Brief tutorial on how to make money in SecondLife

Yes, Daemioth, I am selling land at land baron prices. And I am NOT kidding about it working.

All I did was buy some cheap land, think up some BS marketing crap for the description, marked up the price to $20/m and it sold in about 3 weeks. I don't know who bought it or why, but it was probably a new player who didn't know any better.

Since this worked, I have upped the PG land I have for sale to $40-$50 a meter. If more land barons start raising their prices, and if you suckas give up the hard work and start buying some land at auction just for resale, the price will get that high. It's soo easy. So let's all just stop the hard work and sell land to each other. It's gonna be so artistic man.

Okay... let's see, $500 Linden a week, in theory with the price increases at the steady rate of 10 Linden per meter per day... the increase would come to 70 Lindens per meter, per week, or for a 16m2: 1120 lindens in land inflation, minus the 500, this is 620 Lindens inflation (inflation, not cost) over what the economy could safely support on stipend alone, factoring in bonuses, and... if you just land barron and party, you /might/ break even in the land market... nice.

And people wonder why I don't own land.

If you have left over land in your tier allocation, then I strongly suggest you buy some cheap land and sell it for $30/M. (Especially if it's next to a cool build!!)

Why not since your paying for it anyways Someone will eventually buy it.

And why not pull your group land donations out too... Here's why : It's a secret though, don't say I told you. I hope they don't kick me out of the land baron club for saying this. Buy some cheap land at auction now, before it's too late. Because last night at the nightly land baron meeting we decided to take some aggressive action. All out price collusion and we will get the price up to $60/M by December so buy your land now while it's cheap.

Oh, this explains a lot about your attitude. No - most of us do not fall into this little narrow viewpoint.

In First Life, I do run a successful business (but am retiring early). I haven't been a student in over 10 years. I haven't lived with a parent in over 25 years. Making money is not a sin. Making money unethically is going to make you unpopular and lose you money in the long run. I would not be surprised if your First Life business follows this same path if this is your mindset.

What do you run, anyway? An advertising agency?!

Funnily enough, I heard this once before from an A&R exec. I'm afraid I couldn't help laughing at him when he said it, which was neither polite nor politic of me.

Where I do agree with you is on the nature of these forums, and I often wish that ideas could be discussed here without descending into personal character attacks.

If someone attacks me I will attack back. If someone were punching you, would you just run away? Yes, I get arrogant and condescending when someone attributes to me negative things. I defend, it's natural. I'm not gandhi.


If I didn't see business as an art form, I wouldn't be here where I can't make any serious money. I'd simply be out optimizing websites to get to the top of Google. I can make jazillions at that but it certainly doesn't inspire me, nor do I feel like I'm making a worthwhile contribution.


What people can't seem to reason out, is that Land Barons are a fact of life.

I'm a lightning rod because I'm actually trying to open up a discourse and trying weave some kind of good into SecondLife that can come from Land Baron'ing.

But rather than working on that discourse, people on these forums would rather spin off into an unproductive blind rage (just look above for an example) that denies reality.

Cause the reality is, people are out there doing it, people will be out there doing it, and you can't stop them. But we could try to inspire them to be more effective for the whole community.

In all seriousness, this is the problem with the current "doubling" land tier structure. When you're already on a pretty high tier already, and then just have to have the land next door, so you tier up again, you're left with 15,000 to 31,000 m2 that you're paying for but not using. So you get tempted into buying land you don't really need, maybe holding it for a friend, maybe buying it from someone who wanted a quick sale and doing it up for a slower but higher priced sale. Before long, you're land baroning!

I know I stopped bidding entirely when I was bumping the top of my previous land tier. Once I was tempted to go up to the next tier, I started bidding again. If you have empty tier to fill, the major expense drawback to land trading vanishes.

I think that past the first couple of tiers, you should be able to buy fixed price blocks of 1024m2 (or maybe 2048m2?) as add-ons. Doubling is not healthy

Okay, I studied Philosophy as my minor in college, including modern philosophy.

Define post-modernism. I challenge you.

Venerial disease is out there, it's a fact of life.. doesn't mean it's good, or that people should embrace it with open arms.

Siggy.

Viola,

The post you wrote describing the tensions between commercialism and creativity in LL marketing and in Second Life was so wonderful to read for me. All so true.

Venerial disease is actually a good thing, if you wanted it to be.

It promotes no sex out of marriage and punishes the unfaithful and rewards the celibate.

If you studied post modern, you'd realise that it's a pretty broad topic. One definition might be:

"In its most general sense, describes the blurring and breakdown of established canons (rules, standards), categories, distinctions, and boundaries. "

There are many others.

And you don't have to challenge me. You can just ask.

V.D., The New Religion.

I didn't ask or challenge anything, I think that was Hiro -- if you used some of the tools at your disposal I'm sure you could clarify whom you are addressing at any given moment.

Now, to the subject at hand... is this a serious point? I personally can't believe that in the year 2000 anyone pretending to have studied anything can be so narrow minded and uninformed so as to beleive that the only way venerial diseases are spread is through adultery and pre marital sex....

Tell ya what, next child I see that will die of Aids before they turn 10, I'll congratulate them on being celebate.

This leaves me in a predicament -- I either dismiss you as a troll (this is the best case scenerio)

I dismiss you as ignorant and uniformed.

Or I dismiss you on the grounds that you are putting forward something only to cling to your former ludicrous point (that we should all embrace things simply because 'it is here').

You want a serious discussion, yet you put forth something utterly idiotic when you are engaged...

Siggy.

As for AIDs, you are right. It is a terrible terrible thing and death is not exactly a reasonable even for the unfaithful. Hopefully we'll be able to rid the world of this plague.

My points wasn't that veneral disease is a good thing. My point was that it can be if you wanted it to be.

I am one of those people who'd rather see people simply be faithful rather than spend their time complaining about it. Obviously, if we can cure it that would be a good thing.

Much like my suggestion on how to cure land baroning. I find it amazing in all your trolling you didn't even bother realise that I'm pretty much against people reselling land at twice the price.

In fact, rather than sitting around sniping why don't you just try to think up ideas for discussion and debate on how to curtail land baroning?

Making fun of me or having a fit isn't going to solve anything. Proposing real solutions would.

One way to curtail it is to weaken the market for the product. Adding a dozen or so new sims would help in that respect.

Land barons will probably continue the auction bidding wars, but with all the additional properties, they'll end up having to work a tiny bit harder to make a profit.

Did you know that left untreated, most venerial diseases will cause death? Syphalis is particularly nasty...

And staying faithful rather than complain about what? Not staying faithfull or that diseases exist - and wtf does that have to do with the point anyways?

Point : you shouldn't simply accept things in the world because they are there.... especially if they have undesirable effects upon society.

Ask one person effected by the clap if they think it could possibly be a good thing.. I'm sure they would say no..

Likewise Land Barony.



And I'm amazed in all your replying and doublespeak you can't answer any one of my replies without doing that which you accuse others of.

Btw I still

Being against Land Baroning - that was neither here nor there.. My issue was with some of your points not making sense - and of course your intiial disregard - and *actual* snipe against Juro.

But nevertheless lets see about the Land Baron issue.. Very well - you're against Land Barons, but suggest that Newcomers buy and sell land for a profit (which in and of itself doesn't equate to Land Barony in my books - but certainly paves the way) -- of course there is your own spinning sign incident and argument with Ironchef..

Not content to hit one button your next involved reselling of free goods - at this point I started posting - of course stating that people were 'harping' on about it..

It's kind of like saying I'm against beastiality and I'll f*ck a horse to prove it....



Ah yes, like my alternative way to make money in SL - oh that's right, that was a 'snipe' - that people can actually create things, how dare I suggest such a thing!

once again I ask you to define what 'sniping' is in the land of blaze... is it every point that doesn't expressly agree with yours?

So... I am to engage on a discussion but only if it's the discussion you want from both sides? I wasn't so much making fun of you - you do far too well a job of that all by youself at the moment.

I know what the solution to Land Baroning is.. it's rather simple - don't buy land at over inflated prices.. People will end up having to lower prices or face large tier charges the longer they hang onto it.

Siggy.

Blaze, it seems to me the point that you're missing in all the replies is that many of us feel strongly that the only reason people should ever buy land is because they actually want to use it. People who buy it for the sole purpose of reselling it at a profit don't really add anything to the world. They just kind of insert themselves as a middleman between the land and those who actually do want to use it, just to skim a little off the top.

Many of us think that it's detrimental to SL and would like to see people join our community because they want to create and enjoy the creations of others. We watched the SL world evolve and the community bond in a world where profit wasn't the point (and wasn't possible)... creativity and community were what brought us back month after month. When people come here and seem to think that the entire point of SL is to find the best way to put US dollars in their pockets it just rubs a lot of people the wrong way... myself included. So when you post tutorials on the forum about how to do what so many of us find detrimental to our world you're going to get people expressing that to you. That doesn't make them trolls.

If people really dig your street car and other creations they'll be willing to pay you for them... and you'd be getting paid for adding content to the world rather than skimming off the ambitions of someone who needs land to build on. You don't need to be a builder or artist to make money in SL. Throw great parties and charge admission, have contests and events, be a true realtor and charge a flat fee for helping someone find a specific plot of land that meets their needs rather than speculating on the market. Be social and get lots of ratings. This is a wide open world where so much is possible. Land speculation isn't the best way to make money in SL. It's just the easiest and least imaginative.

I know and respect many of the people who do what you're doing. It doesn't make me not like them. But I will remain philosophicaly opposed to their chosen profession and will always be hoping that they'll start looking for more ways to add value to the SL world, rather than looking for the best ways to extract it.

Jack, I can't say I'm not disappointed. I held you in high regard as a content creator and frequently referenced you as an artist and progressive builder in SL. I can't figure out why you would be turning 'land baron' considering how long you've been in this game and what you know you're doing to new players and the like. But, money is power, so I don't expect you to shrivel up and change or something like that. Just wanted to say my piece as I say goodbye to one of the big names of SL's early days.

The point I was trying to make but the self-rage of some forum trolls has messed up the message:

Is to buy land, improve the land and its area, and then sell it at a profit.

It was never to buy land, increase price, sell land.

Blaze, people buy land because THEY want to develop it. You're just trying to justify what you do. You yourself brag that it only takes you a few minutes to "improve" the land. If you're a great land "improver" then why not just do that for a fee rather than skim profit off the land deal?

I tried to start a serious discussion with you, but now I see I'm wasting my time. Your attitude sucks.

The profit from the skim is the payment for the development.

How does my attitude suck? I have found a way for land developers to actually profit from what they do. I have suggested that rather than simply creating scarcity, people should actually take the time to improve the land.

Your complaint is completely inexplicable to me.

and another quote by you...



You're encouraging people to skim profit off land sales and to make it more attractive by using things created by other people. I hardly call that "improving" the land when the reason people buy land is because they want to develop it for their own uses.

It's nice that you're trying to help people, and I applaud you for trying to develop your own content to give away such as your streetcar, but you've made it very clear with your various threads that your motive is profit, not providing a service, and not doing anything that takes more than 30 minutes of your time. Like I said before, if your content is good, and your land improvements are good you can easily profit from both of those things without involving yourself in land sales at all.

Can you at all understand why people are taking issue with you?

According to his earlier post, it's because we're all unemployed students living with our parents who think making money is evil *shrug*

blaze,

I am trying hard to keeping personal attacks out of this, but in the interest of healthy posts.

1. You accuse everyone ELSE of attacking you? Are you blind? People have been extremely good of keeping to the topic and discussing the ideas that you posted. You insult us with your baseless accusations.

2. It's clear you have a textbook definition of post-modernism and have no firm grasp over the concepts. Making money off of land speculation is no new idea, it's certainly not post-modern, and furthermore saying land speculating is art is like saying 2+2=4 is beautiful, advanced math.

3. No one else is speaking up for land barrony. Drop it already.

Can you add self-rage to the list of things I'd like a solid explanation of...

From what I can make out it would be being angry at yourself - But this can't be correct as Darko for instance is never angry at anyone, not even people people who would see him as an enemy.

I'm way too attached to reality to even get remotly upset about anything on the forums.

Others like Chip and Viola I've only ever seen discuss things from an intelligent and informed position..

Where is this rage?

Still my question remains, how can a person claim to be against Land Barony whilst more or less encouraging those new to Second Life to start along the road to it.

Encouraging developing, whilst saying that the encouragement of developing content is 'hijacking' and 'sniping'. Not even mentioning the 'developing' fiasco of using others content to raise your prices.

I've not seen a good explanation of any of this, and yet when I ask I'm 'sniping' and 'trolling' and 'making fun of you'

Which is rather funny as if I were you'd feel your anus pucker really quickly and discover what 'self-rage' was.

Siggy.