slexchange.com VS secondserver.com...

Hi Vade

I'm like you, I don't use in-world vendors. I am listed on Gigas/secondserver.net (also slexchange) and do not have an in-world vendor.

I like many of the selling points on Gigas. One of them is simple economics (0-fee transactions). I buy a lot of stuff just to support my friends, and this way, I know that 100% of my purchases go to supporting the designer.

Not needing to ever visit an in-world ATM is very handy. I think a lot of the utility in a web-market is to not ever have to travel anywhere. Convenience.

As a seller of copy/notransfer merchandise, I'm really hoping the "buy for friend" feature on secondserver takes off. I frequently have to process gift-purchases by hand, which is a sub-optimal use of my time.

As far as the UI/other comments go, have you tried suggested changes? Both services seem to welcome suggestions, and Gigas has made a few changes on my request.

I'm not taking your statement personally, despite your efforts to troll in this thread. I'm having fun here. My response to the thread was on topic -- pros, cons, and preference. Your responses are... well, kind of way out of left field. What do you object to? Staying on topic?



I read all that, but couldn't find the part where you had a point. Or any powers of reasoning.

One site is, for now, better than the other. One site has thousands of items for sale while the other does not. Yes, only one costs money to sell on, but as a self-professed capitalist, you should understand that you get what you pay for. For now, I'm quite happy to give SL Exchange a cut in exchange for superior service.

And I'll also remind you *again* that I said that I'd probably use both services if they both last. Once Gigas works out the kinks, and if it remains free or competitive with SL Exchange, then I'll start selling there. Adam and his gang are a talented group, and in time, their service could be excellent.



Uh huh. If you can find the part in any of my posts that says I don't want competition, I'll give you a hundred Linden bucks. I don't know who you're arguing with here.

Nice trolling though. Keep up the good work.

It is fascinating how physical limitations and established boundaries of our flesh-and-bodies are represented in some form in this virtual world, such as the speed of movement. Even with flying, it takes time. Time.

> I'm not taking your statement personally, despite your efforts to troll in this thread.

For what it's worth, I think it is unfair to accuse Blaze of trolling. His points are valid and concisely expressed.

Azelda

> It is fascinating how physical limitations and established boundaries of our flesh-and-bodies are represented in some form in this virtual world, such as the speed of movement. Even with flying, it takes time. Time.

Actually, I'll take that a whole lot further: it is curious how we use the amazing technology that is available now to emulate what we have in the real world.

I dont mean SecondLife, I mean *everything*. In fact, if you make an item that doesnt look like how it would look in the "Real World", people wont take it seriously, because it doesnt look how it "should".

Moving a little bit further along these lines, its interesting that with all this technology, SecondLife excepted, what we choose to create, what our fantasies are is war (well, and sex), but basically this amazing technology is being used to recreate our life as it was going back several thousand years ago.

Azelda

Yes, but I don't understand why the enthusiasm about being exclusive.

However - I think I understand why you're resorting to calling me a troll.

You think by my not understanding why you were exclusively using one channel over another, I was implying you had some special arrangement with SLExchange in some way.

And unfortunately, you took this implication as an attempt to 'troll' when really it was just a question about how SLExchange was working with its sellers, and if there was some kind of special deal that I didn't know about that would encourage exclusivity.

In hindsight, I guess I should have made it more clear that I was referring to your exclusive arrangement rather than your defence of your particular preference.

However, as I said, I think I understand why you are staying exclusive - you don't think you're going to make enough money for this really to make a difference to take the time to list on both sites.


Anyways, I am sure you're going to reply with all sorts of insulting statements, however let me try to get out in front of it by saying - sorry if I offended you - I was just fishing for more information.

Nope, your assumption is wrong. I fully expect a properly-built web-based store to be very successful, and that's why I take such an interest in both of these competitors.

The thing is, time is money as they say, and it costs me in time and effort to maintain two catalogs. The effort of setting up a second catalog isn't yet justified. Maybe it will be eventually, but not yet.

Remember that it's possible to encourage competition, yet have an opinion about which service is better. This thread is about forming that opinion. If the thread had the title: "Boldly state your lack of opinion about Gigas and SL Exchange!", then you'd be in the right thread.

Poo poo head!

Just kidding. Nope, I'm not interested in insults. Just points of debate.

Yes, absolutely.

In retrospect I realise that I used the word "promoting" instead of "exclusivity". Which is why I can see why you think I was out in left field.

I also realise there *is* a lot of trolling around here, so I am not surprised you thought I was one.

I do hijack threads sometimes. But that's because people around here hate it when I am always starting new ones ..

LOL. So, now that we are friends again...

Mmmm, just one question: Am I correct if I understand that SecondServer tracks each and every in world sale via its vendors?

If this is the case, frankly, then this would become such powerful database if people use this service that it would just be question of time until it gets exploited. Imagine somebody knows exactly what items sell best, where they sell best, to whom they are sold, who makes how much from sales and so on.

So, how does privacy work with all this? Can somebody explain? Or is Big Adam watching us now?

My head just exploded

Here's my 2 cents as a newbie merchant, i begun only 2 weeks ago, so please take it as it is, the opinion of a newbie.
Both services work very well, i didnt have any complaint so far, so the both fill the basic requirement (that not always is fullfilled in such kind of service). They dont bring angry unsatisfied customers ranting on you because they didnt receive what they payed for.

SLexchange for now grants the most sales, its kinda natural since it's been around for the most time. This difference will probably disappear as time goes on.
The ease of set up is basically the same, it takes time, expecially if you want to list your products in the right way to grant them the most visibility and to give you the best preview possible to a customer. I(t can be helped, so if oneh has a reasonably large catalogue he has to dedicate a day or two to work on it.
The charges are definately in favor of Secondserver, the 10%/15% fees on sales on SLexchange are quite a toll, even if understandable (Everyone here wants to make money of course). But i sure like the fact that online purchases on secondserver grant to the author of an item 100% (or 97% in case of the use of a vendor) of the money he worked for.
Now lets get to something that some item creators often overlook (probably because they have immense amount of land and they dont notice the difference).
SLexchange has a very low prim usage (namely 1 prim for the box, even if the box contains less items), while the creators of secondserver's items went a tad overboard with creativity and prim usage. The vendor is a whopping 11 prims, while the server is a full 6 prims. Both of those items could have easily been done with 1 prim, or maybe 3 for the vendor. (the 6 prims of the server are totally not understandable, its just a container and most people will keep it semi-hidden anyway). This prevents extensive use of the system (expecially the vendor part) by newbie sellers like me, that dont have immense lands and already have prims problems when they try to accomodate their shops, they will sure not waste 11 prims for a single vendor machine.
My personal advice for Adam is to make a low prim version of his equipment, 1 prim for the server, 1 for the dta storage and 3 for the vendor would be good.
A last (and probably biased) side note on Secondeserver.com "featured seller" system.
I dont know exactly what the choice is based on, but maybe smaller and newer sellers could use the visibility it grants as well (since it seems visibility is the most difficult thing to acquire in SL). So far i've seen on it only big and already largely established sellers that have already a big visibility on their own.
Anyway i use both, having double the market is never bad, and i will sufre take on any chance is given to me to grant my producyts visibility, since thats what i need the most.

Good question, but I have a question for you

Do you have a cedit card ?
Do you have a store card ?

Scary thing is you dont think about those... yet they are worse then you think, look at wallmart they "work" with doubelclick the online advert marketplace.....

So in RL its allready happning,

In basics of it all yes it is, But as far as I know adam made no terms on witch he states SS own that infomation so as far as I am concerned he cant and if he did without asking the sellers we would shoot him.

But if you know what items you have made sell well and where , I dont see a problem with that at all its your sales why should you not know ?


Then again dose SLExchange keep infomation on sales ?

This maybe applies to USA. But where I live there are laws that limit what information can be collected by whom and used for what.

And RL is bad enough. I don't think we need to repeat this in SL.



So how we shoot him? Sue him? How we even know what information he uses and how he uses it? Who audit his database? Who watches his shoulder to make sure he does not spy on each and every person who naively use his vendors?

To be quite frank, I trust one Walmart a lot more than some person whose real name I don't even know. Walmart is at least under supervision of consumer organizations and government, but some individual in Second Life is anonymous and nobody control what he do.



If individual retailer has some information about her sales that is enough. But somebody having access to and information monopoly about all business transaction in Second Life is outright scary!



This is next question to ask. I don't want take sides here. What applies to SecondServer applies to SLExchange too. Does SLExchange use spy script in vendors too?

To be quite frank, as person running malls I do not feel comfortable have somebody run spy scripts running in stores, slipped into them by trojan horse of fancy vendor machines. If I imagine my land be used by somebody to collect information about SL business and each and every consumer, to build one database where he can enter name of any shopper in SL and see all his/her purchases, sales etc. I really feel concerned. Somebody knows where I shop, when I shop, what I buy? Each and every purchase? This sound like one bad dream.

Luckly in the uk we have laws that do ok at stopping it but sadly not all of it

/me points to the nectar card




figure of speech, the thing to do would be to bycot it if adam did.




Yes that does sound like a dramatised dream, but I understand what you mean.

Its a real case of, sellers have a right to the infomation, but one person having access to loads of sellers infomation ? thats not on.

So it lands at the feet of the SS and SLEX teams ,

Do you intend to use this infomation that does not belong to you ever ?

Mmmm, alright. The thing is, as honorable person Adam might be, I have no way to confirm that. I have been screwed many times already by people on the internet and temptation to use all that data is certainly strong in this case. So wouldn't this mean one would have to boycott spy vendor machines already if one would want be safe?



Very troublesome, yes. Imagine you made some item and are successful selling loads of it. Then some time later some friend of Adam or just some person who paid Adam money makes same items as you and sells them for half price, because he know that it was your most successful item?

Not even to think of privacy of consumer...



How do we control that they only use information the way they claim to use it?

Adam, in my experience, does precisely what he says - and most times, exceeds that by a large margin in favor of the person dealing with him. I have no doubt that his system is being used precisely the way he says it is, and like SLExchange, promises to make malls and other contributors of sim-lag obsolete, helping everyone in the long run.

The future is so bright, I may have to make myself some prim-shades

Of course, given that his biggest critic is someone heavily invested in the obsolete way of doing things, it isn't suprising that her vitriol is so freely-flowing

I fully expect SecondServer and SLExchange to 1) collect this information, for auditing purposes. 2) Not give this information to anyone, except as anonymized aggregate statistics.

For what it's worth, the *Lindens* do track every single transaction, for their own purposes. I think as administrators of the system, they should.

I was having a conversation a while ago with Philip Linden. He asked me how much I made in SL. (It was just before he was scheduled to hold a town hall on the economy) I said I didn't know - I don't keep track of these things that carefully.

Moments later, he replied: "Over the last 30 days, "L$X on Seburos, L$Y on Watches, L$Z on Jetskis".

I wish we had access to these tools for our own accounts

Mmmm, sorry, but I think you confuse something. I think web based market is great thing. This is also why I was among first to provide free spots for SLExchange terminals. I always support new service and I don't consider this serious competition to in world malls as it is very different type of experience.

What I am specificially questioning is collection of sales information by vendor machines that collect data in one central database. It is enough that Linden Lab know everything. But they are not anonymous and are one company under supervision of law. So why exactly do we need spyware in malls?

And, if my memory is correct, I already voiced my concerns about Adam's spy vendors long long long ago when he wanted to install them in Galleria City in early July.

I honestly have a good reason to trust Adam.
As a customer of my server, Adam's been a very good one, he pays Pizzabox's bill ahead, and is courtious to other users with his resources.
Even before he became my customer, he has shown great trust in me and my work, and is an insparation to my work towards PHP coding, which is now something I do outside of SL to make a living.

[Edited to remove misworded statement that could have been seen as an attack.]

Ice, this is not about Adam or Anshe or anybody else. You might know Adam as good friend and honest person. But this is not the point. The question here is about one system and about what data somebody can collect about other people. Adam is just first person who it seem is doing this.

How would you feel if somebody whom you don't know personally would be collecting all this information?

They already do. This is the internet, nothing is private. I garuntee you every internet transaction you've ever had is somewhere on a server.

Just about the same as I'd feel about someone who has a island-wide system of vendors, I guess. You raise a good point though. How do we know the systems in place by Anshe are reputable? I'm certainly curious due to the level of suspicion in her posts.

Do tell.

I am sorry, I should have worded my first scentance better.
I personally miss public land, and reasonably priced land, and thus my statement was perhaps a bit more bias then it should have been, I will edit that part out.