Links and Sinks

Linden Labs would like to remove some inflationary cash from the economy. Understood.

At a time when changes must be made, LL comes out with a "Sponsored Links" auction on eBay for real $$$.

Albeit experimental and subject to changes. Given that information...my question is this:

Should LL be experimenting on "cash grabs" while advocating "money sinks"?

While I am not an advocate of the featured links being sold on Ebay, I do not see what one has to do with the other.

The 2k they get from eBay could have been a L$ money sink.

Instead of Players buying these advertisement slots on ebay for real dollars. Players could buy these slots from Linden Labs for L-Dollars thus taking more money out of the game to help fight against inflation.

At least, I think that was his point.

Jessica

Right, however in order to get it functional as an L$ money sink, they would have had to spend a day or six coding the bloody auction program they have to take L$, all for a simple experiment that's going to stop once they realize that selling featured links is not the way to go.

Money sinks are best when they actually exist for more than two weeks.

No encoding would have been necessary. Second Life HAS its own auction system made already. The only reason why eBay is being used right now is because it gave 8 million to Linden Lab. Otherwise, they could have put the Featured Picks on auction right at the Secondlife.com web page--the same way they do the shopping lots in Luna, or any other parcel of land in SL. This has everything to do with the investment made. Think about it.

Let's get this cleared:

It's the SL economy that needs 'money sinks',

not LL, the company.

This is not about Linden Lab's annual report. This is about the internal economy. The two are not the same.

When the Auction System was first started at LL, they sold a T-Shirt. I just don't understand why they couldn't also sell a slot on the Top Picks. It doesn't make sense. Sorry LL, had to say it!

I don't buy that no-time-to-code explanation either.

But 20 sponsored picks would have to cost A LOT to have any influence on the economy. And it will never be worth that much to the 20 winners combined, so it would never work as a significant sink.

Really? I had no idea. I was under the impression that LL's auction system was incapable of doing anything other than land.

Understandable so however, as an admin push to rectify a blatent issue with the top pics Robin eluded to the fact that the ebay thing is a test.

Why because the current auction system that LL has in place would require a full time management person over it and with current staffing capabilities the ebay option for short term use was a much more effective method of getting this new program off the ground.

Sometimes decisions are made for the benifit of the company as a short term experiment vs. a full on implimentation of a program that may faulter due to its votility.

Shadow

eBay did NOT give Linden Lab $8 million. Let's get our facts straight.

eBay did not give 8 million dollars to Linden Lab.

The 8 million is a combination of funding from pre-existing investors and two new ones: Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Network.
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I've not seen a breakdown by source of the 8 million, but in the 10/27 town hall meeting, Phil said the new funding is "led by" Benchmark, which I take it means they are the largest contributor to the investment total.

I'm unclear how LL's listings would indicate anything to do with the investment. Considering eBay listed 348 million auctions last quarter, I suspect the SL community is thinking more about LL's twenty than eBay is.