Is the Showcase for real?

I thought it very peculiar when the showcase originally was launched that the Weather Channel Island and other obvious huge corporate entities that had absolutely ZERO traffic and absolutely no reason to be called "hot" were listed in it from day one.

When my club was put in it a few months ago it was real nice, traffic went up(mostly with newbies, and people looking for something to do who wanted to find places with actual live bodies driving the avatars, as it was when the popular list actually wasn't a joke gamed by cheaters). I noticed the corporate names still listed at that time and thought, "gee I wonder how long a place stays on the showcase," I think I read somewhere it was a rotating thing and that the oldest would drop off to allow the new ones on or something.

Well I out of curiosity just looked at it and guess what... it's like what, a year later... and Weather Channel Island still listed as a HOTSPOT.

Is the showcase actually something that residents trust or is it just another opinionated commercialized propoganda?

I think there should be some sort of actual popular showing in SL that shows the places the residents who are actually residents like to go to have FUN.

Have you been to TWC sim Jesse?

The place seriously rocks. Built by one of the best in SL.

Personally, I have no problem with it being a showcase. It deserves it's spot there.

I guess I never paid attention to the showcase. It's a LL driven thing and I've found that their choices never made sense when compared to what the residents consider hot spots.

I have to question their criteria for getting listed, because as you said, most of the places I've seen have a traffic rating of 10 or less.

I'd say, yes, give up on pursuing the showcase thing, but don't give up on your club. Don't try to compete with the corporations, because honestly you don't need to. Apparently, residents recognize good things, even if LL doesn't

Is there a method of searching or somewhere else you can go nowadays to find out the equivalent of the old most "popular" locations in SL?

Pep (I don't mean typing "sex" into search and seeing what comes up)

The correct answer is B) opinionated commercialized propoganda

It's not that TWC sims isn't worthy of inculsion, it's that having it as permenantly in the Showcase negates that spot for someone else's (read: actual resident as opposed to represented large corporatation) equally interesting sim.

Why is TWC sim included for a year while residents sims are rotated?

The correct answer is B) opinionated commercialized propoganda

I never use showcase

This.

I have found several nice places to visit in the showcase.

And LL's constant courtship of big corporations to add to their list. Residents? Who needs residents when you can have corporations!

It's propaganda of course. It would be nice if they replaced those corporate hotspots with other newer corporate hotspots. I mean how hard a job is it to pick a hot spot? I like the TWC though. It's a nice place to bring a newbie to.

I look at routinely look at showcase and was very surprised and pleased a place representing my home state was in there. There are some nice places listed that my partner and I enjoy visiting. Those who haven't tried, go ahead and try you have nothing to loose.

Afterthought, never considered going to the weather channel. Since sl has no weather, never thought about going. Perhaps I will now since someone mentioned how nice it is.

I think that every place that has been named in the showcase should remain in an archive of sorts, until they no longer exist. It would help people to explore.

It really chaps my hide that clothing/hair/skin shops are in the Showcase. Favoritism anyone? On the other hand, I have been to some neat places as a result of Showcase. A club wouldn't be on my list.

How exactly does one get featured in the Showcase? Do you have to know a Linden to get in it? Just curious what the process is.

The sooner we break our addiction of equating 'traffic' with 'quality', the better off we'll all be.

hear, hear.

"Quality" is in the eye of the beholder. Oh wait that is beauty, but it still works.

I agree, but I was more implying that if it was a showcase worthy place, one would think that more people would visit it. Real hot spots offer both quality builds and the social aspect that I would think would attract more people and keep them there longer. So I would assume that it would at least have a traffic higher than 10. 10 is what I get on my workshop if I am only on for about an hour... And I know my workshop is NOT that interesting

I have done some looking through the showcase before. Some places are very low traffic but well built themes, some places are jammed packed (with corrisponding lag) but seem to be more flash in the pan pop culture places. So far I have found it to be useful when you just want to explore but you don't have to put up to the ban-line maze of typical random map hopping. YMMV

But that's still linking 'traffic' with 'quality'. The converse of "If it were any good, more people would be there" is "Nobody is there, so it's not any good". Maybe the individual location has subpar marketing. Is the showcase being promoted enough? Is there a perception that it's a Linden popularity contest so people stay away? A lot of the purely creative projects don't have business plans, let alone marketing plans, or they were built primarily for the use of a well-defined real world group (Harvard Law, for example). In the case of the corporate projects, I'd wager the building contracts were fulfilled the day the build was signed off, without there being a plan for 'ok, we have this build, NOW what'. As for for-profit enterprises, if they're relying solely on the Showcase as their driver of Traffic, they're in big trouble.

'If you build it, they will come' simply doesn't work, otherwise people with no better ideas about marketing or promotion wouldn't have to resort to camping to drive up their traffic scores to look popular. I know first hand that 'quality' doesn't bring 'traffic' by its own merit.

Some have to be worthwhile, but I tried it the first month and gave up. Empty places at all hours, many of them poorly designed (too many with too much build that left them no prims to make it work - like the people that put a 1500 prim castle on a 8K parcel and enough left to put up Linden trees). At the beginning several of the ones at the top were not even finished to any real degree.

I've found some interesting stuff in the showcase, I think I should probably use it more.

Surfing at TWC was fun.

I Totally agree Jesse There are some places that have been in there for over 2 years. they promised to rotate them. Yet . Another empty promise of course.. I have even seen some places infested with campers and bots in it. It really amazes me at the selection process.

I ditto this.

coco

My one comment is that over time I've found that the Arts & Culture section has contained some interesting sites.

Shrine of Varosha, The Refuge and Expansion, Avatrait Gallery and Inspire Space Park are some examples.