

I agree with you 110%... i enjoy seeing what's new.. how will i know now unless i got to the shops and there are alot of places i shop.. this sucks and i am not happy about it

I know I get sales from them - but they certainly are abused currently. There also isn't the feedback - when people have posted critical comments there has been strong pressure not to. Most of the positive feedback is fake.

Agreed, this really sucks. I hope they'll reconsider if they see how many people are unhappy about it. I check the New Products listings all the time, I enjoy being able to see multiple pictures and discussions about an item... if I have to search through Find in some way to see things, or just go around to the stores to see what's new, I'm going to miss things. And posting pics under New Products is about the only way anyone notices on the rare occasions when I produce something. And closing the classifieds will end the little thrills I get from seeing 'New for ___ at Little Rebel' or 'New at PixelDolls' or whatever! I know I'm not the only person who looks forward to those announcements and opens them first. Can't they find some other way of just reorganizing the classifieds, or supplementing the forum with the new feature instead? I don't see why it's necessary to close them down-- as someone once said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I wonder if anyone has made a point-by-point comparison of advertising via classifieds -vs- the new system?

I've had a number of advertising experiences - I won't bore everyone with each but as a new business less than 60 days old, some may be illuminating.



1) Posting in classifieds - I had one 'hello' from a friend and 3 genuine, positive responses from people I have never heard of. Not sure if it helped sales but I sure felt good

2) Some folk said they recognised me from the Neualtenburg Expo - where I made a whopping $L 20, but I did get a little bit of follow-on business later back at the store.

3) Adding my shop to "find" really brought in the crowds - then they left before I had my best items out! Don't list in "find" until you are ready!

4) One of my homes for sale was shown in the 16 Oct 2005 print edition of Newsweek. Net effect on sales: none that I have seen. The house shown was uncredited, which seems proper as it might be construed as 'unfair' if I profited from such exposure.

I still have no idea why the house was considered for Newsweek. Perhaps by virtue of the fact it is available on SLBoutique and SLExchange? But so are many others. I am not a "FIC" (heh, had to mention that, forgive me!). Nor am I even close to a top designer - not yet - but I am trying hard!

So lemme guess, this forum move was intended to drive up demand for in-game advertising. I see it just driving up demand for third-party sites like SLBoutique.com given the feedback above.

I've tried using the Classifieds in my profile at Preview. It's really cool, but I don't think it completely replaces what the Classifieds section in the forums did for shoppers and designers alike. As a shopper, I don't know how this will help me in finding new designers or new items I'd never think of getting until I saw a random ad for it. And for a new designer, one listing in your Classfieds profile is more than 100L, 250L at most for one listing. I don't know if they changed that price.

I think it might be harder for a new person to break into the business because now, we have to know who is selling what so we can look for their profile. And for designers who use the forums to get instant feedback or use polls to see what their customer base wants, before they actually start selling, well, that'll be gone too.

The forums is where I managed to poke my nose out and give people a holler without drawing too much attention to myself. There is no way I'd stroll into crowded places and ask people to click on my profile to see what I'm selling. That sounds so ... slutty. Just kidding, but it's definitely out-of-character for me. So ... I have no idea what's going to happen now. I will miss the Classifieds here though.

But no amount of my speculating will change their decision. Just hope it doesn't screw up the way everyone does business.

Shopping the classifieds is what i do during lunch time at work. Not being able to log into SL, it's a way to see what is new and out there to buy once the work whistle screams and i'm outta there.

Jesse, give us more details on the new system before there's more speculation and panic. Just give us the facts please!

omg what will i do over coffee in the morning

nooo i love the classified forum.

Gee, and I thought reading and responding to requests for help was an improper way to spend one's work day - I never even though of planning SL shopping trips on my employer's dime.


Thanks for the tip. Oh wait, it's almost too late. Oh well.

Might a sufficently full implementation of HTML on a prim mean that people could pay someone - Cristiano Midnight, for one example - to hosts ads designed for inworld HTML on a prim display?

Did you ever fix the problem of not being able to upload pics created using GIMP?

Well CRAP!

coco

Atleast we won't have to deal with this anymore...

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I definitely love to see pictures and announcements of new fashions and products but these forums are a popularity contest, and for the most part controlled by a select few posters and designers.