Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

Exactly my point. Its just a mention not an actual ruling. Physically changing the means would have to be an upgrade to the server code to throttle the behavior. You are not going to see these micro parcels go away.

Right. To amplify: Mainland is only 20% of the SL Main Grid landmass, so depending on one's use of SL, one very well may not encounter them--I've known a number of folks who've been in SL for months and never set foot on the Mainland after their rez day. (In contrast, weeks can go by without my visiting a private Estate, and never being out of draw distance of an adfarm.)

It's a big deal because the Mainland is the part for which LL has responsibility, and sales of it were a significant income stream to LL, back when people were willing to bid for the stuff at auction. Adfarms had a lot to do with the failure of the Mainland auction market at the same time that Estate sales continued apace, and with the even more significant growth in abandoned and otherwise unperforming Mainland that fails to generate tier revenue. Ultimately, the disgust of a very large number of customers--resulting in direct hits to the bottom line--have prompted LL to take seriously the needs of its Mainland customers.

It is not correct. LL earns the big part of their income by island sales and tiers.
On otherside, on islands there are few commercial and productive activities. I made a test trying to rent half island to place a big mall: no opportunities, because a lot of people, as y can read on this bLog, hate commercials and factories.
It is "natural" that mainland experiences an aggressive commercial policy.

So, the "right" question is: Tamagouchi World or Second Life?
In first choice, here is a joke, in the second an opportunity.

Do you include in "Mainland customers" the thousand and thousand of commercial activities? If you count the shops too, why do you mind that they dont need advertising?

It is a bit Communist idea to place a limit for prices and Capitalism lives on speculations.
Dont be surprised for these two "poltical" words: it is economy.
As gambling calls up criminals, land property calls business men.
And the business has his proper rules, not those of SL.

Minus adserver? Of course. But the ancient problem of the land property remains.
Bye.

You don't own mainland or don't get out much perhaps?

Why not change the way all land is sold instead of a price listing set by users.

Change all sales to an ebay syle Auction, reserves could be set and a buy it now price could even be added to the listing.
Linden Labs could charge a small fee for posting a listing which would hopefully make sure all sellers kept to a sensible reserve.

This would maintain a free yet fair market, desired land and businesses sold with the land would still get the high values expected, but extortionists would be paying relatively highly to Linden Labs for the many listings that failed to sell, hopefully forcing the extortionists out of business.

This would also benefit LL as they would begin to make a small revenue from all land sales.

Free transfers could continue to be made to specific users through a button similar to abandon land.

I wasn't suggesting they go away some people have uses for small plots, My suggestion is Jack adds to his policy that only 50 small plots are allowed with upto 1 advert on them per user as long as the 1 advert per sim rule is not broken.

Advertising is not the problem with the mainland, Adfarms are and they have nothing to do with advertising.

Obviously this is a great idea and everything but there are a few pitfalls to watch out for. Right now I can set a parcel for sale for 20/sqm and leave it there for a year and maybe it'll sell. Some people don't like this practice but it seems reasonable in a fair system. If we change to auctions then it will be very difficult to do this sort of thing due to the need for auctions to expire. Worse, if auctions must end weekly (or monthly or whatever) then the seller has to pay LL regularly just to keep their parcel on the market which doesn't really seem fair at all.

Although the land market is pretty liquid with lots of buyers and sellers and plenty of price discovery right now if every single seller put their parcel up in an auction then I think less than 10% would even get serious bids of any kind so it would suddenly become really hard to sell land. I guess the few large players with tons of tier would put in ridiculously low bids on everything and end up winning a ton of land for L$1 from people who didn't set reserves.

If Adfarmer were legit ads that provided anough income to warrant their existance, then private estate owners would be cutting 16m blocks in their sims and "selling" them for people like Robo to buy.
The first block I considered buying in SL was a 32m adfarm for $60k, I had no idea what land was worth and thought land for sale was rare, fortunately I did some comparisions while considering it, only good thing was I pestered the Adfarmer with a lot of dumb noob questions over 2 days about the land before realising it was a ripoff and then telling him so.

LL earns most of its income through Island sales and rentals 80% of its land is private islands I saw quoted somewhere, also like for like Sim to Island tier gives an extra $100/month for LL



Many Islands have commercial uses, these are the places real world business would choose to use as virtual show rooms for advertising, many sucessful inworld shops are located on an entirely owned Island.

Many smaller users that would have payed tier to Linden Labs will now just rent from Island owers as they can ensure no blight and effective management of their virtual environment.

The mainland has been allowed to go to rat sh*t, probably because Islands are Linden Labs main focus, however when the mainland looks as bad as it does now, it may actually be affecting Island sales as it sends out a rather poor message of Second Life.
Perhaps that is another reason LL now wants to clean up the mess.

Setting land for 20L/sqm and leaving it is fair and doesn't count as extortion in my view, but most land simply doesn't sell at that price anymore, perhaps in a year or so land prices may rise to that extent, but in the mean time tier has been payed that is wasted, where it would have been much more sensible for the seller to have just let the land go for a little less and get a quick sale.

Time limits could be set for sale by the user 1 week upto 3 months, 3 months of tier on a plot not being used is a waste, if the plot is not sold in that time the reserve was set above the price any user is prepared to pay for the parcel, it would just force people to think about the real value of their land rather than choose silly figures that are never going to be met.

As on Ebay a parcel not selling could have its reserve altered to be more competetive if required, thus eliminating the need to relist if a mistake was made initially or the market collapses for some reason.

The idea is to eridicate extortive practices and help sales be made at real market values, if people put in unrealistic values they can expect not to make sales and have to pay a small listing fee, I don't see that as unfair.



If the market gets flooded and land simply ceases to be bid on, then thats because demand is simply not meeting the supply, so why would a large land owner choose to bid on unwanted land and sit paying tier on it for months and months, while they wait for new users to start buying or renting land again.

If they did risk that strategy the tier costs would quickly snowball to mean any savings made by bidding low were soon lost.

Another benefit would be that Land bots currently buying up miss listed parcels by users and any bargain listings, would become useless as land buying would have to be done through the auction rather than on a fist come first served basis.

Didn't this come up in the other thread by one person so much it became a running gag?

Looked at the stats lately? Even in a high-priced area 10 is expensive.

As was stated, an e-bay auction allows the market to decide. If it does not sell for 20/m and you do not like the listing fees go cheaper.

I'm sorry, but I really don't understand. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just not sure what's being asserted here.

If there's a perception that I'm anti-advertising, or anti-Mainland commerce, nothing could be further from the case. I've consistently posted here lamenting the fact that the previous "hands-off" policy has destroyed the effectiveness of display advertising by creating the current, hyper-cluttered environment where only the most clueless of newbies would ever see an ad as anything but harassment. Reasonable regulation of this activity is necessary not only for neighbors, but for advertising itself. The reason some "advertisers" haven't favored regulation in the past is that their business is not advertising at all.

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About all land sales being done through auctions: Not sure. Certainly resident land auctions should become an available option, and LL wants that, too. But I can kind of see the value of larger parcels being offered for a higher price than they'd bring at auction; that is to say, all land sales wouldn't have to be immediately liquid. But it's one of those cases where we know damned well that microparcels sitting on the market for months are priced for their harassment potential, while larger parcels are (almost always) priced for their positive value, even if they sit there for years. (Repeating myself, size does matter in interpreting whether harassment is the intent.)

I'm not completely convinced that it's really important that there be non-auction land sales. It would be markedly different from the way things are now, and what we currently consider a perfectly above-board practice wouldn't be possible; in the bigger picture, though, I'm not entirely sure it's critical to the market or the quality of SL that this practice remain. That case hasn't really been argued either way, yet.

Again, I'm possibly not understanding fully. But it's certainly true that LL derives more revenue from islands than from the Mainland. It's not quite as simple as comparing tier levels (which has been done a zillion times), and costs to operate a Mainland sim are probably higher, too. But LL does not run the Mainland as a non-profit, or at least not intentionally. And a dollar is a dollar: LL would very much like to improve Mainland revenues, at least as much as they'd like to sell more islands. (Also, Mainland is a core business that will be more resilient to competition from the "open grids" with which LL will be competing in the near future.)

Although Mainland offers one way for small-scale businesses to operate relatively inexpensively, commercial islands certainly do exist and certainly do rent out space and some businesses certainly are successful doing that.

But a mall is a really, *really* difficult business to start. Unless one has large, stable tenants lined up in advance to fill at least half the space, it is very unlikely to succeed, whether it's on the Mainland or an island. And to line up tenants, one has to offer a value proposition that's better than all the hundreds of other malls that are already out there, desperately competing for those same tenants--often at prices that represent a loss. Mall space is a pretty much a commodity, competition is rampant, and that drives margin to zero.

There are several groups involved in advertising/purported advertising in this:

1) 'black hat' Ad farmers - no need to name names, we all know what one is when we see it

2) Microparcel extortionists - pretty much the same as group (1), they just use another scheme for the same end ... taking money from the SL economy and making surroundinding land decrease in value

3) 'white hat' Ad farmers - the difference from (1) is a matter of debate ... however I think their methods are a misguided extension of the web and should be more like (4) for better results

4) *real* advertisers - intel island, the CSI portal, in-world businesses that use word of mouth/real search listings, and so on .... this type actually use the platform and are the *real* advertisers in a virtual world

So why have we not seen more of an effort from (3) to distinguish themselves from (1) before being forced to when the policies become more restictive (now or in February)?

Given my past experiences with both eBay auctions and LL land auctions, I have to admit to wondering how anything ever gets sold in either place.

If LL was to change mainland land sales to an eBay type auction system I would just walk away from the mainland entirely.

Auctions get gamed far worse than traffic does now. Thanks but, no thanks.

There is the Great Logical Argument. Adfarms aren't about advertising:

1. The mainland has very little surface traffic. Who is supposed to see a spinning tower of ad blocks in the middle of a quiet sim? Nobody but the neighbors. And the spinning smiley faces, etc.-- what are they advertising, exactly?

2. The roads are only just going in, and even if you are driving past a tower of ads, how exactly do you read the ones spinning over your camera view?

3. I run a couple of successful SL businesses. I have one main store in a nearly-empty area, and four small shops. I have classified ads and I'm on Slex. I have never, ever been approached by an advertiser about putting up in-world advertising, nor would I be inclined to.

Adfarmers are griefers, and nothing more.

Absolutely, even the current actions are gamed. Ever wonder way LL never reveals who the other bidders are?

I run in world adverts. I have signs. I have signs on properties that I purchased and I monitor the traffic and clicks on those signs. I can tell which of those signs perform and the ones that do nothing. I can track movement of a person who clicks on a sign, goes to my main store or another property. They work. I also have products on SLX and a main store and several mini stores. The signs that don't perform, I stick those properties back up for sale.

I am for limited the amount of signs with NO acceptions. Jack's figure of 50 signs suits me just fine. My current display is only 6 meters high. I have no issue with the imposed height, spam, particle or current proposed rules.

Its hard to guess how a sim performs based on it being empty or full to ones eyes. Since I have had mini stores in fairly empty sims perform quite well and the opposite happen in more populated sims.

Just because something doesn't work for some people doesn't mean it won't work for others.....

Thank You,
Blaccard Burks

website : RentMainLand.com

Maybe what you are doing is adfarming, maybe it isn't. Say your ads are in the satellite stores and are for the main store .... I would not call that an adfarm.

If your stuff does look like the usual adfarm it is all a matter of definition if it is such or a real advertisement. Here is what I am suggesting to help in that situation though:

1) Any legitimate advertising agency should have been pushing for regulation from the beginning. Let's face it, people hate adfarms, so any LL restrictions affect you as well as land extortionists. As well as giving you legitimacy, other residents will also be appreciative .... never underestimate the value of good PR to your business.

2) Using a web model only works through sheer numbers rather than maximizing your returns. As an example, if you need to book a flight is your first thought to go to one of the major bookings sites (or froogle or such) or is it to look for web banners?

3) Look at the advertising that has been wildly sucessfull in Second Life .... did they use ad towers? No. They worked with the platform rather than fitting another model to it. Like freebies at stores/in groups, paying for pick listings, making innovative content (Intel Island was a good one), using word of mouth, or having good (and not inflated by traffic) listings in a search that reflected well on them.

People do not linger over any particular advertisement so you need to grab their attention right away. If it looks like an adfarm to them they see it as an adfarm and ignore what it says.

I've got three stores and a bunch of mall spaces. What makes you think I want the customers at my shops to get spammed by ad towers any more than I want the visitors to my non-commercial builds to get spammed by ad towers?

Who is the mad that will create a Second Reality without to know th rules of human behaviour and how an human regulate his businesses and his relations?

Where is the fool which hopes that in a Second Reality needs and solutions are different than First Reality?

How many people is stupified by complex views of more intelligent people and that people is not stoned by their blindness?

Why is ignorance not a shame, as usual for hundred of Centuries?

Dear Kara,
the questions are a lot, as usual, but the answer is known just by people who makes questions.
Cheers.

Stalker!!!