Inaccurate Forecast

Well, at least so far, all of the "This is the End of SL" predictions have failed to come true.

If the VAT thing was really the death knell, I'm sure not seeing it...there doesn't appear to be a whole lot more land up for sale on the map. The $USD spent per day is inching back up again toward the $1.3M mark. We're approaching ten million registered users, and yesterday concurrency topped 50,000 again.

Of course, the LAG was ferocious again this weekend. But it's often laggy out. The only pieces of falling sky I saw were the porno pictures assaulting Orientation Island Public.

[edited to add the requisite question: Apropos of nothing above, how do I get a gesture command to execute if placed in the middle of a line of chat text? I'm told this works, but for me, a gesture has to be on its own line.]

EU residents have weeks to decide what to do with their land. Only those whose tier was about to flip had to act fast. So, just as with the casino ban, there will be a large impact on the land market. It just will happen over the course of the next month. Also, its impact won't be as apparent since the market has already been depressed for months now. LL holding off on new sims to auction will also act as an equalizer. Regardless, I agree this is not the end of SL.

Like most things, the "end" of SL will come as a slow and steady aggregation of things. Just as it took time to build concurrency to the ridiculous levels of today, it will take time for people to realize that LL is merely beta-testing something, rather than offering them a completed product. The bouts of vanishing inventory from buggy asset-servers, the continued addition of new, questionable features, and the compete lack of in-world help for all except those with the willingness to blow more than a hundred bucks a month on their in-world "experience" will all contiribute.

In addition, it appears the bloom is definitely off the rose as far as SL's shiny press image is concerned. Add that to the problems of trying to integrate an American-based company into a global economy and a complete devaluation of SL's so-called "premium" level of membership, and you have a joke that's just waiting for a punchline.

More RL companies are realizing that SL is really nothing more than a major time-and-resource-sinkhole - and simply is not a viable means to attract a new demographic of consumers.

And, as usual, many people will stumble in here, thrash about...and leave forever, scratching their heads wondering what all the fuss is all about.

There are a LOT of problems with SL...so many now, that in my humble opinion, they outweigh any benefit. The unreliability of the service, continued problems with griefers, and inventory that decides to take a whimsical vacation to never-never land after hours of effort in building...have pretty much spoiled the experience for me.

I think others, just like me, are going to realize...there are MUCH better things out there calling for my time and money.

So...I DO think SL is pretty much doomed...unless things start to turn around in a pretty d*mned drastic fashion...and pretty d*mned quick, too.

Any hope for SL long term has to begin with LL taking a serious business approach to managing it, instead of the Hippy Dippy SanFran stoner style they are using now.

For a platform that is ending/dying/on its last legs, I had my best sales month ever in September 07. In fact, I've had a 50% increase in sales from 1st Qtr 07 to 3rd Qtr 07.

If people are leaving in droves, they are sure spending a lot of money before doing so.....

I'm not posting this to brag, but to counter the assertions that SL is on its way out. I just don't see it.

That's North Americans buying L$ to purchase sims off of Europeans

The VAT issue is, I think, going to force LL to pick up the reins and point SL strongly in the direction they want it to go.

If they want it to be a business platform, they will HAVE to implement non-anonymity of buyers and declare L$ an official US$ equivalent (so that EU businesses can become VAT-registered) - or alternatively, just give up on the idea of it being any kind of business platform for Europe. Even that later strategy may be risky, as it's just asking for Euro businesses to argue that the hivemind that is SL's content creation is perceived by an end user as a single company offering a particular online service and should be taxed as such.

More importantly, they need to decide what the customer appeal of SL is going to be. At the moment, it's far too much trading on broken dreams - and that can't carry on, because the consumers are starting to wise up. We know they don't want to be a game, but can they afford it to carry on not being?

The VAT 'thing' will take several weeks to have any true impact. Most Europeans afflicted will now be considering their options. Euro Island owners (myself included) will be seriously considering getting rid of their island/s, particularly those who derive no income from it, I would expect to see a few Island bargains appearing on the market.

Euro residents who make an income from SL will do what any business does when hit with increased costs, pass that cost on to their customers, that's 'you and me', and many of 'us' will start thinking "this is getting expensive". Euro Premium members with no property will think "why am I paying this" and simply become Basic members thus enjoying the benefits (?) of SL for free. Euro Premium members with property will be thinking "why do I need this" and may sell their land of cheap; which in turn will pull down the price of land, thus effecting 'you and me' again. Some of us looking for a cheap land bargain will gain whereas, those of us in the land business or selling their land may lose out.

However, in time those Euro residents who chose to leave or change their membership will be replaced by new Euro residents unaware of the conflict that has gone on before them. They will buy Islands, they will buy land, they will build and trade and they will blindly accept the same appalling SL service. The price of land will once again rise and some of us might actually have made a few quid out of this whole thing. Everything for 'everybody' will just be that bit more expensive.

As Brenda say's it's all down to LL and how they handle their business that will ultimately decide the fate of SL, and at the moment they're not doing a very good job.

The competition is the number #1 one priority right now.
Let's assume November starts a big boom $$$ time period for SL and everyone's happy about everything, all problems were solved.

But If the competition suddenly releases something new and better..................we are all going to disappear from SL within a month. Any issues going on right now don't really matter...........its a race to be the best product.

That's because you make lovely creations.

Really? Darn. I hear there's a fabulous restaurant there.

Glad I can help keep you from committing a forum faux pas, Lindal, and residentially answer your question

To execute a gesture in the middle of a line of chat, simply make the gesture's trigger a regular word.

For example, I have a gesture that includes the Library animation "Shrug" that triggers whenever I say "dunno" in regular chat. The trigger for that animation is simply the word "dunno" (without the quotes, of course) rather then "/dunno".

It is also possible to execute a gesture with a "Hot Key" at anytime, with 36 Hot Keys available.

Note that if you try to include two gesture trigger words in the same line of chat, only the first one will play.

Torley has made a tutorial video at the following addy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WKo4G8aQBc&eurl=


At the Restaurant of the End of SL, they always serve Pie

Awww.. Thank you *blush*

The real reason for my sales spike is land prices. When land prices are low, end users start buying and end users need stuff: houses, plants, furniture, accessories. This is why land prices need to stay low - huge segments of the SL economy depend on end users buying land to set up housekeeping. Sales of houses are the single best indicator of how SL is doing. People don't collect houses like they do skins, hair, shoes or clothing. Houses are a one - two time purchase for most people. When houses are selling well it indicates that people are feeling confident; they are buying land and deciding to stay in SL.

Time for Phil to grow up and trade in his Vans for Wingtips.

Obviously too soon to judge any impact from the VAT issue.

I do expect that some Europeans will leave -- the ones who are in SL to make money that is. The consumers will stay, and the non-Europeans will stay. I don't know that this is a bad thing for SL -- we will have to see what the impact actually is. The tension between a virtual world and real world laws has yet to be resolved, and these are some of the growing pains of that evolving discussion. But it's not necessarily a *bad* thing if the virtual metaverse bills itself as a place open only to those who do not live in places where the RL governments will tax it. I think that catually could be a good thing in the long run for virtual worlds, while obviously in the short and medium term having a rather negative impact on the economy of this one.

No, national discrimination is pretty much always a bad thing.

Do you mean, Victoria, that this would generate pressure on governments not to tax internet businesses? Or at least, not to mindlessly tax it as if it were brick-and-mortar?

If you mean something else, I'm not following ...

quote 'For a platform that is ending/dying/on its last legs, I had my best sales month ever in September 07. In fact, I've had a 50% increase in sales from 1st Qtr 07 to 3rd Qtr 07.

If people are leaving in droves, they are sure spending a lot of money before doing so.....

I'm not posting this to brag, but to counter the assertions that SL is on its way out. I just don't see it.'

What are you selling a book entitled 'Double entry accounting and VAT dodging' ?

Yes that's what I mean. It wouldn't be a bad thing for places that are trying to manhandle and tax internet business to be excluded from this (not by design, of course, but in effect due to silly things like 25% taxation) so that they can learn their lesson the hard way, it seems to me. That way the governments concerned, and the people who elect them, can have an opportunity to address the issue, and decide whether they really want to cripple the economic development of these kinds of things with a 25% tax.

But if VAT was not in place, and a European company developed a competitor to SL, they would be out of luck! They would have to pay VAT, and SL would become a bargain!

Just in the week before the VAT hammer I spent like 10k on creating a halloween place. Wouldn't have done that if I had known before. Before VAT the rent/tier I charged with my SIM payed for my own expenses. Now I will have to lower those expenses, so SL content creators will get approx. 20k L$ less from me per month. Will downgrade to basic membership too.

Thats just me. I have other german, italien, french and so on friends who will do the same. Some were happy enough to have their billing date one day before the VAT hammer - I had mine yesterday. Reactions will take a while to get visible. Many will sit it out for at least one more month to find out if LL will offer some kind of solution (like grandfathering SIMs).

Because trying to use a service that governments don't really care about as a form of leverage is politically a very effective manuever?

I mean.. please, people. Be realistic. I love Second Life too, but it's really an e/n thing. To people who are involved in it, it's great and important because of their investment in it - but to people who aren't, they honestly don't care, and Second Life isn't big enough to be used in this way.

"Our citizens businesses in Second Life are being crippled as long as we retain this tax."
"How many citizens have profitable businesses in Second Life?"
"According to their statistics, 42961, worldwide."
"How many in our country?"
"We don't know, although we could ask Linden Labs, I suppose."
"How many people in our country benefit from VAT-funded services?"
"Um, around 30 million."
"Well, I think the democratic choice is obvious, then."

When Second Life _is_ the 3D internet, when use of it is part of many jobs, when it's being used by hundreds of regular people to shop every week, _then_ you can come back and start trying to use it in RL politics.

Also, a far more natural response from a European government would be for them to insist that all US traders within Second Life must collect VAT from European customers too. LL would be required to cooperate with this by either collecting the VAT automatically with no choice for the trader, or freezing the accounts of those who refused.

HIRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is completely unreasonable. Private individuals running hobby "businesses" on servers in San Francisco and Texas should NOT be subject to EU taxes. You're saying that because it would help you. Objectively, it's an absurd notion.