Can I promote Openlife on the Second Life Grid ?

Can I promote Openlife on the Second Life Grid ?
"for example, having a "how to connect to OpenLife" information on my land" in SL

or do you think I would get in trouble and banned from SL?

Any small print in the LL TOS that could get me in trouble?

thank you

I'm not sure about in world advertising, but LL has said that you can't advertise products and services that are outside a "Linden Lab property", eg SL itself or XStreet on the web forums.

In one sense, I can understand them not wanting to provide ad space for their competitors.

However, in a wider sense, how about all those corporations they want to attract to SL? If Coke can't advertise its products here, they aren't too likely to be fans of SL.

As always, the mind of LL is murky and hard to fathom.

You raise a good point.

But I'm guessing that, Coke, for example, would be willing to instruct its employees who run avatars to refrain from mentioning Coke-related sites in their posts and/or XStreet listings--from their point of view, the major advertising thrust is their in-world installation, rather than LL-run forums or blogs or XStreet product-listings. (Assuming for the sake of the example that they have an in-world installation.)

In the states, if you order Cable TV you will see constant ads for Satellite TV telling you how horrible your present service is - and showing how your cable company in particular is the worst of the bunch.

If you order Satellite TV you will see constant ads for Cable TV telling you how horrible your present service is - and showing how your satellite company in particular is the worst of the bunch.

I figure its anti-monopoly laws at work.

But, that's different from SL. As much as SL wants to be a platform for business, it is really a competitor with World of Warcraft...
- However, if it ever did become a communications platform for business and education, various common carrier laws might attach, and yes - you would probably be allowed to advertise its competitors inworld in very direct attack based ways. Assuming my theory on the Cable / Satellite thing is correct.

In the states, if you order Cable TV you will see constant ads for Satellite TV telling you how horrible your present service is - and showing how your cable company in particular is the worst of the bunch.

If you order Satellite TV you will see constant ads for Cable TV telling you how horrible your present service is - and showing how your satellite company in particular is the worst of the bunch.

I figure its anti-monopoly laws at work.

But, that's different from SL. As much as SL wants to be a platform for business, it is really a competitor with World of Warcraft...
- However, if it ever did become a communications platform for business and education, various common carrier laws might attach, and yes - you would probably be allowed to advertise its competitors inworld in very direct attack based ways. Assuming my theory on the Cable / Satellite thing is correct.

People advertise blue mars here.. Why not ones that use the source code that LL left open source?

The founder of Azure Estates (one of the biggest estates in SL) does not mention his extensive investment in Open Sim/OSGrid either inworld or on these boards, despite his close relationship with LL. If your property is small you could probably get away with it ... but my feeling is that if he doesn't feel he can do it, no landowner can.
.

My misunderstanding ..I thought they meant in the forums
I would agree they probably don't want it on their grid..

Last year I received my first (and only) ever rebuke from the forum moderator (Kat Linden) for posting updates on the progress of Opensim, and the new features that were being rapidly added.

After I spoke to LL, Whump Linden reminded Kat that at that time SL and Opensim were cooperating together in the Gridnauts project (of which I was a member) which established a protocol for teleports between SL and Opensim, (and these tests were successful).

I then got a second message from Kat, saying that future posts on Opensim were permissible, but what had prompted her to email me in the first place was that some posters in this forum were taking the p**s by even posting the pricing of the other grid.

Now I know that there was some confusion here, as the OSGrid which is the main grid for Opensim users does not charge a thing, and I figured that Kat had got confused with OpenLife, which do charge, and I posted a clarification in these forums about the differences between Opensim/Openlife/Openspaces.

So, my advice is, yes, by all means discuss other VWs, compare their features to SL (which hopefully will prompt LL into competitive reaction), but don't do direct recruitment, or post prices of competitors, as even if this is tolerated, or goes unnoticed, it is simply just bad manners to do it on LL's own doorstep.

Rock
Now, the latest news on Blue mars....

I've spent some time there pondering if it will ammount to anything, and I have to say I wouldn't put myself in the position of advertising it and wasting people's time by directing them there. I've been inworld there at all peak times and the number of people online has rarely passed 4! yes thats 4, in the singular not hundreds, not thousands but 4.

The reason for this is quite simple, and this isn't a flame of Openlife, merely just the way it is, and that is because it is the worst virtual world on the internet. It is by design a copy of SL, yes it's packaged slightly differently but basically it's just another SL continent. Speak to the few people you may meet there and most will speak of how different to SL it is going to be and how much better but then explore and form your own conclusions, you will see it is developing exactly the same as SL, malls are slowly being built, cafe's, houses to rent etc.

Visit any other Virtual world, none of the others are empty, even the older terrible ones this is because each has it's own individuality.

Didn't stop LL making the upper limit for build above 760m and nicking their customisable friendship offers did it?

Personally I haven't been back as it has reminders of my biggest mistake ever (and I am not talking about virtual worlds so much as the company I was keeping back then!).

Honestly, as long as it is not harassing anyone I would think it would be little more than just another tutorial place. Nothing will happen unless someone AR's it and just what category would that fall under if someone tried?


But if you want a Linden's approval first, just submit a ticket and ask or, better yet, drop by someone's office hours and ask.

They are really a lot like a broken hive

OpenLife is a joke.

Every year someone pops in here thinking they can boost OLG's numbers by rallying support for it InWorld or on the forums. And then people head over there, get caught up in the pioneering spirit and after a few months of ALPHA testing they get fed up and come back.

I agree, competition is a good thing that keeps you striving to improve and offers people choices. In the real world I hate to see monopolies..take the power companies, when there's only one choice locally, it means they can pretty much do whatever obnoxious thing they want (like increase prices 125% for no reason) and get away with it because it's the only option people have to turn their lights on. A little different in the virtual world, nothing here is needed for survival, but still keeps you motivated to have some competition. It's important like Rock said to compete with integrity though. People can do things like just wearing a titler advertising a competitor and sure it's a free virtual country but..not very ethical. Someone else here posted that this may temporarily get attention but the important thing in the end is the quality of the competition, if it's poor, people realize it pretty quickly and hop back to the quality providers.

Calling the other grids 'competition' for SL is like calling a guy who makes wooden go-carts in his garage competition for Porsche.

Actually the numbers for OSGrid average about 70-100+ daily and the number is growing. SL started out slow too. The more it is promoted, the more people that will join, setup or find free land. Look at Linux as an example, free, open source, and growing by leaps and bounds.

OLG is not even advancing at the same speed SL did, to say so is to dream.

And last i checked, Redhat Linux was trying to go commercial in 98/99 and look now after a decade. Does OLG have the funds to last a decade and still not have a strong market share??

I do not think so.

The OpenSpace debacle hasn't given OLG a noticeable boost and neither has the Adult Continent matter. They get new people who discover OLG first and then those people discover SL and their OLG accounts stagnate.

But if you like comparing OLG to Linux that is fine because OLG still has years, thats right, years to go unless some super millionaire dumps tens of millions into the place like what happened with SL at the end of 2003 start of 2004. And why would anyone do that?

They can keep bailing water all day but eventually they will go under or remain a very small community of pioneers, die-hards and dreamers.

Totally agree Briana Openlife isn't advancing at all the only thing that is keeping anyone there is the offer of a full region with a huge prim allowance at a low price. Sadly it is likely that you will be the only person ever to visit your region.
But here's the crazy thing OL had huge potential, imagine the concern LL must have had when they realised someone had created a duplicate SL world, a blank canvas with endless possibilities, a potentially addictive virtual world game of any theme etc.
The continent that is OL could have been developed as one land mass, cities, towns, villages all linked by road and rail systems, commerce, politics and meaningful engaging virtual jobs as oppose to pole dancing in SL, to create a true virtual world.

Imagine the relief at LL when they realised that the only strategy to make OL different and better than SL was to use credits as oppose to Lindens, and now many of the early pioneers have given up, the good old malls and houses for rent are springing up. It really is old hat and a damm shame that so much effort is being put into creating another SL.

openlife and osgrid are two very diffrent things...