Robin... could we get some clarification please?

Some folks on the forums continue to spread bad information regarding the new 'Featured Listings' program.

Could you clarify for us how the process will work?

Are the auctions open to only SL residents? Will anyone on Ebay be able to participate?

Thanks Robin

What would someone who isnt an SL resident DO with it?

You mean like McDonalds are going to buy the top spot for 10k or something? Meh. Why not. No less useless than the list is going to be as an indicator of.. well, anything, anyway.

Exactly what I mean. There are a few folks on the boards who are worried that 'outsiders' might pick up on the advertising for items like textures, software, etc.

I doubt McDonalds would be interested... but I wouldn't put it past them either.

Ya know, I don't think it much matters what's on it. Can you really see anyone taking any notice of whats on it? What information does it actually contain? Who won 10 auction slots? Who has the most money to advertise so you can pay more to? Maybe it's just me but I don't think I shall ever open that tab in my life.

Interesting.

I believe this will be beneficial on several fronts:

- LL no longer has to scour the world looking for neat-o places to highlight. Resources can be put to better use.
- Any resident has a crack at some high-level advertising for thier business. It is inclusive, not exclusive.

Anyway.. that's how I view it. I'm very interested to see how this experiment works out.

I think random plots should have Prim Wells (ie: Oil Wells) and players who own that land can mine those prims and sell them to others who need more for their land. Then we can establish a Prim Market site for the trading of prims.

Alby, that's just retarded.

LOL. Fun as that might be, people would be bitching about who got a well and who didnt... and land with wells on would sell for like a gazillion dollars. Oh wait... now I see your point.

I'm not necessarily "worried" that outsiders would pick up advertising. I don't think, however, that it was LL's intention to sell the advertising to outside parties. I know I won't look at that advertising page anyway, so I don't really care.

The question you asked earlier is interesting..."is" there a way to limit an Ebay auction to only a certain set of buyers (meaning SL players)?

I probably will, simply out of morbid curiosity.



Ever played Anarchy Online? Their billboards, in this futuristic roleplaying game, are will filled with adverts for Alienware computers and Bawls. We could end up with the same damn thing.

To me, its just wrong.

If these top picks get filled with actual SL resident stuff, then fine and dandy. If its filled with RL adverts, it sucks.

My $2L (which I had to buy off of GOM cuz my stipend is so small hehehe),

-Ghoti

Aww. Contact me inworld and I'll buy you another dozen or so posts

Hehe, thanks Kris.

-Ghoti

Agreed. That's why I've said, it is a bit premature to brand this as a 'bad' idea when the first auctions haven't even closed. We haven't seen this program in action.

The Lindens have always been receptive to our input. Banning RL/Outside advertising for RL products (i.e. Pepsi, Honda, McDonalds, etc) is something we should ask them to consider.

Also, as Robin said.. it's an experiment. It's not law, just yet.

Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol Jed's a millionaire,
Kinfolk said "Jed move away from there"
Said "Californy is the place you ought to be"
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly.

Hills, that is. Swimmin pools, movie stars...

For the top picks, why not simply take nominations from the user-base each month, put up a (ahem) poll, allow only one vote per user name, and take the top 10 vote getters for that month and list them?

Erase, Rinse, Repeat.

Yes, I know, massive voter fraud.

Or create an artistic / building group who would go out, review each submitted build, do a confidential vote, and then list those 10 ten locations.

I still think top picks should show the places that are on the most people's profile picks.

The auctions are only for SL residents, selling SF creations. I'll make sure that's clear on the item description!

Chip - I think it would be great if there were a way to have the users nominate stuff for Top Picks (also for developer incentives). We just haven't come up with a way yet to do that which is fair, and doesn't either allow for vote rigging or Lindens having to choose (which would just get us back to Linden favoritism/editorializing and why we don't have Top Picks any more...). If you have ideas, let's talk about them here.

I wonder what would happen if a friend, or someone other than the owner of a location, bid for placement in the Featured Listings. What happens if someone didn't want to be listed -- or have attention drawn to their place, for whatever reason -- but someone else bid for them? How would that work?

It's a rare possibility but I am just curious.

I am thinking of buying all the ads and then reselling them.

Ad Baron!!!

There you go, Darko! It's bound to happen sooner or later, so I could see you playing AD BARON and taking the initiative. <--- I say this in a most lighthearted manner, of course, but the obvious is bound to happen... sooner or later.

Thanks Robin

Here's some thoughts I have about top picks...

As I said it could be pulled from the picks list in people's profiles which I think is a very underutilized feature. People would be able to basically "vote" for more than one place since we can have several picks in our profile. To encourage people to use or change their picks we could bring back a kind of voting booth that when clicked would automatically add the place they're at to their picks. If their picks list was full it would pop up a list asking which they want to delete or allowing them to cancel. It would also tell the owner the number of people who've used it. In order to keep the list from being too static, every day or week the top picks could come from a different demographic category, like account ages, country of origin, sex, SL income range, and whatever other demographic info is compiled about the user base. One day might show the top picks for women under 30. The next day might show top picks for people over 50. The next it might be newbies. The next might be oldbies. The next might be a random user's list. You get the idea. One of the nice things about it would be that it's not really open to gaming or favoritism and even lazy people can participate and even relatively unknown places would have a good chance of showing up. I always felt guilty that I was too lazy to fly around clicking vote boxes every day when we used to have them. With this I wouldn't ever have to change my picks if I didn't want to, and I could even vote for myself without being an ass I'm sure it wouldn't be trivial to implement but I think it would be cool, and since it would change often it would be fun to check it out every day.