New Project: Yellow Pages

We need a comprehensive directory of businesses, services, organizations, and other useful things in Second Life. "Find" and trying to guess people's keywords just doesn't cut it for me. I'm sure there are others out there who feel the same way. Ideally, this would be done as a publication in-game so that people can get landmarks right there, but this could also be done as a website. Listings should be free, but I could see this as a business model with people paying L$ for ads.

Actually, I think "Yellow Pages" is trademarked, so we'll have to call it the Canary Pages or the Saffron Pages or something. On SL, maybe it should be the Neon Green Pages? Ha ha.

I'm not quite sure if I have the time or energy to spearhead this project myself, so if someone else is all gung-ho about it, I'd be glad to take a secondary role.

I've already started pulling lists together and I think it should be an object in-game, probably distributed for free or for just a $1. I made a little prim with the Yellow Pages logo on it and started trying to fill it with landmarks, lists, and photos but it's a bit cumbersome. It definitely needs a web page to go with hit. I can donate one of my free tripod sites for this purpose temporarily anyway.

I checked, and it is NOT trademarked and it surely can be called Yellow Pages. ATT never trademarked it. Every Yellow Pages from here to Malaysia to Myanmar to Moldova uses the classic fingers-walking logo and the name Yellow Pages -- just go check on google and you'll see what I mean. I already uploaded the logo into my textures if you want to play with it.

I thought of putting in the landmarks too but it starts to fill up. I asked somehow how to make it vendable and they sent me script but I haven't figured out how to do it.

Let me tell you, this project is a LOT of work. It needs a whole team of people. I was limiting myself to just making a briefer list for newbies of the basics. I figured down the line, there could be a Zagat-type of recommendations list. Businesses could perhaps buy ads. There has to be a way to get beyond the top 100 list.

IM and let's see about trying to make this work.

There are several web based projects in this area as well. I have one under development called Avatar Central at http://www.sluniverse.com/avatarcentral and Adam has one that is further along at http://trade.secondserver.net/

The main problem with doing something like this in world is that there is no universally searchable interface we can tap into, other that connecting externally, and this info changes so frequently. Hopefully in the future we will be able to integrate web content more directly into SL.

Philip and company at Linden Lab have said that better searching is on the way. And we need it, too.

I suggested a Yellow Pages type interface to replace the current Find / Places list at the last Town Hall, and Philip seemed enthusiastic.

People like myself who offer services rather than hard goods would find this a great boon.

some kinda directory would be great as long as it was kept up (which would be just about impossible i'm guessing) but pleaseohpleaseohplease don't format it like the real yellow pages. i can't find anything in those. you have to be on drugs to guess what bizarre category some businesses will be put in.

The web pages that Cristiano provided are helpful, but different than what I had in mind. These pages have broad categories like "Animations" or "Scripts".

I am making a list that has really basic stuff like "sneakers" or "swords" or "dress, little black" LOL.

I will go on making it and if anyone wants to join me in this type of list, IM me in-game.

Not really practical to use in SL. Xcept as some kind of query terminal?

Maybe just slap down a Wiki online somewhere?

Woo! I knew I wasn't the only one.

And yeah, this will take at least 5-10 committed people, I'm guessing. We'd need that many just to keep up with attrition in the list itself.

Prokofy Neva: I'll IM you in-game to talk.

Lisse: An official one would be ideal! It's so much work, though.

A wiki is a great idea. Anyone out there got some free webspace to throw one up?