New SL and IMVU Forum

Hi,

This is probably the only forum on the net that brings together the builders of Second Life and the developers of IMVU!

If you only build in SL you can learn how to build in IMVU and vice-versa.

The forum is very new and information is added everyday by members and by me. You are welcomed to join. It is free.

The forum has several sections for any level of builder/developer/creator.

You can write or read tutorials, give links, talk about your groups, give the hours of your in world classes, advertise your products, designs and much more.

Every one is welcomed to join:

http://sl-imvu-forum.3d-flowers.net/SLIMVUForum/

Hmmm... I'm not sure if I like the whole concept of SL-IMVU... As I believe IMVU is for people under the age of 18 and SL is for people over the age of 18.

But I guess IMVU was developed pretty nicely, it's just I don't like the whole idea of an alliance between the two...

Nice forum set-up though, although you could do with changing it from the SMF-Default CSS to a more friendlier CSS.

But that's my two cents.

IMVU _allows_ users under 18 but users over 18 are allowed there as well, although of course "adult" content has to be restricted as a result.

Sounds intresting, gona check it out

I'm in IMVU, though I haven't spent much time there.

Can you actually build stuff in IMVU?

What is IMVU?

http://www.imvu.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMVU will give you an idea of what IMVU is like.

It's a 3D chat world.

You can build things for IMVU but you need the developers account to access this you need to purchase your Avatar name.

You can do that from this page.
http://www.imvu.com/store/store_us.php

That's true, unless you can pay IMVU real money they won't let you dev on their site. Also they do not allow you to offer help to Dev in SL. Yesterday I offered IMVU Devs that need help starting up in SL Free Store Space on my island, and was FORMALLY WARNED about "advertising" for a COMPETITOR by the mods in their Forum. This was offered in a thread that compared and contrasted SL and other 3D platforms with IMVU.

I use both programs, but I have to warn any builder wanting to create in IMVU, right now there is some really potentially dangerous policies in IMVU for Developers/Builders. One of the big new ones, if they decide to re-rate your product, say anywhere from today to anytime in the future, they will take the "refunds" of anyone whose bought it automatically out of your account, for the entire time it's been in existence, and if you are then placed in a "negative" balance, all income from your builds on IMVU will go direct to IMVU, not you, and you'll only have 10 days to bring your balance to 0 or higher or your account will be frozen (but all you income on items will still go to IMVU).

That is just ONE of the problems with building at IMVU. Check out the forums before you build there and learn about Dev Tokens, Credit "taxes", and the fact you have to pay fees to submit/sell anything in IMVU. Even if you want to give others freebies, you have to pay IMVU a fee for every copy that gets passed out.

Also, becareful if you link to anything nonIMVU on their site. Unlike here, if you post any links in the IMVU forums to anything SL, they will ban you. I posted a link to this thread, and got banned for linking to a "competitor" site.

Bliss Crimson in SL
aka MooncatX in IMVU

God i'm so glad i never paid for my name to use the dev kit, my god that's a little bit much aint it.

Nods. I mostly keep my IMVU account because I have some friends with accounts there who are unable to access SL right now. One friend due to severe carpel that prevents her from using a lot of different key strokes, she can use IMVU more than she can use SL -- but now with Voice that may change. A few others have older computer systems, and IMVU takes a bit less power to run.

IMVU was the first online 3D platform I got into, and after researching other 3D online interactive worlds, became aware of SL. Originally, SL made me pull out my hair trying to get used to the differences. SL is more complex, but after you learn how to move and stuff, extremely rewarding in the greater versatility it offers residents and Builders, not to mention the greater freedom of expression.

I think it's a little bit harder for builders who create things for sale to get started in SL, because you need to develop an awareness of your products with SL residents, but there are less concerns about your items suddenly getting disabled or removed because someone grief flags them. In IMVU, someone can flag your item and get it removed.

Even if the removal is disputed and your items are returned (the turn around on disputed ratings is varied and could take a very long time) the Dev can experience catastrophic removal of credits (their cyber money) from his or her account and risk being disabled through no fault of their own. Also, you are not allowed to remove your products from IMVU one you've submitted them. Even talking about doing that can get your account frozen. A friend upset by some new IMVU policy/tos changes talked about removing her items on the IMVU forums, and before she could blink her account was frozen. Mind you, she didn't actually remove anything, she just talked about it. She eventually got her account unfrozen, but that is the sort of thing that can happen.

Selling IMVU credits back for money is also more complicated. There is no linden exchange equivalent, you have to sell them to private resellers. IMVU charges 1 us dollar per 1000 IMVU credits. Developers who earn credits will only get about 45 cents per 1000 credits sold to a reseller, and that is if they can sell 100,000 credits at a pop. One dev friend I know has 70,000 credits she made, and is still trying to make another 30,000 so she can cash out and make back what she spent on buying her name, her AP (you have to have the AP to see or sell items rated as AP) not to mention dev fees. IMVU also gives away "free" cyber money called predits, that people can use to buy your items, but you are not able to cash out predits, and what you get is after a certain amount of predits, something called Dev Tokens.

You can't do very much with Dev Tokens. Many devs will see tons of Dev Tokens, but few if any credits, so nothing for them to cash out, even if lots of people are buying your stuff. added note -- private resellers who have a surplus of credits may not buy more credits, so you could have the unfortunate situation of finally making 100,000 credits and be ready to sell them, only to have no one to sell them to at that time. The big known and reputable resellers will have a sign out on their page "now buying credits" if they are buying, if they are not buying, then you have to wait till they are ready and able to buy.

Bliss

According to new official announcements from IMVU staff, by a new definition of rules on IMVU, people who Resell credits and now not allowed to SAY they are reselling credits on "shout outs" (the advertising system of IMVU). By not allowing resellers to alert people about their credits, IMVU might be seen as keeping buyers of credits unaware of the resell market.

IMPORTANT NOTE IMVU does NOT buy back credits, so a developer can only sell his or her credits to resellers, or resell them directly themselves. That is the only way to cash them out. So logically, IMVU gets cash for credits that people use to buy developer goods... developers can do WHAT with the credits they get? If they can't resell the credits, then developers get nothing for their efforts. Worse, they have already paid to put their items up on IMVU, and they pay fees out of every sale.

Check out the Developer section in the IMVU forums. There are discussions there and links to the official announcements. Already developers are selling off their accounts... or at least trying to.

***********************************

Nods. I mostly keep my IMVU account because I have some friends with accounts there who are unable to access SL right now. One friend due to severe carpel that prevents her from using a lot of different key strokes, she can use IMVU more than she can use SL -- but now with Voice that may change. A few others have older computer systems, and IMVU takes a bit less power to run.

IMVU was the first online 3D platform I got into, and after researching other 3D online interactive worlds, became aware of SL. Originally, SL made me pull out my hair trying to get used to the differences. SL is more complex, but after you learn how to move and stuff, extremely rewarding in the greater versatility it offers residents and Builders, not to mention the greater freedom of expression.

I think it's a little bit harder for builders who create things for sale to get started in SL, because you need to develop an awareness of your products with SL residents, but there are less concerns about your items suddenly getting disabled or removed because someone grief flags them. In IMVU, someone can flag your item and get it removed.

Even if the removal is disputed and your items are returned (the turn around on disputed ratings is varied and could take a very long time) the Dev can experience catastrophic removal of credits (their cyber money) from his or her account and risk being disabled through no fault of their own. Also, you are not allowed to remove your products from IMVU one you've submitted them. Even talking about doing that can get your account frozen. A friend upset by some new IMVU policy/tos changes talked about removing her items on the IMVU forums, and before she could blink her account was frozen. Mind you, she didn't actually remove anything, she just talked about it. She eventually got her account unfrozen, but that is the sort of thing that can happen.

Selling IMVU credits back for money is also more complicated. There is no linden exchange equivalent, you have to sell them to private resellers. IMVU charges 1 us dollar per 1000 IMVU credits. Developers who earn credits will only get about 45 cents per 1000 credits sold to a reseller, and that is if they can sell 100,000 credits at a pop. One dev friend I know has 70,000 credits she made, and is still trying to make another 30,000 so she can cash out and make back what she spent on buying her name, her AP (you have to have the AP to see or sell items rated as AP) not to mention dev fees. IMVU also gives away "free" cyber money called predits, that people can use to buy your items, but you are not able to cash out predits, and what you get is after a certain amount of predits, something called Dev Tokens.

You can't do very much with Dev Tokens. Many devs will see tons of Dev Tokens, but few if any credits, so nothing for them to cash out, even if lots of people are buying your stuff. added note -- private resellers who have a surplus of credits may not buy more credits, so you could have the unfortunate situation of finally making 100,000 credits and be ready to sell them, only to have no one to sell them to at that time. The big known and reputable resellers will have a sign out on their page "now buying credits" if they are buying, if they are not buying, then you have to wait till they are ready and able to buy.

Bliss

Man I thought about it, and more I see at here and their own site I think
I will stick with SL and improve my skills until something better comes
a long that has bit more fair content selling practices then IMVU.

IMVU has it's flaws but SL does too.

IMVU, offers to work fine with a small amount of ram. SL "recommend" you have 1gb of ram and some of the best graphics card in order to run.

SL = 3D World/Environment
IMVU = 3D chat and is easier to learn.

SL lags more because it's an entire world with different place. IMVU is just a 3D chat with one room and furniture. You can't walk or fly. Buying your names gives you the rights to post in the social forums, develop stuff for the catalog, submit promotional bundles to IMVU and if chosen, they will earn you hundreds of thousands of credits, seriously.

Although, most of IMVU's devs are coming here to SL, which is why I joined and some friends are here instead of IMVU now. IMVU has some pretty good stuff in the catalog though, and it's easier to shop without going to islands/stores.

SL has some flaws, but for content creators, IMVU's flaws are serious, and things you really need know if you are interested in Dev/Building in that system.

On IMVU, you HAVE to buy your name or you cannot create/sell content on IMVU. What you get for buying your name is stuff you get at Second Life for FREE.

IMVU forums are heavily censored. Even after you PAY for a name, you *still* have to pay More Fees for EVERY single thing item you upload to the catalog. Most people pay more than half the cost of item in fees on every single sale. Basically if you Dev on IMVU, you pay constantly, and can still get everything you make taken away from you till you are in the NEGATIVE zone on finances. If you want to give your own creation as a gift to someone, You Have To Pay IMVU.

Let's say despite all that, you still manage to make hundreds of thousands of credits. And most devs don't make that much At All. Hundreds of thousands of IMVU credits equal small change after you realize half will be predits that are worthless, the half of your sales that are in actual sellable credits-- you will get less than 50 percent of their original selling price. ie, 100,000 credits IMVU will get 100 dollars US on the original sale while a Dev with 100,000 credits will get about equal 45bucks. Now if you get grief flagged, you get to see your 100,000 credits disappear POOF while your account could then go into NEGATIVE balance. Maybe you will get them back in a month or two after having to hound customer service daily to get any response for why your GA spike heeled shoes was rated UFI. During the time your account is locked for negative balance, guess who gets the earnings on the developers' items? Three guess and they aren't the devs who made them.

And that name you bought for life? There are people who bought names to develop with, and found out the names they PAID for had been resold by IMVU!!!

Now to chat in the SL forums, develop and sell in SL, etc, you don't have to buy anything. No one is going to sell your SL avatar name if you get too busy in RL to log in for a while. If you sell something in SL, and get 100,000 Lindens, you can turn that into about 400,000 US dollars. However the same number of IMVU credits you'll be lucky if you make 40 bucks after your initial expenses and no one grief flags you and you wind up losing money.

Easier to shop the IMVU catalog? lol... I've got carpel sore wrists trying to buy just one bloody outfit on IMVU. Meanwhile shopping in SL is far less painful, and if I don't like buying inside SL I can always use the SLX, where your SEARCH function actually works.

But I digress. The point is if you plan to Dev in IMVU, you should know abut this stuff. It's important and germane to the intent and actions of trying to develop content as part of business or hobby.

mcx