How to help newbies financially?

Ok...let me right up a report real quick.

Yes, well, I may as well tip my hand at this point: that's what interests me about the potential of such a system.

That interest is not in doing centralized data-mining analytics--although it might be pretty valuable for that. It's rather as a basis for optimally matching participants with contributors.

But unless I get serious about working on such a thing, that's probably more than enough said already.

Oh, *wouldn't* that be nice? Unfortunately, there's no way for an object to pay an object--it can only pay an agent, through llGiveMoney(). Hence the need for a "web bot" to match the agent's transaction history with what scripts are claiming was supposed to have happened in-world.

Its not a nonsense at all!

Here's an opinion of an Economist whose opinion i value more and in line with my own way of thinking.

(1) I get the camping thread posts by email (the blog is too unwieldy to actually use), and I read an account of someone who, by camping, managed to start and grow a very successful business.

(2) It hadn't occured to me before all the posts in the camping blog about camping allowing people to buy things but, in reading those, and my prices being *very* low, it could well be that I get many sales from people who camp for their money. Certainly they could set up home from my store by camping.

(3) There are many people who create and sell, but don't sell enough to cover tier. That's probably true of everyone starting up to sell things. Camping can make the difference, especially in those early times of business.

Bugger! lol

Rene, ignore my post about the payment to the creator being a good way to check for non-paying cones.

Still, the creator of such a system should be able to auto-verify that a cone is paying, by checking transactions against expectations, albeit not immediately. Or it would be if the creator is able to write programmes that access the web. Someone who can only programme in LSL wouldn't be able to do that - not programmatically.

And so the backend gets bigger and bigger

Well, yes...if you're paying into a system, you want some benefits....by receiving a LM and spending a few minutes to view the products available. I mean that's what we're buying into right?

Now that would be quite something. Don't forget to include an "I'm feeling lucky" option

But would it be much easier, and even more useful, to just give users a choice of place types on buttons, as was suggested earlier? Unless the analysis is for some other reason, of course.

Maybe make your motto : "Do no evil."

And then follow suit by doing all sort of rotten things, like stealing people's copyright works, altering people's webpages without their permission, and so on.

I started at my store.....went to Location 1....didn't realize that you touch the cone when you get there....(did not pay attention to instructions)....so they got me for more than half an hour....another Conehead came along and told me how to use it.....LOL.

Location 1: A Gadget Shop
I tried not to multi-task while doing this and give full attention. While you are at a place waiting....you need something to do. This place had a LM ad board that kept me busy - good idea. I just kept clicking on the Ads, which changed constantly, and collecting LM's...it also handed out notecards about each ad. I'm going to get one of these to set near the cone place. But.....I want control over putting my OWN ads in here....businesses and places I know and trust.
While here....I talked to another Conehead. These are her comments about the Cone Tour:
"it's a hobby"
"I love it"
"I get paid to window shop"
"I've used it off and on for weeks"

Location 2: Fantasy Role Play Sim
Very interesting place....you landed in the mall area. So your tendency is to look around the mall, while waiting.

11 minutes goes by pretty quickly. You are told every minute to remember to look around....during the final minutes, you are told to go back near the cone for payment.

Location 3: I have no idea what this place was...never figured it out...the About Land section had NO info....it was bizarre.

Location 4: Empty Mall....Empty Club.....Nothing to look at

Location 5: Times Square....that is Cone Headquarters....2 other Coneheads were here.

Location 6: Marina and Mall.....the Marina was sort of cool. Campers everywhere....one other Conehead.

Location 7: Freebie Mall....Money Tree Mall....ran into other Coneheads dropping in here.....tons of Campers....I would have camped during my stay here.....but at 1L an hour....no way.

Location 8: My store....Cone #1....one other Conehead.

Location 9: Times Square again.....very interesting

Location 10: Small Shop in a Mall...with some sort of game machines....and a guy with his "thing" hanging out.

Location 11: Freelance Escort Club....I was not dressed appropriately to hang out here....so I called it a night.

I got paid fine....every time....no problems

In my own store....when I ventured across sim lines....it told you that you are out of range...go back to cone. I need to change the location of the cone so it is not near a sim crossing.

But as for locations.....I don't mean to sound like a snob....but Holy Cow.....I felt slimed by the end of the tour. I'm going back to the first location to get one of their gadgets.....but other than that.....I was not impressed....not exactly an informational tour for the Newcomers. This is my Major Concern.

This is probably not feasible.....but I would like to be part of a system that sends the Coneheads to Great Places!

At some of the locations...the malls....the Cone was hard to find....so they got me for an extra minute or two.

At every location, I walked around to kill the time....so did the other Coneheads....so the 11 minute thing appears to be productive. I had a tendency to want to shop....but forgot to give my alt an allowance.....and the 20 lindens she made wasn't going to get her anything.....so over 2 hours and only 20L....you aren't exactly helping a Newcomer or contributing to the economy.

None of the places tossed me a LM....my own store included....you HAVE to have a LM tosser nearby....or you're missing the boat.....that feature would be better off built in....so that they HAVE to take a LM to proceed.....rather than choose to click off a blue box that appears on screen.

Yes, well, a marketplace is a good approximation to "optimal distribution of resources" but the market has both buyers and sellers. And it's not a law of nature that every visit must pay the same amount, nor even be available to every visitor.

Well, whatever your thinking, and whatever your motivations, I hope you'll get stuck in and make such a system. I'd like to use such a system, but I'm not overkeen on the cone system as it is right now.

The idea of making one myself has crossed my mind a number of times, but you're a better scripter than I am, Gunga Din

Mickie.

Thank you for that. The conehead's comments at location #1 were very interesting - very positive.

Apart from the lack of LMs, am I right in thinking that you're big concern is the nature of some of the places you were sent to? I think, if the system gets big enough, it may well change to having category choices. The places can only be as good as the places that choose to use the cones.

It's more than most camping pays these days, and a lot of people camp. So I would say that, not only is it helping newbies, and others, in the same way that camping helps them, but it's also giving people a look at places they'd never have seen, some of which they may actually like.

sad about the quality of locations.....not much can be done about that. The creator can't censor .

Well if so many places look like sh!t, when they arrive a decent quality place it might perk up the visitor's interest and not be forgotten easily.

Yes a Landmark giver from the cone is essential, there should be that script and you own LM inside the Cone....so when it's touched the LM is delivered as well as the next location in Chat

I'm thinking about what to do with the choice selection....and would like to have an option where you plug in the network of LM's that YOU choose. You would be given a list of the Places....you simply drop in the LM's to your own cone...that you want to participate with.

It would be similar to how I drop in items to the prize tosser. I slide the items into the prize tosser from inventory. You slide in the LM's that way.

I don't have a problem paying out more from the cone. 5L would be fine with me. And it would make it even more attractive to the Users.

That's what I'm counting on!

This is my plan for the cones...I may leave one in the middle of the store. I'm going to build a separate room for another....down a long hallway away from the main floor.

This room will have huge photo displays on the wall...with a tp to that room setting. Yeah...it will take them away from the cone....I'll put a sign up above mentioning that. I'll use a LM ad board for them to watch, while waiting....that has Awesome Locations on it. Maybe add some other handy general SL info on notecards they can click to receive.

If they walk away from the cone....and miss a payment....all they have to do is to go back to it, and start again.

I'll set a couple of racks of items in there, that they can purchase for 5L to 25L. Set a LM tosser....maybe ven a gift tosser....just so they walk away with something in inventory. They may pass on taking a LM....but they won't on pass on a gift....so at least you have something in their inventory.

I forgot to mention....that if you land at a place that you don't like....it seems that you cannot skip it and go to the next place.....I'm not positive....I might have missed a step....but I wanted to skip several places....and whatever I did, would not allow this. Would be nice to have an option to click again, for another LM.

I found that too - you are stuck with the place you were sent to for the duration. You can't even cancel it. When you click the cone again during you countdown, it just tells you how much time is left. I wonder what happens if you go to another cone and try to use that one during the countdown. I imagine you wouldn't be able to use another one.

This morning, on transaction list....I'm noticing that several people are being sent to the other cones inside my store, right after being at one cone. One poor gal got sent to all three, right in a row....it appears.

Fine for me....but might be frustrating for them.

If you look back over the locations I was sent to last night. I started at my store, and was sent back to the exact same cone, 6 visits later....and I was sent to Cone Headquarters twice....one visit only 3 visits after the first.

There's the thing.
Visitors are being delivered.
Some places will be forgotten instantly, some places will be remembered - end even be landmarked if the device were not delivering a LM.
Cr!p places might not make any sales or voluntary return visits, but while LL continue to use traffic as a ranking factor, they will get the benefit of a mandatory stay on the parcel.

What happens if the stay is not mandatory?
The better places will get more time than the worse places. Everybody's focus will be on having to retain the eyeballs when they arrive. They can only do that via presentation of good content.
A same-old mall of BIABs can buy as many credits as they want, but they won't be making sales or gaining traffic from retaining the eyeballs. They would probably stop buying when the cost per actual minute clocked up went too high.

On the other hand, if there were a majority of people touring that always went afk at each place regardless while waiting for payment, there would be no difference between the stay being mandatory or not. The BIAB mall would benefit as much as the ultra-quality place.


We don't have any metrics on how many campers there are in SL - how many are active - how many are afk humans - how many are bots - how much money is involved - how much is recycled - how much is cashed out.

I have to say, Mickey, that I'm not overkeen on not leaving one in the main part of the store because the system is like visitor sharing - first-clickers, that is. If other places share their visitors, I think it only fair to share yours/mine. On the other hand, first-clickers are shoppers that are immediately sent away. And there's the dilemma with the cone system.

i think all tours should start at the Creators HQ....he could have multiple cones for different types of tours. 1 for shops, 1 for Malls, 1 for places of Interests, 1 for clubs....like that.....or do it by Continents + estate locations. I don't think people should be able to hop enroute.....they have to start their journey at the Creators HQ

I'm going to leave one in a section of the store that is packed with lower priced items. It's just easy that way. And I do agree that I have some responsibility on that part....maybe. After seeing some of the places last night...not exactly like some others are taking on any kind of responsibility.

But I've got one in a section where the items are at the higher end of the scale. And the cone looks ridiculous in the middle of some upper end display areas. I also don't want someone who popped in from Xstreet to purchase one of those entire displays in a box, to click on the cone....then disappear before walking through the store and possibly buying another package. That Xstreet ad to get that person cost me 899L.

It's not only like that. Good places would be skipped too for various reasons, such as, "I only want to look around certain types of places (clothing shops, for instance)", or "I've been here before" (see Mickey's post). So it's back to, if you want my money, you have to do something for it - it isn't free.