What Methods Do You Use to Decide What to Do in Second Life?

By definition, they are desperate, Maelstrom.

Pep (The other male members of the group do get annoyed by my initiative though; is your alt one?)

When I did go to clubs, I had a hard time finding any to go to. Why? Because most provided very little information in the events posting or classified ad, if I could find a posting or ad for an actual CLUB with music instead of a strip club with music.

Having a posting that says "come to so and so club at so and so time. DJ whatever will be playing" is not informative. What day? Every day? Once a week on Wednesdays? What kind of music does DJ whatever play? I'm not a mind reader and "hot tunes" or "your favorites" or even "hot dance music" is not helpful. It seems most ads were aimed at existing customers instead of at someone who'd never been to the club before. So, COMPLETE INFORMATION is a great place to start.

Having a parcel listing, a classified ad and an event listing with complete information that actually comes up in search is helpful too. Don't game the keywords.

I've also gone to clubs/venues/events only to be greeted by "there is a dress code". If you do have a dress code, place it in the ad so I can avoid your place of business or dress accordingly if I'm in the mood to change clothes just to listen to music. I'm not talking about a "no nudity" rule, I'm talking about "you must dress in formal wear or in the contest theme or the sim theme" or whatever. If you do not allow certain types of people, place that in your ad. If literally everyone is welcome, say that too and then have someone around to bounce the people who can't help but make fun of anyone different than them.

While I do understand that clubs are a business, if I land and am assaulted by landmark givers, group joiners, etc., I would leave right away because, generally, that means the host/hostess will be just as pushy about "money money money tip tip tip". If you have prominently displayed tip jars for the venue, you run a good show and a reminder is given, say once or twice during the event, people will give what they can. The reality is, if a club is being run with the idea of making even enough to cover tier, you're doomed to failure about 98% of the time.

The second most annoying thing I found about clubs (and still do) is the gestures and those things that show up in chat that are several lines long. I don't know how a club can keep those to a minimum without alienating their patrons but if the owner/host/hostess/DJ contributes to the problem, I would make a quick exit, never to return.

The MOST annoying thing I found (and still find) in clubs is the flashing, swirling, omgi'mgoingtothrowup, atmosphere and other decor horror stories like slow rezzing furniture that impedes movement into the club, prim lights between patrons and tip jars and dance balls, etc. Although, according to my friends, I'm evidently oversensitive to that kind of thing. But I will say that, because of lag, less of everything is a good place to start. You can have a nice club without filling it with "stuff" and create a sense of movement without tons of moving lights and flashing floors, etc.

Running a club, even for fun (which I've done) can be time consuming and difficult and, in the end, you can't please everyone even part of the time and there is so much competition that I almost think it's almost kinda random in regards to what club is flavor of the month.

Search for new things or read up on SL popular places and check out why. Some of the best sims are just ultra creative and cool to look at.

SL is not only set up for role play, it's a business and social networking platform.

I don't care for role play much, meaning I don't want to invest in Alien avatars or an avatar that looks like a tree, etc. I try to spend my money wisely. lol

But on the other hand, if I was a tree avatar, I'd spend a whole lot less money.

To find interesting places and things to see or do I might:
- browse a few blogs,
- take note of what people here in RA mention,
- check out profile picks of anyone whose av catches my eye.
- clubs are often checked out on the map first to see if anyone's around and it's not either empty or too crowded.

I also keep a notepad handy to jot things down as reminders, but then never usually have time to do even a quarter of what I've scribbled down. One of these days when I get a round tuit and my inv is totally up to date and tidy (yeah, right) I might check back through the notes to see what I've missed!

--
Aes

At this point in my SL experience the social scene has pretty much lost its allure for me. Since I began creating items, selling them, learning how to market them, plus attending classes and teaching, I actually have very little time for other things in SL.

To answer the question, if I don't have a specific plan for what I am going to do when I log into SL, I don't log in.

Remind me NOT to join that group.

I rez in my house/gallery and meet my partner on our property. We'll chat and sexplay. Then I may go to a gallery and buy a piece of art. Maybe a new hair style. Chat with friends. Have sex. That sorta thing. Very routine really.

I was spoiled by the first dance club I was introduced to in SL being one that, imo, still has no equal. It was a vintage 1940's jazz club, the majority of the people wore outfits in theme (although everyone was welcomed regardless), the club owner had an amazing array of music ranging from Latin night, the Rat Pack, classic jazz, Rockabilly, etc. The build was impressive. Not only the club itself but the surrounding areas were all built with the "back story" theme. No camping, sploders, blinking anything, etc. So by comparison, I am generally disappointed by other clubs.

Back to the above quote...my Partner and I enjoy dancing, or at least used to before the club I referenced closed and on those rare occasions we could find a tolerable club. We had a favorite DJ and would just go to wherever he was working as we enjoyed his style and type of music.

But those chat spam gestures...oy! We began playing a game of sorts - betting on how many people we were going to have to mute at any particular club. Unfortunately, usually the first people who made it on our mute list were the managers themselves.

I heard an expression once: The speed of the leader is the speed of the pack.

whatever friends are doing i am also doing easy

Fixed it for ya!

Pep (There's no need to feel ashamed of your youth, Jig)

Nor your age old man - and if you are actually under-40, I gotta tell you you sound like your about 75.

You really don't know, do you!

Pep (Quite happy to keep it that way)

Most of what I do on SL is participate in discussions about government, politics, and law. I find some of these discussions through the Search/events function; others by direct contact with SL friends with the same interest. Most of the time I log on to SL just before the event and TP directly to it.

I also sometimes log on to try out new clothing that I made or bought. I like clothes, both in SL and RL.

Mary

I only go to clubs now and again, not very often. metal and hard rock mostly. Is a few DJs who know what bands I like and if they play one of them then I give them a tip. I never told them or ever put in requests. They just know whats what when it comes to DJing and worked me out by themselves. And I go clubbing for the noise mostly so I dont mind gestures, chat spam, particles and bling and stuff like that. More is good at those times. Is what I there for really. And when my computer eventually overload and crash then is a bit like getting shootered in RL really =) Party over and time to go home and sleep.

As to what I do now when I log? I go through cycles like lots other people I suppose. Sometimes this. Sometimes that. Whatever really. Lately Ive taken to finding parcels owned by Lindens in their personal capacity and seeing if their autoreturn is on. I find a sim Terraform Me owned by Mr Jack Linden the other day with autoreturn set to 0 so I spend a bit of time playing and building there. Same as a few other people had already. Someone had made a house and there was a hammocky seat thing that someone else leave and a few trees as well. And there was some empty freebie boxes in a pile which I thought was kinda poetic in a way =)

I was going to leave my stuff there as well but I thought not in the end, so I remove before I leave. But I was a bit tempted =) I went back next day and he had reset to 30min return so everyones stuff had disappeared so was just empty. Is quite a few Linden people not have autoreturn on. Some of their parcels quite messy actually with garbage all over the place.

I wonder sometimes if they AR each other. Or maybe they just sort it out in the cafeteria. Probably in the cafe I think. Be a bit awkward if you a Linden and you not able to goto work because you been banned for 2 days by a newbie support person =)

I'd kill myself long before I got that desperate.

Honestly... Considering how easy it is to get some 'play time' with another person here, with little to no attachments, for free... I'm really starting to wonder why escorting and desperation clubs are successful at all. (O_o)

I could still help - I'm a member of the "Euthanasia" group as well.

Pep (Or was that "Youth In Asia"?)

I have no approach. I log on, most times to my home. Look at my messages, rez some boxes, clean inventory first. Sometimes I have specific places I want to visit, people to hang out with. Other times I'll just IM friends I haven't seen/spoken with for a while and see what happens from there. I've occassionally gone to Flickr pages of people I know and groups I belong to, for inspiration. A lot of times I forget about places I've been dying to visit and it refreshes my memory.

Other times, I just hang out with Ghosty while he is creating his artwork and building something interesting, or if we have a party or event we are going to together - but actually we don't really spend a lot of time inworld together since we see each other in our home all the time (kind of no need to be joined at the hip in SL when you have each other right across the couch so to speak, at least for us). No sexxies for us, no need for that when we can log off and do it for real lol, although he still enjoys watching me get naked inworld for some reason. Men really are silly

Really it's haphazard for me. If I'm really bored? I log off. Or don't even log on lately. No point being there if I'm not motivated to be.

The whole rant of your post is great, for this reason. So may people running clubs think- quite logically- that if they copy what other more successful clubs do, then obviously they will become as successful as those other clubs.

The points that are missed are:

1. The clubs observed might not be as successful as one thinks. They might be packed on the night visited, because it's not that hard to pack a club that is "new." Visit next month, and the club may not even being there anymore, falling into the vast SL club graveyard.

2. Not every feature of that particular club is actually contributing to its success. Even a successful club is not doing everything perfectly.

3. Clubs who are first in a niche builds up a base that is going to give it a competitive advantage over any other club subsequently following in that niche. Clubs that are "first" can survive on the force of inertia alone, even after the other aspects of the club become dull.

4. There may indeed be a market for bland, generic clubs. That market, however, is over-saturated.

Everything you wrote in your post is counter-intutive I think to many club owners. If all those things are so bad, then why do clubs do them, and appear to have customers?

And of course the answer is, you were once a club-goer, but came to dislike it. The trick to sustainable business is finding those people who want to go to the club, and then making the experience so great, they want to keep coming back.

OK, so the OP is more focused than the subject would imply - it's more "how do you decide what club to go it, if you are in the mood to go to one?", right?

It's very simple for me - word of mouth. There are far too many clubs in SL that are empty, or filled with campers and all the generic club annoyances that go with it (yes, I KNOW to tip the DJ, thanks very much, you don't have to tell me every few minutes!).

So my friends recommend places to me, and I visit, and pass on those recommendations to my friends. Simple.

Possibly doesn't help you on your promotional quest, but that's how it works for me.

As soon as I log on, I pick a couple of places to go and immediately get dressed for the event or location. Some nights I may change up to 4 times in one session. What can I say - I am a consumer in SL!

As I near my one year rez-day and I find that I log on a little less than I used to and keep a very small core group of friends and boyfriends (one particular bf has lasted over 9 months now!). I still go to a lot of the same places that I did in my first month online.

I try and check out new places every week - from looking at other avi's profiles, mostly. I keep a running list of places to visit and regularly use Search and places recommended here in the Forums.

Though my focus is helping my friends' club, I can't do that without a broader understanding of SL residents. So I do have a method in asking the question broadly, and appreciate the answers.

And your answer confirms much of what I expected (and what a lot of respondants to my post are saying). Recommendation of friends may be the single most important factor people use in determine where to go in Second Life.

That theme mirrors what I know from the way real life small businesses grow and thrive. The first thing a small business owner needs to do is to tell her friends about her new business. Her friends come, they tell their friends, and so forth. With the real life small businesses for which I have worked, we have consistently found that the main source of new business is referrals from past clients- exceeding the business we got from Yellow Pages advertisements, newpaper ads, and referral services.

Recommendations among friends is not something completely out of a business owner's control. There is an art to effective networking. The answers to this thread confirm the importance of networking for an SL business such as a club.

So again, I absolutely appreciate all the honest answers. They all help me. And maybe they are helpful to other SL business owners who want to consider the answers in this thread.