SL Corporations

I have searched on this subject in the forums and didn't turn up much, I don't know if it has been tossed around or not, but I have an idea. I think that being able to form a company or corporation would greatly enable a lot of people to make more money instead of just a few people.

Lets say there is a company that does real estate. The owner could employ agents to sell, show, and possible purchase land. The money would then go into a seperate account where it would then be divided between the members. The funds could be divided a number of ways configurable by the owner of the company. The company could also hold its own money, so the owner doesn't have it all. I think this would allow companies to grow and pay its employees on a regualr basis.

This is so obvious im not sure why it doesn't exist yet in SL. I'm sure there are a lot of people against it. Maybe even someone has a better idea. I would love to hear about it.

People could pick and choose their employers with confidence that they will receive what they work for and the companies money can be reinvested into the company.

I don't think the employees should see how much money the owner or anyone else is making. But they should have a contract worked out about their wages before they start work.

Anyways, let me know what everyone things.

This does exist a lot through groups. The only reason it isn't formalized is because of the lack of enforceable contracts.

They may not be enforcable, but its a start. Also the group is severly limited when it comes to running a business. There are a lot of options that need to be there. I would like to see the group stay as it is and have another area formed for companies.

Right now you can't have an object share money with a group if it isn't transferable. i.e. i can't deed a slot machine to a group. And when someone pays into the slot machine the money goes to me and not the group. Just the same, when someone wins the payout comes out of my pocket.

I know some people have worked around this by creating another alt av, but thats just what it is, a work around.

I would like to see a full setting much like a group for companies, corporations, and small businesses.

This is precisely how the Neualtenburg Cooperative functions. We are a nonprofit cooperative in the real world and a government within the virtual world. We even have our own bank (PayPal in RL and the Neualtenburg Bank in SL).

~Ulrika~

Well, like ive said, there are ways to work around the current limitations imposed on groups when it comes to business. However, I would like to see a full feature set on business and companies.

Id like to hear pros and cons on this subject. So if anyone can comment please do, all is welcome in this thread.

I've presented a similar idea to Pathfinder Linden... Allowing a group to become incorporated, and charging normal premium fees to the group.. Allowing the group to pay tier as a group and purchase items and such. Also having a group permission structure giving each person very specific rights to certain areas of the group such as land purchases or sales... The right to modify group objects or scripts... Each group would have its own L$ account and group inventory.

Basicly the group would function as a resident account with each member an agent of the group with very specific privlages to buy, sell, or modify the assets of the group.

A seller might set a property to sale but the money would not be split.. it would go to a group account and the person responsible for the land could receive a comission, or all members recieve a sallary at the discression of the group officers.

If anyone would like to create a proposal for this I'd support it, though I wouldn't expect it soon. The changes to how groups function would be huge and they would need to do a LOT of preplanning.

I don't think the groups need to be changed or modified. I think a seperate rule set for Incorporating would be sufficient. Im all for this in any form and will support it 100%.

I don't think any change is needed apart from binding contracts. It is mentioned that second accounts are a 'work around', but I think actually they are the ideal corporate bank accounts. They don't go in the game, they can store infinite money, and they are neutral. You could say just one person gets to hold them, but you could give out the password to a number of trusted people in the business in much the same way a number of people can draw from a business bank account.

You say your slot machines can't pay out to a number of people, they sure can, they pay out to the general public all the time. Just store your keys in the machine and have it split profits. Though if you think about it, you don't want it to do that anyway. You want it to belong to, draw from and contribute to your alt account, so the slot machine trades on the company account. Later the director of the company can go into the account, check balances and decide if a dividend to shareholders is warranted.

Everything for business is here in SL apart from enforceable contracts. The only thing is the Lindens haven't shrink wrapped it and specifically named it "Business Tools". But I don't think they should go too far to shrink wrap specific business tools cause if we lose the ability to innovate with what we have (which is a lot) we will need a specific tool for everything...

I'm wondering why you want there to be an alt account and not just have the tools to create a company?

This has been brought up before. Specifically by Alby Yellowknife.

Do a search of his threads, and you'll get some interesting results. LoL.

I spent some time looking up that name and the threads that are associated with it. I failed to find anything that even resembled what I would like to see. Maybe you can post the thread you are speaking of.

That's exactly my point. Isn't that really lazy? I've explained, you can get a working company account today. You can build scripts that draw from and pay into a central company account. You can have trusted company directors who can draw money in and out (maybe even make a special ATM just for your company).

That's exactly what a company is. You can petition the Lindens to copy and paste that code and stick a plastic banner on it saying "company'. But let's face it, as it stands there isn't much actually preventing you getting stuck in to it.

Isn't SL supposed to be about innovating? What's innovative about waiting for LL to do everything for you?

I don't want them to do everything for me. I guess we aren't seeing eye to eye on this subject. I know I can script something to emulate a business layout. But I think it would be great for the SL economy if you could pay L$500 to incorporate a group. Which would setup a "business account" and let you use tools to set a flat rate for employees, or a % of sales.

Personally I haven't scripted anything in SL. I've never been much of a programmer. I know I could hire someone to do it, but then the next person would have to do the same thing, or I could package it and sell it.

Maybe my idea is just not right for SL.

That works somewhat Jsecure but it IS a work arouond.. When you do that permissions are all or none..

If you want to give people a budget you can't track it because you're just giving them money and then they do whatever with it.


You can't have a group inventory which protects group because giving someone an object makes them the owner.


Who controls the group land? If the land is owned by the group alt.. You must have full privileges to change any land properties. If the land is owned by the group you give all officers full permissions to modify the land..

Any income to a group gets split n-member ways... Any income to an alt is tied up until someone with FULL permissions is available to make changes.

I suppose some of these could be fixed through a scripted system, I would rather have LL do it and pay a monthly fee to support these changes than worry about some LSL hackjob...



Again, what I proposed was an incoporated group system which would require the founder to make payment of normal(or more) premium fees to support these incorporated groups.

The account would function much like a resident account. It would have statistics, the ability to hold-give-recieve L$ from other residents or groups through script or directly, hold objects in a group inventory, buy and sell land profits returned or debited from the group account, and buy and sell objects as a group, including vendors. I would rather pay "Jsecure Industries LTD" than someone named "Muny Alt"

Memebers or employees would have the ability to switch on or off their official representation of the group with all permissions allowed them by those with higher athority, such as...

The right to buy or sell land or objects.

The right to edit group objects, scripts, or land.

The right to give or recieve money in the name of the group.

Higher officials would have the ability to set these permissions for lower members including budget control in order to limit the ammount any one person can spend and on what type of transations.

It would be helpful if a system like this were modified by the ability to set contracts, even between the group and members.

Thats my vision as well. I think this would open a lot of possibilies in SL and allow more people to make money.

I have no problem paying a fee to form a corporation or pay a monthly business tax. I think most people wouldn't have a problem support a system with a fee.

I hear in 1.7 there will be more features that will help businesses in SL.

Prop: 392
Name: SL Corporations
Category: miscellaneous
Subcategory: other
Author: Joe Debs
Prop Date: 2005-06-08

Feature Detail:
I would like to see another feature set added that would allow people to create their own companies inside SL. This set would include but not be limited to:
Company owned bank account for L$.
Company owner land.
Payroll system for weekly salary/commision or both.
Allow certain titles in the company to have different duties and permissions. Allowing departments inside the company to function independant from one another with purchasing, marketing, sales, etc.
Disallow voting unless the company is public with a board of members and investors.
Possibly allow outside persons to invest money into the company.

http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=392

I would like to thank Joe Debs for making this feature proposal.. It says everything I wanted to say, and it's clean and easy to read! I would have made my own long ago if I knew it would look so pretty on the vote page ;0

As an insane creator of mass amounts of stuff and Surreal Farber as distributor and co-designer we have a hard time keeping up with the distribution and marketing of stuff, being able to hire and securely pay employees into a group/corp would be a huge asset to Phobos Design. I am sure other large multi user operations would also benefit hugely from being able to manage a group / company in such a way.

I support this feature suggestion.

Right.

What feature is that then.

You have a hard time keeping up with the marketing of stuff? Ask yourself, how does a real business cope. They don't wait on LL to build them some magic tool to do it all. Do you even know what you want LL to build you? Could you write a spec for it on a sheet of paper?

You have the most secure way to pay employees in the western world. You have totally electronic management of currency in SL, you can send money to people in exact amounts, instantly. You can even get a script so it happens robotically. What more help do you need? Please be specific.

I can't help but feel there's a lot of laziness in this thread. People are asking for a "business tool that does business". If you want the profits from business that's your job. You do the business.

I haven't even heard one detailed request for a specific tool from Linden Labs, just requests for a 'feature' that 'does all my marketing and paying and everything'.

I have moved the thread into a better place. A place where people have the imagination to make SL great, instead of a one track mind that we must be forced to work with substandard tools.


/130/b6/49458/1.html

The point remains, how will Linden Labs build a wonder tool for you if not even you can define it. I am in software, I face people like this every day. They don't know what they want, but they want it built. It's an impossible situation. You don't get on the blower to an architect and say "I want my dream house, I'll assume you know the technical specs" and hang up. Architects work with blueprints.

Besides, it is better that you put your resourcefulness to work and make good with the tools you have. You have the capability to achieve greatness as you are. If Linden Lab on the other hand, babies you and makes a specific tool for doing "everything business", what's next? They'll have to make tools to do everything, and the cost of maintaining the automatically nappy wiping metaverse will mean it is top heavy and it collapses in on itself.

If you work in software then you can understand the shortfalls in the tools we have. You should also be able to understand how the development process goes. I pay LL as does everyone else on here a monthly or one time fee. I would expect for my monthly fee to not only see updates to bugs, but to see new innovative features.

You made your point clear that we should all use the arcain tools we have and create "work arounds" for the current situation. I however would like to look more then 6 months down the road for myself and everyone else in SL. We need better business tools plain and simple.

As far as the design goes, do you really want a grocery bagger working on a design model that LL will impliment? I don't think so...

The best thing we can do is tell then we need better business tools and give them some features we would like to see. Let then work out the best approach to our request.

Let's say LL does design a whole range of tools that do marketing, book keeping, business management, organisation, everything, the whole nine yards.

Next will be the request for no more scripting, just a tool that allows you to make anything by pressing a button (so linden labs have to guess everything anyone will ever want to make, and make a tool to make that), and next will come a tool for building houses in one click, and in the end people will just do nothing, they'll just click on tools for everything.

And then LL will go bust from trying to maintain thousands of tools.

You may be a grocery bagger but it's unreasonable for you to whine at LL for not providing something you can't even describe yourself. You may not be a coder, but you can still describe a concept, or a list of features.

You say what we have is arcane. I disagree. Emails in and out of SL and XML-RPC are the most advanced I/O this world has yet seen in and out of a virtual game. They give the user a humongous wealth of power. Our reach is almost limitless. You say you don't want to use a workaround. LIFE is a workaround.

You do not have the ability to make money lying in bed asleep all day, so *workaround* you get out of bed and go to work. It's not about if something is a workaround or not, it's if you CAN do something or not. Look at SL, there ARE sucessful businesses in SL. People are getting off their asses and making it happen today. My talk to them is pointless, they've done everything I'm saying here. They did it, they made it happen, and I salute them.

Alternately, you can wait for LL to make you "marketing tools" and "business stuff" until you just have to click a menu option and a business appears before you. But then it's not really YOUR business is it. So maybe LL should get the profit.

I agree we could use binding contracts, but after that the rest of the stuff is less and less essential I think. Clearly you want everything done for you. Good luck with that.

Corporations already rule our first life.

Why do we want them to rule our second life?

You keep saying "Buy an alt and script something fancy to do all your magic! Don't be lazy! I could do it why can't you?!" but most people in second life don't have the ability to do that. Fine, do you suggest we pay someone to do it? IN LSL?

I'm not asking for a free ride here! I want to pay Linden Lab more money to do this and allow it to be integrated into the client.. Sure, it could be done with an alt and some scripting by someone more skilled at it than I am.. But why should the bar for collaboration in SL be set so high Jsecure? Why should it be HARD? I hate to take a page from Prokofy but it's so apt in this situation.. Why should Second Life be your tekki playground? Do you think it will ever reach mass appeal when nobody but the most skilled of developers can do anything? It's somewhat obvious that this would be a great feature to those who wish to collaborate. Why isn't anyone jumping on this as a possible business? Why is nobody in the business of making business easier?

I'm asking a lot of questions that begin with "Why" because I just don't get it..

Isn't it obvious where technology is going? You have many unskilled users of technology and a few developers.. We have hundreds, thousands of people who would love to collaborate today, but they dont have the tools to do it. They don't have the skills to make those tools, and nobody in Second Life is making those tools..

The tools have to be easy to use, because those people are not skilled with the technology you are so familair with. They have to have big popup dialogs and simple instructions. It has to be be apparent at a glance exactly what the status is, and it must be hard to mess up. People are not stupid, they are just not skilled at interpreting the information a less GUI interface would throw at them. I suppose you live in emacs.



With this statment you show obvious disdain for anyone who can't do what you can do so easily, so I'm going to stop now and just leave it.

Baba,

I feel your frustration that nobody is building the tools you want. I still think it should be up to third parties to extend the SL client without the core client being extended over and over.

Listen, if you think your needs aren't being addressed by the developers who use SL, I might be interested. I assumed people were building business tools anyway. But if there's really nothing out there for you, then there's a big gap in the market.

I've just finished another project, and now I'm going to work on finising SL instant messaging by the end of this week sort of time frame, but then I'll be free. So tell me, what are the top five things you can't do, that you want to be able to do. Go into as much detail as you can if you would.