How to help newbies financially?

I'm going to have to watch it, to see....yesterday's cone traffic was way down, and I wasn't inworld long enough to catch the activity on the map.

Nope. Not even the offer of a free one.

That's a shame. I'm pretty sure that I would be inclined to send you over the new Pretty in Pink Polka Dot bedroom set, if you were to commit 500 comments and suggestions on ways to improve it, and advertise for me. I'm sure you would do the same on the Purple Leather pieces.

Maybe he didn't care for all the comments that criticised it. I guess we won't be getting anything from him

Well....I'm still using three of them....and I've sent no less than a dozen store/venue owners who are not in this discussion, to go get one.....so I don't think the criticism (helpful suggestions) had an effect on sales or residual income.

On that Purple Leather....it's a bit slippery....if you could put down some little patches of rough fabric for traction to keep you from sliding off of it....

Sling....did you notice that when you were trying out the leather sofas in Phil's store? Will this effect Traffic? I mean if you keep sliding off the sofas....you'll keep hopping back on....this could take half an hour.....seems like a little forced traffic there, from Phil.....you know what I mean?

Why would I want to stop you slipping off? It's a feature of my kinky sex animations. You don't to oil your skin - it's built-in

Slings seems to have deserted this thread, which is not a bad thing at all.

She'll be back

We haven't discussed the Adopt a Newcomer Program yet. I'm thinking that they will need to come to the store, and spend an hour in training and tutorials every day.

If you put this on "automation".....and adopt 30 Newcomers....

There are different scales for the general idea. e.g.

A. The current Cones system - as I understand it.
It sends people to locations using SLURLs in IM
The cones have the option to pass a LM to clickers.
It has a simple SL-Object-housed back end to handle a pool of SLURLs

It's not clear what the capacity limitations are precisely, but the creator recognises the need for an off-world server if it is to expand.

B. A scaled up Cones-type system
Uses a back end server to handle greater volumes. It still uses SLURLs in IM to direct people, and the cones can give a LM that the parcel owner had dropped into it.

C. A variant on the scaled up Cones in which people are directed by passing them a LM from a central in-world object.


Directing people via SLURLs has the advantage that the cones could pass their location to the central controller for conversion into SLURLs. People would always arrive at the cone location.
This is important for the avatar in a system that works by only starting a timer when the avatar clicks the cone.
It is less important for a landowner who might like to get some extra traffic time in while the avatar locates the cone to click on.

The LM given out by the cone is a memo for the tourist. It doesn't necessarily have to correspond exactly to the cone location. This would only be useful if the person was at some later time using the LM as a way of continuing an interrupted tour.


Directing people via LMs enables a system in which avatars are given a choice about where to be depending on their reaction to the places they see.
NB: Some people absolutely *hate* such an idea. Let's not go into all of that again. It's simply an option that someone that some silent onlooker can consider if they design a system.



A big question here is the scale of a system.
A small-scale system can be simple.

There are disadvantages to a very simple system in which the cone pays out.
If the central SLURL server is not aware of the balance remaining in a cone, it can send people to a cone that is not going to pay. The only fallback is for an 'empty' cone to trigger a fresh SLURL to be sent from the centre to the avatar.
Add = In a system where avatars arrive and click to start a time period, and click again to receive payment at the end, the cone would have to reserve the payment amount.
Without doing that, a number of avatars could arrive, click to start and then find 11 minutes later that the cone was unable to pay. Big bummer! /Add


There are disadvantages to a small-scale system.
Multiple instances of the system have to exist in order to cover a significant number of locations.

Each system can cover a limited number of locations. This will cause repeat visits which would lead an 'exploring' avatar to abandon and seek out a system instance that they have not been through already.
Seeking out new instances may be a problem for explorer avatars.
This is bad news for a location joining an existing instance. They will never get visits via the system from people who think that they have seen all of the locations in the instance.
An avatar that is using the system simply as a camping time for hire function might not particularly care about repeated visits. They are not trying to explore.

If a location host a number of cones from different instances, this may lead to
1. Duplication of locations being given to avatars, discrediting the systems
2. Confusion for the avatar in selecting which cone they should be clicking. If they wander around the parcel they may encounter the wrong cone(s) and try exit using those.

The simplicity of the small-scale systems generates a need for a multiplicity of them to exist.
That raises a bunch of marketing issues for the operators and the locations seeking to use them.
It also raises issues for the avatars who want to locate new system instances that will hopefully lead them to new locations.

Yawn!

Disrupted Technologist is about right!

I don't think anyone is interested, Sling, but...

This is wrong. According to what the creator told me, it already operates with a web server back end. He just can't afford to increase it's capacity. Also, the backend doesn't host a pool of SRURLs.

I had understood from the Rene's post re the discussion with the creator that a 'move' to a web server was the issue. It seems the issue was simply that of scaling up the server.

I would guess that given the positive feedback on the concept of this sort of touring system that a few might be thinking about developing a system. Don't assume they are not there just because they are not posting.


Mickey's post above:
"Hey Phil - have you received your paycheck yet, for all this market research and advertising.....mine seems to be lost in the mail."

You might be doing advertising for the cones system creator, but you are doing market research for anyone contemplating such a system.



Wot?? No SRURLs?? Thundering Typos Batman!!

My understanding from the creator is that he can't afford to increase the webserver end of it. He could actually be running it on some free hosting of limited size.

Yes, the cones do use SLURLs. A cone sends its SLURL to the person. The central system tells the cone who to send it to. It isn't sent from a central place.

I hope that someone *is* in the process of developing a cone-like system. I definitely want to use one, but I don't want to use the cones for two main reason. One is the level of commission, and the other is that, if shoppers click it and decide to use it, it will send them away immediately.

The current cones will face a problem when the adult thing comes in - very soon. People will be sent to cones where they are not allowed to be - assuming that some cones are used in what will be adult areas.

Cones sending SLURLs or Central instructing cones to send SLURLs - that's just a detail of the way the particular person did it. Someone designing a new system from rth eground up ,ight take a different internal approach to implement the same functionality.


It's the overall concept and the scalability that is important.

Extensions to cover maturity preferences and location themes have been mentioned in the thread. They add more to the complexity.
Smaller scale systems are more prone to difficulty in this as they could have lesser numbers of suitable locations for particular avatars.
A larger scale system would have the beef to track avatar preferences and history against a large pool of locations that are of known theme and maturity settings.

.