Why is Relay for Life Advertising on Adfarms?

I think Starfire was meaning the ads... I hope. The person probably didn't know what kind of thing these adfarms are.

Oh. LOL. I think you're right now that I reread it. Thought she was being harsh there.

As Creator of the AdSoft Network and poster of the ACS ads I thought it was time I weigh in and set the record straight. There has been so much disinformation spread in this thread it is hard to know where to start. A point by point answer to the previous posts seems in order:

To Carl Metropolitan (love your builds!): They went on my network because In-World advertising plainly works.

To Puppet Shepherd: The senior folks at ACS/Relay for Life select AdSoft because we don’t do any of the things that I’m accused of further down this thread. Read on and you will see what I mean. Also, we promised to delivery hard statistics, which we have. These hard stats are VERY promising and show just a taste of the power that In-World advertising provides.

To Bradley Bracken: AdSoft only appears one ad terminal per sim region. There are no AdSoft ad farms in all of Second Life.

To Infiniview Merit: AdSoft has NEVER purchased land with the purpose of cutting off a corner and then reselling it. We have purchased all of our 32 sq meter lots from the open market, usually for less than 500 L$ each.

Again to Puppet Shepherd: We have NEVER extorted money for our lots, because they have NEVER been for sale. To polite people, we offer lot switches, so people can get us another lot in the same sim, preferably closer to the road, and we’ll move for free. I am famous for never selling, so how can I be an extortionist?

To Tegg Bode: AdSoft did donate the network run time to ACS, because we donate 15% of our network to free posting of Non-profit and community service type ads. Since our network is just now rolling out (December 15th, 2007 was official launch) not many know about the open offer, so ACS was first to take advantage of it.

To Peggy Paperdoll : You are 100% right, Ad Networks work and they have great ROI.
To Phreak Flow: Amen! You buy the land, not the view. What we have here are a bunch of Land Fascists trying to dictate to others. I have never broken TOS, and while people violate TOS against me every single day, I stand firm on what I believe in.

To Sarah Nerd: Funny to hear you call other people nasty with the Die Spammer Die campaign you were associated with not to long back. Does Dragon Keen ring a bell?

To Arua Rotaru: See comment above made to Puppet Shepherd. We never extort. And by the way, there are zoning laws in SL, they are called Private Estates and he who owns them sets the zoning. Main land is the wild-wild-west, and it’s not for everyone. I am personally also against the ad spammers and ad farm makers, as it gives the legitimate practitioners a bad rap.

To sixteen Hax : Right On! So that you should know where the hate comes from, it is from a small cabal of vocal land consolidators who make their money from joining lots. Ad lots, especially ones not for sale, are a thorn in their side as it prevents them from making large contiguous (read profitable) lots.

To Cortex Draper : Our ads outperformed their every expectation, giving them over 30 sign-ups in just a few days. They were hoping for that in a couple weeks. Now they have over 50 signs-ups and couldn’t be happier with the results. It is true that people like you have strong feelings, but you are not in the majority.

To Lindal Kidd: How would you know that Ads don’t perform? I have been working on my Ad network for two years now and have hundreds of millions of impression minutes logged . . . I know that I can get over 50,000 unique avatar impressions per month with an ad, and with click through rates higher than any Internet banner ad campaign. How long have you been running your network and how many millions of records of data have you logged?

To Jessica Elytis: I posit the same questions I made to Lindal above. You speak from feeling, I speak from fact.

The facts are: ACS people approached me about effectiveness of In-world advertising. I supplied them with PDF reports showing activity on my top 10 ads (40-50K impressions with very high click-through ratios). They were intrigued. I told them that 15% of my network was for non-profit or community messages, and they took me up on the offer with two ads. Every point of contact I have had with ACS has had nothing but happy words about the work we’ve done for them and the results that they have gotten so far.

More Facts: Our ads do not spin, our ads are not placed together in farms, we never cut lots to make ad lots and never sell our land so we cannot be extortionists, we always offer to move our lots in the same sim region based on polite requests (have done it dozens of times), we prefer to have land next to Linden Lab roads, and we only show PG ads.

I will not apologize for being the most responsible advertising network in SL. If all the other advertising networks were to hold the high standards we hold, there would be no complaints.

*snort*

Nice to see that you use the rude, inconsiderate flamer to pat your back.



Thank you for that input. I will make sure I do not support ACS in any way if they continue to do so. There are many wonderful organizations I can donate to.

Ancient Shriner: define impression and impression minutes.

Is that based on a click? Or do you use a scanner to determine who's nearby? Someone nearby doesn't mean that they are looking at your ad. I have some tenants that unfortunately live near sim edges, and they are not necessarily looking at anyone's ads. They are looking at trees or something else I've put up to pretty the view. How do you know you've actually got eyes on the ad?

Ad farms are visual spam, and though you may only put one down on a road, it's usually accompanied by many others. My eyes generally glaze over when looking at the visual noise. I generally don't know who's advertising unless one of my plots has been cut up and stuff starts floating nearby.

that closed minded folks like Bradley are not in the majority or there would never be progress.

Turn your way-back machine to 1993 and 1994 and read the typical reaction to Internet Advertising (banners and commercial web sites). . . it sounds as if many of the people in this thread could have written some of those luddite articles that nay-say Internet Advertising. . . and now it is a 9 Billion (yes that's with a B) dollar a year industry. Seems like quite a few commentators had to eat much crow.

You will not stop in-world advertising by boycotting those that use them. In world advertising is coming and in my opinion the best thing you can do is support responsible advertisers like me so the irresponsible spammers have no market.

Ancient, all this being the case, and I am inclined to agree as you are not the true enemy here, would you agree to a proposal that would use a scale to limit for the maximum sales price for a parcel based on parcel's size?

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-894

The way I read you, this should not affect you in the slightest. If legitimate ad networks and everyday residents band together against the real enemy - the extortion lot owners - I cannot see how that proposal could fail to end the blight.

I don't pay remotely enough attention to adfarms to know if what Ancient Shriner says about his operation is true, but if it is he is at least being responsible. He is describing an advertising format I may not like but would accept as a part of SL life in the way posters and billboards are a part of RL. Assuming he is as presented, he is a legitimate part of SL. I wish others were as responsible as Ancient presents himself. Unfortunately, they are not.

So there is a very unhappy take-away from Ancient's intelligent post: Ad farms can and perhaps do pay their own way FROM AD REVENUE ALONE! Which means the extortionists in this game can afford to sit there forever. This is very bad news.

Nevertheless, please don't buy their damn plots; it can only make this plague worse.

And work on the only two feasible alternatives available to Residents:
1. Use screens/barriers/walls/towers/whatever-you-call-them to avoid seeing the damn things.
2. Push for getting the power to mute such things from your own parcel, and vote for the JIRA for enabling that. (With all due respect for the price-cap faction's good intentions, I do not believe LL will ever let itself be drawn into price-fixing in SL, and I think it would be a very dangerous precedent if they did for any reason.

To Cristalle Karami: an Impression Minute is the core metric of the unit of time I use to track if someone is close enough to see the ads. You are correct in assuming that each terminal has dedicated and detailed scanning and tracking, and is centrally controlled by an internet application that allows content management, terminal management, and detailed reporting. It is true that a few of my terminals have been totally blocked over with trees or other such TOS violations, but as I report them to Linden Lab, I remove them from my active network, so they are not counted.

An impression minute is logged for every minute that an avatar is within viewable range of the ads. Since we are using two formats of ads currently, we have variable viewing ranges, with 40 meters being set for the large format 32 sq meter lot ads, and 20 meters being set for the smaller 16 sq meter ads.

We record impressions minutes, then run reports to see number of unique avatar keys who were within range, during a specific time period (day, week, month, etc.). Those become Unique Avatar Impressions. Then, we also record requests. Those are when an Avatar clicks on an ad. Our content servers give out what ever content is associated with the ad, and the click is logged. Then, if they hit a URL or go to an in-world location, we track Click-through, which means that they not only requested information, they actually took advantage of it. We do this by matching Avatar Keys to URL hits or to in-world locations with a V-Tracker scanner.

As for telling if the avatar is looking at the ad, it is not really relevant, as there are camera controls and such for moving the view, so Avatar Vector is not a good judge. If you think of magazines, how many people actually look at every ad? The answers is not many. Instead, they track how many people COULD have seen the ad, and this becomes the impression count. I’ve done my homework and we’re way more advanced than a number of currently acceptable advertising mediums like: Magazines, Movie Theater ads, Bar Ads, Digital Kiosks (RL), and regular and Digital Signage. They guess on how many people are around those type of ads, I don’t. They guess how many people respond because of the ad, I don’t. I have hard stats and if you are really curious, I’d be pleased to give you a demo so you can see for yourself.

Hmmm quite possibly so. Of course, one of the most-cited factors in Google's early success was the lack of visible advertising on their home page.

Ancient, how do you feel about the picture in the OP? It strikes me as just plain ugly. I'll drop by and look for myself, tho. And if you will provide a link to a list of your locations, I'll check out a randomly selected subset. I'm curious about the visual difference between responsible advertisers and irresponsible.

It is your right to run your business, and mine to support only those who do not contribute to visual pollution.

I don't seek income in SL, being quite comfortable with my RL income. I actively support charities, and if I find these ads are visual pollutants, I will not be supporting Relay for Life this year.

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Ancient, you can call it closed minded but I call it being a selective consumer. I've been to the location and it is a travesty. I did double check and I see that the land is for sale. I will take you at your word that you are merely and advertiser and not a land extortionist. For this I apologize for making an assumption.

I haven't double checked, but I will even assume that all those signs in that immediate area are not yours. However, I still consider you adding to the blight that is devastating the mainland. I'm sure there must be other, more asthetic, ways of advertising than destroying the views of neighboring properties.

You use banner ads as an example, however, there is a difference. People are using the land around your ads as their virtual "homes".

Many websites have an option to either use them for free and see the banner ads or pay to use and not see the banner ads. If I frequent them I always pay to use them ad free. Perhaps this is what we'll see in the future with SL.

Ancient, you can call it closed minded but I call it being a selective consumer. I've been to the location and it is a travesty. I did double check and I see that the land is not for sale. I will take you at your word that you are merely and advertiser and not a land extortionist. For this I apologize for making an assumption.

I haven't double checked, but I will even assume that all those signs in that immediate area are not yours. However, I still consider you adding to the blight that is devastating the mainland. I'm sure there must be other, more asthetic, ways of advertising than destroying the views of neighboring properties.

You use banner ads as an example, however, there is a difference. People are using the land around your ads as their virtual "homes".

Many websites have an option to either use them for free and see the banner ads or pay to use and not see the banner ads. If I frequent them I always pay to use them ad free. Perhaps this is what we'll see in the future with SL.

Which of the AdSoft terminal locations did you (Bradley) find that was for sale? I personally challenge you to produce the exact coordinates, or be called a liar. None of my lots are for sale and never have been.

I hate ad farms as much as anybody, but to not support a cause like Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society because some well meaning but ignorant marketer has used ad farms to advertise is a mistake. Every dollar raised means that someone out there can receive care and hopefully recover from a terrible and devistating disease.

I would hope that rather than withholding your donations you would consider strongly advising the organizers to not give these ad farms any of our donations but rather find a more upstanding and legitimate way to advertise. If they are getting the ads for free then so be it ... at least that's a few ads that won't have smut on them for a few seconds every cycle. AND maybe it will encourage someone to donate who wouldn't otherwise.

Regardless, please don't withhold your donations and support. You can never know how important your few dollars may be to someone ... maybe even to someone you love.

Actually I would suggest that the National ACS probably has no idea or clue about any of this. If it was an active decision taking by the SL contingent of RFL, then I would suggest simply not supporting RFL. The American Cancer Society is still a worthy case that one can donate to directly without the intermediary of SL-RFL.

For my part in the past I have voluntarily hosted SL-RFL kiosks on my land (95% of a mainland Sim with reasonable crosstraffic) and made donations of my own. However, as long as SL-RFL supports these forms of advertising which I find to be nothing more than visual SPAM, I am exercising my right to no longer allow SL-RFL kiosks on my land or make donations via SL-RFL. I will instead choose to make any such donations I may wish to make directly to the ACS.

Ancient, you will notice that I corrected my typo and as a result double posted. You obviously are watching this thread like a hawk. LOL. I understand and don't blame you. Had you read the next sentence you would have understood the intent.

Either way, the corrected post is now there saying that I see the land is NOT for sale. I apologize for the typo.

Very true, Alexin. I've been an active supporter of ACS for many years. As I stated previously, both of my parents died of cancer. At both of their funerals we asked that donations be made to ACS in lieu of flowers. Since then ACS has been one of the organizations I have frequently contributed to.

I am guilty of intermingle the acronym ACS with RFL by accident. I wouldn't hold the entire organization accountable for one very small part of it. Does it leave a bad taste in my mouth? Oh sure it does. Especially since I'm very actively involved in charitable organizations that I personally support. But I'll get over it.

I'm sorry Ancient, that I cannot in good conscience look at a demo.

In a point-to-point teleport world, this kind of advertising is largely irrelevant. The most common way you get people near these is because you happen to be within 40m or 20m of people who build up to the property line. It is not as if people are looking for it. Someone playing Greedy Greedy in my lounge might count as an impression from the ad farm in the next sim. Or my tenant and his wife, who have the unfortunate happenstance of living right on the sim's edge. I understand your thinking and I won't demonize you but the practice as a whole of putting down billboards in a world where you don't have to walk anywhere eludes me. I guess you're looking for the road explorers.

SL-RFL is not the only way to donate to the American Cancer Society. People can visit www.cancer.org for more details. People can choose to send a message to SL-RFL and still donate to ACS if they so choose.

If it was a "well meaning but ignorant marketer" type decision, then the correct course of action (unless SL-RFL doesn't mind supporting this form of advertising, which is their right) would be to cancel the ads and revoke permission for adfarmers to continue using their name, ads, logos, trademarks, etc. Then I'm sure most people would be happy to resume support of SL-RFL.

Fascinating response.


1) I'm personally disappointed if RFL truly used an ad network on the grid. While I can understand a clear, obvious motive to do so, I suspect it will backfire. More talk about hard numbers, below - I have a basis for my opinion.



2) I've spoken to Ancient Shriner in the past re: other matters; I've not found him to be any particular incarnation of evil - if anything, polite and reasoned.

I remember a particular incident later concerning an accidentally full-mod Coldwell Banker dog, a content creator and a friend - long story short, at the end of the day I believe Ancient's actions were honourable throughout. I was one of the people involved quietly trying to help get the full mod pooch back into his pen permanently, as it were. Which was the end result, when things could have gone quite differently.

Ancient and I perhaps do not share overall opinions about ads on the grid in general perhaps, but I do believe him if he says he doesn't use his ad parcels for extortion.



3) I get the feeling that Ancient's network is going to be 'the' pivotal test case with regard to mainland ad policy. Nobody involved with mainland is going to benefit if this is approached crudely.

- Let's say Ancient's methods remain unimpeded - if he does well in this business, expect ten competitors to join him.

- Let's say it goes the other way - if so, it will be pretty tough to put up any signs on the mainland.

Because in lieu of little parcels, all ad networks have to do is cut a deal with one person per sim. "Add this sign, get $L while you sleep..." Believe that everyone in your region would never negotiate with an ad network? Hoo boy, think again.


* * * * *

Hard numbers.

Hard numbers are a little bit interesting, when it comes to ads. But let's kick some around.

30-50 signups in a few days. I don't know what these signups are *for*, but I do know that conversion to income is the real measure - click rate itself doesn't mean too much. I built my RL biz into an international distributorship via Google Adwords (and Overture, which is now something different) back from 2002-present.

A click could mean anything from 'yes! I want to donate Now!!!' to, 'oh, RFL season again, let's check the info and see if my friend Tayzia is involved this year.'

Here's another hard number. $L 1.2 million. That's the number that was raised, grass roots style, by the Caledon community in 2007. Literally hundreds of people pouring their time, their efforts, their lives into this charity - and Caledon wasn't a 'big contributor' really. Of the... what, 118k USD raised, we were maybe 4500 USD of that. A tiny fraction.

I do know this though - a whopping, whopping huge number of those who worked so hard on Caledon RFL team at the grass roots level *hate* mainland billboards. With a passion that drove many of them to places like Caledon in the first place.

I'm not going to tell anyone what to think or do, but in my estimation I think I've got a pretty good idea what will happen to grass roots team fundraising, if RFL is associated with ad networks. My honest guess: it will be hit hard.

I've got *nothing* against Ancient personally. I'd like to see him prosper, and believe it or not, I *do* see a place for ad networks in SL, if sized subtly or placed in appropriate areas. Yet at the end of the day, grabbing mindshare by billboard advertising at the expense of land valuation... ouch. If one ad network prospers this way, count on more to follow.

Proof that it's damaging overall: how many private estate owners erect ad towers, because they are "worth it"? If I put one up in my regions, I'd offend residents directly for 250m in every direction, and trash my estate name. I can't imagine how many $L it would take to compensate for damages like that.

Perhaps no one 'owns the view' on the mainland, but I can pretty much assure it will be a lose-lose-lose deal if the mainland has an anarchist policy about ad networks. Well, maybe there would be only one winner - the private estate owners, to whom everyone will flee.

I respectfully differ. Withholding support from Relay for Life is the ONLY way to convey the message that using visually polluting ad networks is distasteful to monied potential contributors. ACS is another matter; direct RL donations are undoubtedly more efficient than RFL donations. In supporting RFL, I support both ACS and SL. But if I check out Ancient's network and find it polluting, I will withdraw support from RFL.

I have seen a LOT of RFL ads and kiosks at the stores I frequent in SL, and these are fine by me. Notice that I am in these stores to spend money. I think RFL's decision to use ad networks will attract many unmonied eyeballs. I don't know how that will benefit them.
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Hhmm. If "impression minutes" matter in this ad game, it gives a perverse incentive to locate ads as close as possible to a property people use, like right at the property line. While I'm guessing an active commercial property would be best for that count, I suppose a frequently used residence might make the grade too. Even if it is only one or two disgusted resident/owners who are there a lot to pile up those minutes, and their equally disgusted circle of friends, or an escort and her clients who have no idea of anything that exists more than one meter from her Sexgen bed. This just keeps getting worse and worse: These ads may pay off for the admeisters in some fashion, but they are parasites on the rest of SL, and toxic parasites in more ways than I thought.

Screen!
Vote for muting!

I've probably been near enough to an ad to be counted numerous times in SL, but I wouldn't be able to tell because I purposely do not look at them. Also, quite a few counted, if not most, are probably bots, especially if the ads are located near a camping spot. Which means, I feel sorry for the companies paying for the advertising space, because most of who they think *might* be seeing theirs ads, aren't.

Ooo. This should be good.



..from people who were all too happy to have parceled them off before you. I don't think you're going to gain any purchase to the high ground there.



I've never even heard of you before today, so you're not famous for anything to me.. yet.

While your offers and words sound nice, do you go so far as to keep conflicts arising from your activities as a matter of public record?



..and those against you stand firm on what they believe in. Maybe you are truly an egalitarian company, maybe not. However, the VAST MAJORITY of people and companies who are in your business in SL are pretty lousy. Maybe you should consider putting some of that acumen towards cleaning up your industry's image?



Sounds like a case of pot, kettle to me. Die Spammer Die sounds like a winner as well.



I happen to be one of those people who just started a Land Recovery Project as part of my business. I spend EXORBITANT amounts of money buying ad farm spots around my land on the mainland for the express purpose of making it back into usable land. I don't expect to make ANY money on it. There is also no love towards your industry from me as a result, and I am SERIOUSLY skeptical of any person in said industry. I don't care about your claims whether your advertising works or not. I have been in business 21 years now, and I know the power of advertising, but I also understand the HEAVY responsibility that comes with doing it right. So far, I have yet to see ANYone with any ethical responsibility in this area.

Here is the type of crap I am intending to eliminate:




Highly unlikely. Lots of folks simply detest ads being foisted on them period. I happen to be one of those people. I NEVER click on banner ads anywhere, and I skip past commercials from recorded TV shows. I rarely watch them live. I simply *HATE* a big billboard blaring god knows what right outside my window. That's why there are sign ordinances and zoning laws in RL, and why SL should adopt something like them as well. That includes the mainland, too, not just private estates.