Would you buy shares in SL? Seriously.

I mean if the company went public and shares found a reasonably sensible price, with a low-to-moderate (high risk) expected rate of return, plus some shareholder perks, say a discount or two...

What I'm thinking is - if there were a large group of SL residents as share holders, would this improve the priorities and functioning of SL, or make it worse?

It seems to me this idea is not completely unrealistic - after all, if the big companies cool off, or go off on their own, then there might be serious advantages to LL in raising capital from their 10 million customers, OK 100,000. No reason to assume the present corporate structure will never change.

But would YOU put money in? I think I might, maybe.

And if the valuation of the IPO was based on signups......

No, not with the product in its current state.

Not unless I had a true count of actual premium members and true traffic counts instead of the bogus counts of bots and campers.

"G"

I would, as a long-term investment, of course.

Sadly, I agree. The product and potential for a price hike makes me hesitate about putting any more money into this game.

I agree with this. If the actual data, including a more detailed, legally compliant, TOS, were written up and fully vetted, I'd consider it. Personally I couldn't, as my Second Life income would leave me ineligible for my healthcare, and I'd be dead in 5 years without my medication (why I only cash out $50-100 per month), however, if this was an option, I'd probably liquidate some assets here, transfer the Lindens to my father, and have him buy the stock. I'm his sole heir in will and trust, so it wouldn't matter.

I wonder if LL would allow residence to trade Lindens for stock options, ofcourse at a real world rate, but still, if the stock were say $15 per share, and an individual paid the Linden equivalent of $1,500 US, could they get 1000 shares of stock, without cashing out? Just a thought.

Being involved as I am, stock would be a watered-down position compared to the risk/reward exposure I already have.



To be honest, I don't think making it a public company is the right thing to do at this time.

You get all the exposure of the public playing fast and loose with stock valuations, subject the company to 'hype' even more than it already is, and worst of all...

...you could end up with a bean counter instead of a visionary at the helm. Think WalMart not Apple. It would be like doing a Google IPO *before* they pwned the market.

Bad, bad, bad, bad move at this juncture.

I'd be very unlikley to invest in a company that games it's own resident numbers, economic statistics, and has never made a profit.

What investors need is some level of certainty. Investing in a firm that bans gambling suddenly (even for residents that are allowed to gamble online by law in their own territories), slaps a Euro tax on people (overnight) thus breaking viable business models, prints its own money (whilst claiming that it is a game token), allows "banks" to exist to rip people off and then bans them (with not enough time for any serious "bank" to liquidate assets), and ignores its own customer base by closing discussion in forums and blogs, is, in my very humble opinion, utterly ridiculous.

I'll put my money in US Sub-Prime. Better return on investment.

Two things about any company paint it bad imo.

1) Turning "Personnel" into "Human Resources".
This indicates a lack of caring of your employees. While HR may be a more "PC" term, it lacks the humanity that it's very wording tries to imply.

2) The use of "Metrics".
Flat out, metrics are only a means for bean-counters to LIE to customers and employees. They are the graphs and charts and figures calculated by only looking at paper and mathmatics, and not at the real product, nor the real worker. While the business community may concider them the "all important", metrics are worth less than the paper (or web page) that they are printed on.

LL has a HUGE potential. The explosive growth over the last two years (even taking alts and bots into account) is amazing. The tech advances just as much, though many of these were buried under hastily implented new "features".

For me, personally, to invest in LL would need them to:
a) Stop with the "candy coating" and simply put out straight facts on population, online, etc.
b) Attempt to govern the Mainland Grid, expanding and reworking existing policies that no longer work due to the expansion.
c) Gain a better display of management overall. Currently, LL either has no formal management organisation, or their PR really really needs an overhaul.

Short answer: No.

~Jessy

QFT. Terrible move for them.

An IPO involves a significant amount of accounting and reporting to the SEC, so presumably they would have to come up with some actual numbers instead of the mumbo-jumbo they have given us so far. They would have to give us different mumbo jumbo. Presumably we would get to have real subscriber numbers with a definition on "subscriber" as well as legitimate P/L statements, company plans and goals, etc. In other words, LL would have to start acting like a REAL corporation. Let's face it, they have a lot of growing up to do before that, and that growing up might take away a lot of the things that are actually good about them. It might take away a lot of the stuff that frustrates the hell out of us as well, but we don't really want to stifle their creativity or have them go all mainstream on us to make their shareholders happy.

That's the problem with a company going public. When it's private, you have the private shareholders who are usually the company's founders, key employees, etc. people who share the same vision. It's not always about profit and loss for them. Go public and you have to keep a whole slew of investors happy, and it IS all about profit and loss for them.

All that said, if the price was right, the disclosure was their and for some reason my calculations made the risk worth the investment, (and I had the extra cash), I would consider it, but there would have to be some pretty significant issues resolved before I would.

Nope. Waste of money to buy something that doesn't really exist.

no way.

Look at it my way... (not proposing to buy Linden stock by any means btw)...

You never OWN anything and stuff is really only virtual anyway for a time. That house you got? Gone when you die. That nice PC? Same.

Life is just a rental.

That's not a bad philosophy.

Stock in a company is every bit as real as anything else you own. We aren't talking virtual stock in an SL company, but legitimate, traded, real-world stock. Who the hell knows what stock and shares and bonds were in SL, besides worthless. It's an ownership interest in a business entity, just like you have an ownership interest in your home (assuming you don't rent) or your car or whatever you own. Just because it is not an interest in something tangible doesn't mean it isn't real.

At any rate, I like "life is just a rental". It's a nice reminder that we aren't here forever and we should make the most of what little time we are alotted.

If LL went public I would consider buying shares. I don't have a lot of money in the stock market (excluding 401K's and such) nor do I have a lot to invest. I do like the idea of investing in companies that I know something about, but that decision would be based on the same factors as any other company I might buy stock in.

A point to keep in mind is that investing in SL inworld and buying stock in Linden Labs is two completely differnt things.

One of the worst run companies in the history of the modern world? I'll pass.

seriously? No. Not in its present condition. I hope they give me good reason to change that assessment someday.

A competitor could come along any day and could provide basically the same product with only a small fraction better performance but have a far better understanding of how to provide customer service. It could be the kick in the ass LL needs, but it is just as likely to result in mass exodus. No thank you. I'll pass.

Speculating into my crystal ball, I would say theres a lgood chance for LL to to grow temndously over the next couple years, however, smart planning in-world can yeild you 200% return in less than a year though a bit riskier

I would place some cash in stock, but most would be left in-world

And? Do you wish to invest in the imaginary LL stock?

Sheesh.

And what? The question was would you invest in LL stock if it was available, I thought I answered coherently, watUsmokinWillis?

Agreed. The potential is quite clearly there, the delivery is not. Customer support has been abysmal and even though it has improved since I arrived here in March, it's is simply not good enough for a platform of this size.

Back in the day Gary Kildall could code, Bill Gates could sell, Bill Gates everyone knows, Philip Linden will be the Gary Kildall of virtual worlds unless he extremely quickly grasps the concept of customer support.

If I thought LL were going public to add value to the company before selling it off to a big concern who knew how to run large networks - someone like Google, say - yes, I think it would be a good investment.

Know the saddest thing?

Those of us that are here saying "No way!!" are the ones that love SL the most.

I do enjoy it immensely and I call more than one Linden a friend. IT's been said above and by many what went wrong, so I won't repeat.

I only hope LL brings back the LL and SL we love before a competitor does.

~Jessy
*wanting to return LL (not SL) to the 1.5 update version*