slexchange.com VS secondserver.com...

I don't think this means the end at all. I charge less at my mall sites than on the websites. For one obvious reason, and if those people are going to take the time to shop in world (where it's not so convinient) I will award them a discount. Weather they know they are getting one or not. hehe

I don't think it will mean the end of malls -- we do have parallelism in the real world involving alternative methods of shopping. Internet shopping (and the Home Shopping Network, sometime before...) provide convenience, but as pointed out, there are people -- and with certain products -- that simply need to be "sampled" in person.

It's good to have these alternatives. It provides magnitudes of choice far above any dangerous singularity that would only work for a segment of the population.

I don't think it will be the end of malls completely, no. What I believe will happen is that the "cube mall", where someone simply sets up a 10-100 square stalls, will be forced to move to something that provides a better shopping experience. It will no longer be enough to simply rent some simple stall space to attract vendors.

This is good for SL commerce, good for the vendors, and good for the consumers as well.

I must say I am really enjoying reading this thread. For those of you who don't know me, I am the sole developer of SLExchange.com. I agree along with everyone else that competition is best for the community, and I am looking forward to being part of and watching as this chapter of SL history unfolds.

On a related note... yes we have competing services, but I fully believe that there is plenty of room in Second Life for both of us (and more if anyone so decides to enter this market) and that if there is no "winner" in the end, then it is just that much better for the community as a whole.

Our goal above all else is to promote and help commerce within Second Life expand. As long as this is being achieved I can say that I am happy with the results.


I also want to reply to a couple specific things that were mentioned.


Anshe, SL Exchange collects sales data for items purchased at the website. This sales data is made available to each respective merchant for their own records and we will probably use it in the future to make aggregate statistics available to the community. Sales data is also used to build the Popular Items list that you see when you first enter the Marketplace.

We do not currently and do not plan to use this data to gain an unfair advantage in knowing which items sell best and corner niche markets.



Aestival, you may want to take another look... we changed the design of the site just yesterday and have been adding features left and right, with many more planned. Your page links at the top and bottom were done on Saturday.

I never even heard ot SLExchange or Gigas until this thread. Haven't really decided if I'll use them to sell my wares - maybe will wait to see how well it works, see if it's more popular than in-world shopping areas.

On that same note, one of the things that I'm not understanding is why a person would want to go out of world to buy in-world items. Seems to be kinda backwards to me, would rather prefer to spend my time and energy in pushing towards better in-world sales tools.


- Newfie Pendragon

I completely agree, Newfie.. it would be nice if the in-world tools could be improved. However, I think one major feature SL-shoppers have wanted for a while now is the ability to find what they want easily. I myself have in the past spent more time than I'd like, looking for something specific for purchase. An in-world categorization system, beyond Places descriptions, would be pie.

I applaud both SLEx, and Gigas for providing this for us, web-based or no.
(oh and I guess it's super-handy to buy SL-stuff you see while you're at work, and have it waiting for you when you get home. )

OMG I HEARD SL EXCHANGE SELLS EMAILS ADDRESSES TO SPAMMERS LOLOL!!!!ONEONE.

*ahem*

Now I am both good friends with Apoth and Adam. I am also sysadmin on Secondserver.net. I think if we say we are not going to use data in any other way than to provide stats for the merchant, and generalised anonymous statistics, you should bite your lip and deal with it hmmm?

secondserver.net = win.
(God, I should have thought up a better name.. Of course, at the time, I had no clue it was going to be used for anything other than maps and webhosting).
The ss.net rates are 0% commission for web shopping. You can't really get much better than that without actually being given money. (And in that case, as running the free money project, and investment banking, I suppose you can. )

I looked over SLExchange, and it appeared to have a popularity advantage for object sales, but then again, it launched much earlier, while Gigas Webshop was launched just the other day. And as Gigas gives more services for your signup, It shall dominate until slexchange either lowers rates, or adds new services.

Ok, sooo many questions... I will try to "answer" them all. (SS.net)

As for Anshe concerns about the inworld vendors. The in-world vendors are simply a 2nd gateway that is working in paralelle to the webservice we offer. We designed this secondserver.net to work with the vendors and webservice. This would offer the best of both worlds!

As for the in-world vendor and the whole spy thing. I scripted pretty much everything inworld, vendors, datahold, server. I don't know what you mean about "leaking info" but none of the Gigas products; whisper, say or shout on any channels in SL. (except the dialog menus) As for storing information on the databases... well we kinda have to if the service we offer has any type of history. As for personnal information, the personnal information of a vendors sales in (webbased or vendor based) are only available to THAT vendor (via login of course).

I'm pretty much with Adam on this whole thing, as for personal information release/sold to the public. We have no itention or anything to gain from release personal info. We are building a system that relies on trust. We would never give out any personnal information what so ever!

Again for mall owners, Adam and I built this system to complement malls. Malls in SecondLife will always exist, and I hope they always do!

As for the comment about updating by the hour. Thx for noticing!

If you guys have any other questions, please post them here, IM me, email me (nexusnash@hotmail.com) I will be glad to answer!

Wow great! Even better!

Now it's A LOT easier to shop...(^_^)

Can I turn this into my personal wishlist thread? *^^*

- Can we have more pages of newest and most popular (i mean not just one page)... or even newest and most popular lists for each category?
- Can we have the marketplace be the home page?

As for Second Server mostly I just can't stand their categories... of course today when I tried to see if it had gotten better over the weekend now "my account has been blocked"... great.

Hee.. You could be at work (like me) and obsessing over SL (like me) and go look at the web store and see that the most popular item today is a connect 4 game which YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE and make a totally impulse buy (yeah... like me).

^_^;;


BTW I'm not associated in anyway with SLEX - I think competition is good I just happen to think SLEX is easier to use right now... Both have a long way to go to be as easy to use as Amazon or Ebay!

/me gets back to shopping...

Good idea. While browsing today, I wanted to see the new vehicles only. It would be nice to be able to list *all* items in a category and its subcategories, and sort them by date.

Actually, just telling people to just bite their lip and deal with it because you said you won't use the information is hardly addressing the issue. In fact, it is condescending and quite rude. There are valid privacy concerns that both sites need to address - acting indignant about it is hardly the way to address them.

I am a fan of Gigas, but if your attitude reflects the overall attitude of those involved, it doesn't speak well for the site. An example of your poor handling of privacy already is in your internal commmunications feature - it reveals all members user names, which you have no reason to display. I learned quite a lot just from looking at that list - including letting a friend know her RL first name was displaying in an area where I am sure she expected only her SL name to show.

$$$ sigh

Sorry Christiano, I flared.

Theres been a lot of hard work put into Gigas, mostly by adam and Nexus, and I take great offence at the suggestion the whole shebang is actually a data farming scheme.

As for the Name handling thing, I'll give adam a poke. My involvement is merely as a beta tester and database mangler (for adding shop catagories), not as a privacy consultant and master expert yadda.

that is retarded. the most ethical players will be the ones with the greatest investment int he community - ie anshe. the least ethical would be the ones with no investment. apparently you and your ridiculous accusations.

Chage,

It's understandable - as I said, I really like the site, and as a web application developer, I know the sheer amount of work that goes into making a site like this. That said, there are some valid concerns that apply to both sites equally. In the end it comes down to not only giving your word about how the data will be used, but also giving users tools to control their data and information that make them feel comfortable in trusting the site, and you by proxy. The more efforts you put in place to ensure the integrity of the data you are storing, the more integrity it gives your site. While hysteria and conspiracy theories have no place in this discussion, taking a realistic look at ways this data could possibly be misused, and in turn ways to protect it, is certainly an important excercise.

I agree entirely Cristiano

As I said, I'll poke Adam About it - I don't touch his code, he does nasty things that bare no mention on the forums to me if I do