Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

It ultimately is all about value-add...

Many "virtual real estate" agents are nothing more than land flippers. Meaning, they buy the absolute cheapest plots they can (often from newbies who make the L$1 mistake), and resell them for a usually hefty markup. They don't "help you find a plot", they don't buy new sims at auction, they do nothing else. Basically, all they are doing is inflating the price of land for no good reason. For those kinds of "agents", I have no love lost for, and since most people buy land from the Land Sales search tab, they often do no less well than any other agent.

However, quite a few agents actually go out of their way to actively manage their land trading activities, including:

1) Helping someone find a good parcel
2) Negotiating to help folks get a good deal
3) Help people by buying their land at a good price
4) Buy mainland regions at auction, and parcel them for resale so people won't have to buy a whole sim and dump most of it just to get a smaller parcel.
5) Return mistakes and help newbies understand how and why not to repeat them.
6) Contribute to the community's efforts to make the mainland a place where people want to live, work, and play.

I wish there were some way for people to know the difference between whether they are dealing with someone who adds value and someone who does not, but unfortunately, the only true measure comes from experience.

This scenario plays out with microparcel advertising as well as extortion plots along the same lines.

Regarding microparcel advertising, what is the value add?

1) For the advertiser, making his venues, products, or services known.
2) For the neighbors, a value subtract, for these reasons:
a) Parasiting off of the success and traffic of the stores and venues nearby.
b) Stealing customers from competitive stores, in addition to (a). (A popular store pays for a lot of advertising to draw customers in, and a microparcel ad nearby hijacks those efforts)
c) Annoying the neighbors who have enough spam in their lives and do not wish more.
d) Lowering the value of neighboring land.

Regarding extortion, what is the value add?

1) For the extortionist, the opportunity to profit hugely on an insignificant-cost gamble.
2) For the neighbors, a value subtract, for these reasons:
a) Holes/corners missing from property, or oddly-shaped properties, causing excessive and unnecessary build costs to mitigate.
b) After buying a plot and using it, having extortive microparcels later placed adjacent or nearby, preventing any reasonable prospects at expansion, forcing the landowner to pick up and move to avoid the extortion.
c) General irritation from the existence of holes or missing corners, or simply the existence of plots that get in the way of them enjoying their land to the fullest. This also includes little harassing IMs, notes left in plot descriptions, and harassing content on the microplot itself.
d) Lowering the value of neighboring land from aversion due to the presence of extortion.

As I have said before, the whole point to adfarming and extortion is to create an artificial negative situation which the creator offers to mitigate for an excessive fee. It is NOT a value-add proposition which provides a neutral->positive benefit to the neighbors, for a reasonable, let alone rational cost.

People don't pay the extortion prices because they feel like it is a good deal; they do it because they feel like they have no choice to be able to use their own land to the fullest, or to be able to grow without having to pull up stakes (and builds), sell their land, buy new land somewhere else, rebuild, and deal with the additional hassles of updating advertising, landmarks, etc.

There's also the use of microparcels, purchased by people who don't get along with one another to simply hold (especially holes in large tracts of land) and exact that unnecessary build cost to mitigate as well as harass with any of the tactics mentioned above. There's little to no reason why any ANY microparcel owner cannot trade or move his hole to another location which causes less damage to the neighbors. As such, those that insist that they cannot move nor trade, but are only willing to sell at a gross overcharge, it is beyond clear what their motivations are, and that is what should be acted upon.

Ok. You didn't say all real estate agents are land cutters.


/me suddenly remembers why she left this thread the first time..

Do you actually have a point to make? We get it, you like real estate agents, move on.

I've actually never used a real estate agent in SL. Don't really care one way or another about them though I do know, and pretty much everybody else knows too, that they exist and that some are very reputable.

And yes, there was a point. You seem to be too concerned with being right to see it, though.

NIMBY

I won't cringe so I will say it:

Of course the "good real estate agents" sell for a profit, but they don't gorge themselves and burden others. In fact, they have played beneficial role in helping residents get a start. They don't necessarily take people on tours like RL ones. You just go to their websites where they list the parcels and have a screenshot and SLURL. I included a few in my searches when hunting.

They obtain several regions of new Mainland at a time direct from the Lindens at auctions and cut up the land and price them low. Volume discount allows them to still make a profit. I'd seen 1999 for a 512 at a time when they were going for twice that in nearby regions.

I praise these folks. The sad part is if you weren't aware of the new land, someone or their bot would sweep the region and buy/reprice them within the day.

The fact remains: If you want your modest little plot of land, someone had to have bought something big from the Lindens, left SL, or vacated to an island. In any scenario the land was pre-owned in some way.

You might know this but many lurking the thread might not, especially since there has been no added Mainland in some time.

Well, that's basically the point. They are almost universally loathed, precisely because they detract rather than add to the "mainland experience". No one wants them in their back yard, front yard, or in the middle of their living room.

To the tune of "Scarborough Fair" (with apologies to traditional music fans)

Are you going to the Second Life Mainland?
Noguri, Scamp, Claremorris, and Slyme
Remember me to those who still live there,
It once was the home I called mine

First it was the ad towers a-stabbin' the sky,
Spinnin' their bright lights and makin' us cry
The Lindens came and took 'em to the ground,
And the people all made a joyful sound.

But back in the corners, danger still lurked,
Landcutters and crooks continued their work.
The land was chopped up, forsaken and torn,
Little pieces priced high, and the people did mourn.

-Chorus-

Oh what will become of this place we call home,
The beauty, the fun, the friends we have known?
Will we be free and hostage no more?
Gotta keep up the fight, chase the bandits from the door!

Ive often thought to myself How in the hell ? Ive have been warned several times by the governance team for very minor offenses from notecard giver to parcel encroachment.But what i wonder how the hell does the EXTORTIONIST and land cutters get away with ARs and TOS violations day after day!So i have even asked a Linden WTF ?Is this a pesky little linden making beer money for the weekend!!! I asked them on Live Chat if they check inworld activities of all employees and of course the answer was yes extensively!! SURE THEY DO!!! What Ive often wondered linden can sell a 16sq to someone for 16 Lindens basically pennies!!! They could have a little scam going and i truly believe it is the real deal!!! Think about it 1000s if not 10,000s of ARs and no response or little no enforcement of rules!!! They could in theory sell 100 of those extortion plots per day after they paid little to nothing for it !!!! And probably pay the damn rent on the entire Lindens RL building including all other services including their terrible servers!!! CONSPIRACY ? ASK YOURSELF AND THINK ABOUT IT!!!!

This is precisely the thing we were promised would not happen. And it's precisely what was inevitable with G-Team doing the enforcement. Unless G-Team members' compensation depends on the viability of the Mainland, they'll just enforce rules, not fix the problem. Just like last time.

He was probably right they do cut land most of them at any rate, however they do provide a service for people who don't want to search for good plots and don't usually cut down below 512sqm.
Micro parcels dealers are not real estate dealers in the accepted sense they are just greifers planning on extorting a bit of money out of anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

But they aren't breaking any rules, Jack even said that at the moment setting an empty plot for sale for a high price is not against the rules. Having no fly on a 16M plot? What's the big deal there? No scripts? No object entry? I don't see the problem.

Right, but that's the problem: they're sticking to "rules" again, instead of making a concerted effort to do what it takes to clean up the Mainland. And little nuisance parcels--designed specifically to be as much a nuisance as possible within the rules--are part of that big problem.

I'm actually reacting, though, to the radioactive casino crystals thing. Technically, perhaps, they're not ads, inasmuch as there's no text on them. But they still call themselves "Ad Portals" and still have a spinning prim on top. The fact that the prim is full-alpha only makes it lag rendering even more. As Mari points out, there are way more than 50 of them on the Mainland, and I have an existence proof that there are more than two on one sim (one either side of my parcel in Tussock), but apparently they're not "ad" enough for these hyper-specific "rules" to apply.

As long as the mission is to enforce the rules, not fix the Mainland, this will never work.

I thought Jack had been clear that attempts to find loopholes would be frowned upon.

Just because they haven't done anything yet doesn't mean they won't do anything.

That's the way I read it too, admittedly I had one eye on trying to get to see Terry Pratchett, but I thought he was implying that if they take the piss he'll clamp down on it.

Yes and reasonably so.



Sorry but I think thats bollocks, as a potential customer I would look around the place I had visited before ever taking a TP from a parcel advert, if an alternative product was being advertised it gives me as a customer more choice something I am gratefull for.
As far as parasiting from a stores traffic, thats a bit strong to, most people will not even look at the advert.
If anything it shows the person who placed the advert there thought about traffic and is using the plot for a genuine reason LL have deemed reasonable.



Yes many of the ads that were littered everywhere did annoy and did lower land values, but under the new rules, there are hardly any adverts left now and they have little or no effect on their surroundings.
If they are badly placed wall them in nicely as Lucy Zelmanov did with a false building.



Absolutely Nothing unless you are a f*cking sleazeball low life t*rd munching parasitic tw*t



Yes being a f*cking sleazeball low life t*rd munching parasitic tw*t pays



Yes exactly, I know you are one of the anti spam brigade and as such want to stick with the adfarming label.
Please note though that no one but the scumbag benefits from extortion, also extortionists will place fake adverts and other sh*t out on their parcels to make a visual blight.
They are not adfarmers and should never have been labeled such, they are just parasitic oxygen thief's.



If a micro parcel is bordered on all four sides by a land owner, I think LL should force trade.

I read it that way to, but they haven't even started to tackle extortion and don't seem to be moving in that direction either, the adverts are their focus and will be sorted if a syndicate sets up it will be dealt with, 120 glowing stone parcels will be dealt with if they are advertising a store.
If they don't then I guess we will soon see many more such items appearing on parcels, and LL ignoring them.

Yes, I think I would, too, but from what I keep hearing "roadside advertising works", and I keep getting told I am in the minority of people who don't use it. So which is it? If it works, then it's not "bollocks", and it is potentially abusing the traffic generation efforts of the REAL venues it is parasiting off of.



I'd like to believe that, but when I keep getting confronted by people in support of it, I am not sure I can.



Well, of course they thought about it; that's my point. They see the opportunity to piggyback on someone else's hard work for cheap. It's not right, any more than if I walked into Macy's and shouted "Shop at Ross!".

As for "using the plot for a genuine reason", for over two years adfarming was a "genuine reason"; now it isn't. Nothing's a guarantee, and if something can be proven to be a negative to their bottom line, it will likely get even more restrictive.



Time will tell, but I will tell you that *I* wouldn't buy land near an ad, if I were out shopping for land just anywhere. I have a feeling that I am not alone in that. Thus, less demand on land near ads = lower land value.



Can't anymore.. it's against the ToS. All it takes is one AR, and your "block" will get returned and net you a warning.



Actually, if you read my post, I clearly state in many places "adfarming and extortionist practices". I don't use one to describe both, or if I did, it was an edit mistake.



I think they should provide a "Land Grievance" council which can be petitioned to mediate disputes, with a caveat that encourages the landowners to negotiate in good faith first, because the ruling of the council might not be liked by one or both of the parties. In the case of small parcels <256sqm, failing to negotiate a fair deal for both, it probably should end up like you say. However, for 256sqm+, it probably should swing the other way. Those are arbitrary numbers, picked as 1/2 the minimum tier increment amount.

Fair enough. Patience is not my forte but I'll try.

I guess I was assuming a model of case-by-case adaptation, rather than waiting for new rules to be issued to handle whole classes of residual problems. I suppose either approach is inefficient in its own way. Probably a pain to stop and get an immediate decision when an AR turns up an obvious loophole; but also a pain to have to revisit all the previously unhandled casino crystals, once the decision is made.

Ermmm I would like to know how if it's not against the TOS/CS for them to "do what they like with their land" I am not allowed to do the same?

Roadside advertising will work, there will always be a percentage of people who click on adverts, I would count myself as one of those people if the advert was for a product I was interested in.
Route1 and 2 roads have many rez places and small linden builds of interest, these are likely to generate traffic in their own right people stopping to look at the mole mart or the market square or any of the other stopping places, these were made by LL for the good of the mainland and would be good places for sensible advertising in fact some of the builds could even benefit from a few well designed themed adverts.
When a roadside advert is placed in front or near a busy store it will also no doubt get clicks and could loosely be said to abuse traffic generated by the store owner, however remember that only a percentage of visitors will click the advert and I guess would still look round the store before TP'ing of to a given LM as I know I would.





The adverts are not going to be placed in shops that would be wrong they would be outside on the roadside in RL many adverts are placed outside shops in precincts, malls etc. no one complains.
Also if an advert is placed near a high traffic location then work has to be put in to identify the area land has to be purchased etc. which implies a degree of thought, most of the adverts placed, till now were just dumped on cheap land cut to high ribbons, with 30 or more all vying for attention.
29 of them not actually advertising anything, just being placed there to sell the parcels.
it was always scumbags trying to force high prices with only the odd advertiser.



Maybe you wouldn't but I would, Two of my roadside plots have advertisers nearby.
I bought the plots for the sole purpose of commercial usage and my criteria for purchase was the roadside location, I may also in the future place my own adverts outside my shops on the roadside.
I agree though an advert in a residential area would turn me away and as such lower land value.



Why is this against TOS and when was it mentioned that is absolutely stupid, Users pay not a small amount for the right to build whatever they like on their land, Lucy has built a nice little clock tower in keeping with the rest of her plot, any action taken against it would be unjust and complete foolishness by LL.
What f*cking moron puts a sex garden advert in front of a funeral parlor for f*cks sake.
LL need to manage the mainland as they promised anything that doesn't fit in reasonably gets booted, raising land to boost height of advert above 8m ad gets booted any advert for sex clubs disallowed as non PG. Adverts which are still 3 blocks sitting on top of each other, show no attempt to blend in with their surroundings whether 8m or not another thing Jack mentioned would be frowned upon.




Sounds reasonable to me

So would I, many users place blocks up to protect them from any number of things they don't wish to see, from simple walls to sculpted mountains.

Jack

Why can they not in the case of an advert?

Adverts should be placed in sensible locations only on roadsides, in the event of foolish placement neighbors must be able to cover them.
Road side placement will allow a single face of the advert to always show.

Roadside ads: Well, they certainly make more sense than ads stuck out in the middle of nowhere as they were before, anywhere somebody chopped a 16. And the "50 signs on 50 sims" limit should make adrunners think twice about sticking ads just anywhere.

This assumes the 50-ad limit stays firm. If there's any backsliding on *that*, then all really is lost: we'll be back to a situation nearly indistinguishable from before, except instead of towers, we'll have wall-to-wall ads everywhere, because if they can't scam pseudo click-thrus by making the ads difficult to cam over, they'll do it by creating a maze.

Even with the 50-ad limit, though, I'm skeptical that this spread will be contained. Already this week, one adrunner was eagerly probing the edges of that limit, wanting to know if it was parcel ownership or delivery of ad content that was limited to 50 units. You know where that's leading: every half-wit with a Premium membership will get 35 scattered microparcels populated with syndicated ad prims; competing syndicates will end up filling every available space with ads; and again the problem will be as bad as before.

This was a concern from the start of this change in policy. However currently ad networks are small in number of operators. The group limit issue is intended to deal with alts.

Talarus - keep in mind that you're responding to and trying to reason with people who do not have a meaningful use of the land short of making money off it. They don't care about aesthetics and they don't get the concept of quality of life.

Second Life did not make this site for them to exploit, but they have found an exploit and have been milking it for what it's worth.

And no, there is no big poster ad next to Macy's in Herald Square. Maybe a small one on the subway entrance the advertisers paid the MTA.

IMHO rentable space on billboards and in public and owned places are the only respectable advertisements. No builds, just submitted textures to existing locations, set to blend in as part of the setting. Short of that an ad is an amateurish eyesore IMHO.



Yes, they can try to sue all they want, but SL is a privately owned company and the TOS says they can take action as they see fit. This would definitely cover loopholes or anything they feel is a pock on the landscape being used for exploitation.

As for loopholes, yes there have been, but ARing the ugly glowing (right there it's a violation) slot machines from "sale" mini plots of exhorbitant prices has cleared them off.