Was this a corporate surname?

I was down at New Citizens Plaza yesterday and I saw a female avatar whose surname appeared to be a corporate one from an organisation, while her first name looked like it was her RL first and last names pushed together into one word - i.e.
(and this isn't the actual name, just a made up example) JoanSmith DDTbiscuitco.

Is that an example of a big user being allowed to use their own name for employee residents?

Another puzzling thing was a well-known land baron, or possibly a landbot, which used to have a single word name - I never understood how that was done.

Yes it is a corporate surname, not opened to the public (normal signup), but arranged with Linden Labs. So you see people wearing "IBM" surnames etc.
You need to be a "partner" to have one.

All the people who work for Herman Miller a RL furniture contractor have HermanMillar as their surname in SL.

Ah! Thanks for replies. Now I know!

For my company we use our RL First and Last names. No my RL first and last name is not ConductorX Nieuport.

"CX"

if it were, i'd expect you to walk around wearing a Casey Jones hat.

Another example is the FairChangs. Garth and Pitucca FairChang are sim owners (at least 20 sime?) who secured the FairChang surname for themselves and their staff. So they can create new accounts with that surname, but no one else can.

As I recall, the process of creating a corporate surname involves setting up an initial block of something like 20 prepaid Premium accounts with Linden Lab, in return for which your company gets exclusive use of that special-purpose surname. Completely cost-prohibitive for individuals, but great if you are running a mid to large size business in SL.

/me points to the Registration API page: http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/api/reg

Also, from https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=4794 ,


edit:

The DDT Biscuit Company????

I think I saw that person too... S-M-S, right? (^_^)

She was giving a quick tour of the NCI sandbox. And to think... I almost got a job at that place... It would have made for a real killer alt on my part. (^_^)y

Sun Microsystems does this also. Your avi first name is your RL first & last name together and your avi last name is SunMicrosystems. And apparently they are now encouraging all of their employees to sign up and many of the work groups actually are having lots of inworld meetings.

QUOTE: "Custom names cost US$1000 for initial setup, and US$500 for each year thereafter. You will be billed US$1000 at the time of account creation, and US$500 on each anniversary for account renewal. You must have billing information on file; we cannot creat Custom names for accounts that do not have funds available."
So wonder what happens to AV''s and their accounts if a company pulls out of the $500 per year, you get deleted I guess, I certainly wouldn't be piling too much money into my work AV Then againm they have compaies tied up for an infinite contract that may cost them more than their annual island tier eventually.

Those are the prices to get into the custom names program itself - it's not the cost per resident.

Dunno if LL axes the whole surname if the company stops paying or how they deal with premium or any of that stuff.

The page also says...

If I had a work avi with one of those custom names, that is even more reason for an Alt -- keep the corporate named avi restricted to the business stuff only. Could you imagine if some of the corporate folks had some 'interesting' groups hidden in their profile when that bug hit over the weekend?

so can i ask...

is GossipGirl a corporate name? it seemed really off even for a silly linden name, and ive never seen linden names with a capital letter in the middle, before.

and if it is... what on earth corporation is it???

I think that was tied to some TV show.

You can never fathom what one of them Lindens had been smoking when meditating on new last names. Maybe he had a time out with his girlfriend and a bunch of her friends the night before.

I think avatar selection would be a bit limited too. (^_^)y

To a degree probably. Though I am told that there are some Furries with the SunMicrosystems name, but probably not any child avatars.

Now that the name has been mentioned I can reveal that the woman I saw had 'SunMicrosystems' as her surname.


The land dealer I mentioned who had a single name was something like Exploratrixii.
How was that accomplished?

Maybe the single name was just two that looked connected?

I've never seen a true single name, but on occasion peoples names seem to melt together above their head and look like one.

I think it would be good if Premium accounts could opt to use the same surname for all or some of their alts, if they wish, even if the name has been taken of the main list.

Unless I'm mistaken, alts are not 'officially recognized' or linked to the account in any way other than happening to have the same email.

Ah, we did see the same person. I was gonna chase her around a bit, but she got away fast. (^_^)y

GossipGirl is a popular(ish) CW tv show. As part of a marketing campaign for the show, a group of islands replicating the show's Upper East Side location. They have a regAPI and a dedicated orientation area:

http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/gossipgirl-uppereastside

From what I've seen, they have been fairly sucessful, on the level of Showtime's the L Word, at building a community in SL based on the show.

Coolness--Sun MicroSystems knows about NCI. I need to hit them up for money