Feedback on the Mainland

These are some ideas for advertising that don't involve adfarms or other ugly methods. Please take note of them - they are effective, and they have a positive effect on your reputation as well!

1. Treasure Hunts. Take a box, put a nice item in it, set it for sale at 0L _for a copy_, not the original (so more than one person can get it). Do the same with another item. Repeat until you have 60+ boxes. Set them in random places all over your area. Announce, everywhere you're allowed, that the hunt is going on. Set up a minor prize maybe, for people who can show they've collected every one of your boxes (collecting them all can take _hours_). This produces instant traffic, and gets people to know your name and place.

2. Affiliate resellers. Set them up for sale _for free_, as more people will buy them. Put items in them, and let the resellers take 50% of the profit or more. Put a notecard and landmark in the box with each item to draw customers who like your goods to your stores. You might want to try to use single-prim vendors, however, as the multi-prim ones are prim hogs for new stores, and are less likely to be used.

3. Freebies. Setting up a handful of nice freebies in your store and letting people know they're there will not only bring a couple of people, but every new person they want to outfit. There are a lot of folks who go freebie-hunting. Just DO NOT make dollarbies and call them freebies - this sours the freebie hunters on you, and makes you look like a miser who will take every Linden you can. Transaction history does track 0L transactions, so tracking is no excuse. Try to add new freebies every week or so. If they get overbearing, you can always discontinue them later.

4. Make a group for your store, for notices. Use it to notify interested individuals of new items, sales, freebies, and so on. Alternatively, as a better plan, use a subscribe-o-matic type thing for your notices, so you don't take up one of the 25 groups people have. This makes many big shoppers more likely to join up.

5. Join the groups out there for your type of item (fashion groups for clothing, av stuff, etc, builder's groups for scritps and sculptys, etc). Make sure the group allows notices, and utilize them. Get to know the designers of products like yours - most of them are nice people who like to network and work together. DO NOT USE GROUPS FOR SPAM - this is the easiest and cheapest way to ALIENATE potential customers and business partners.

6. Go to events that revolve around your type of item. If you sell clothes, go to parties where people need new outfits (color-based masquerades, formal balls, holiday parties, etc). Network there! Talk to people, tell them you're a designer. Compliment others' work, and show off yur own if it's within the proper context. Don't let yourself come across as a used-car salesman, but do be proud of your work.

7. Donate items to charity auctions, to be sold off for the charity. This gets your name out all over.

8. Believe it or not, camping chairs can serve a better purpose than the useless 'traffic' modifier. Don't put money into them, use prizes! I've seen people sit for an hour at a stretch or more, to get a particular prized item. More people should use this tactic, it's powerful for new folks and old alike. And when people know you have nice prizes in your camping chairs, they go to your land more often and are more likely to look around.

9. Lucky chairs also serve this purpose. I have literally, personally, seen people stand around in a store for four hours at a stretch just waiting for their letter to come up in lucky chairs repeatedly so they could acquire all the colors of a set of shoes.

10. Hold events - treasure hunts are fun as in #1, but if you prefer a grand ball, set one up! Hold a masquerade, host a game of hide and seek, throw a paintball party. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's fun people will show up and get to know your name.

11. Gifts. That's right, gifts. Give nice items that you made away to people you know will talk to _everyone_. People who meet others all the time, who shop a lot, who go places. Everyone loves gifts, and 'where did you get that' is a great way to be advertised.


I hope this helps - and if you need more ideas, please feel free to contact (Sevidra Batra) for some brainstorming. I'm always glad to help people find alternatives to adfarms!


Note : Jack please take off your "TAG" glasses when you look at the ad farm problem. They and them coorporating land cutter army are responsible for a great exodus of creative residents, not to mention the extortion that took place ..


How 40 clowns can spoil a grid for thousands of residents ( or should i say bots ... )

We want action ! .. Not postings !

Not that I can think of, but this has been suggested many times before, and LL has done SMFA about it, like so many other "excellent" suggestions. I am also a bit dubious about it because of the technical hurdles which must be overcome to make it work effectively and efficiently.

Like I said, for commercial/residential areas this might be a solution. I understand you'd probably be in an area that was residential only (without any advertising at all) but we're also discussing what might be a solution for all sorts of other people who have different needs, not just you.

Wait... Lindens have ALWAYS been the ones to make the rules!

Seriously, I think the idea of zoning Mainland is a fantastic idea! Twice, I've sold my lot and found a new "home" because my neighbors either sold their land to people who wanted to set up "mature content" for all to see, or they decided to do that themselves.

I believe that people should be able to do what they want within the rules, and since there were no rules restricting their choice in activity, I felt my best option was to find somewhere else to go.

It's happened again, but this time there isn't a lot of traffic, so it hasn't been a problem. Still, it would be nice to know that there are ground rules for what would be considered "permissible"...

Ugh. My "Yay, Team!" reply is getting to be almost as long as the original post... :\

I guess it would be easier to say that I would like to know that there might be a place where I can expect a "PG" neighborhood... There's a place for everything, you know?

No, I have a commercial interest, primarily, and I am also NOT against advertising. I am strictly against what amounts to spam advertising, as well as its use to harass and extort others.

There is no one solution which is a "one size fits all", so everyone here is going to be arguing for the best solution for themselves first.

Jack, I wouldn't want your job for 2,000,000L a year!

The Advertisers Guild wishes to send hearty congratulations to Linden Lab for working out a winning solution. We're thrilled that we'll have a venue for legitimate advertising and we wish to work with Linden Lab to conform to the new rules as soon as possible. If that means whole swathes of the network need to be eliminated and re-established elsewhere, so be it.

Also, a specific thank you to Jack Linden for his great patience and fairness.

If you hire more Lindens to help manage everything, I want in.

I'd keep arguing with you but I just noticed you posted a serious response in a gor thread.

I will join my voice to those who have already expressed the hope that these changes will make things better for those of us who live and work on the mainland. I believe that things *can* be improved. In the long term, existing mainland could be zoned by changing the covenant on each parcel as it is put up for sale, with the new zoning regulations kicking in only when every parcel in a given region is owned by an owner who has agreed to the new covenant. In the meantime, regulating how advertising is presented seems to be a good way to start making immediate change. As at least one other poster has said, I find some advertising to be non-obtrusive (such as the realistic-billboard type), while some (glowing, shouting, spinning, floating-text, partical-spewing) is very visually intrusive. I look forward to clear regulations by LL about land use, consistently and fairly enforced.

You and many, many others, I s'pect.

New SIMs like Bay City (love my parcel there BTW is great, but for the majority of the mainland, I guess its rules for advertising that will be the most important, not zoning or development.

I have a suggestion for one easy thing to do: Get rid of the ban lines in the viewer! By default. Make them instead as a kind of Beacon the user may turn on if desired. So, my tenants will not have to endure the constant flickering red visual garbage in their nice sea view. They will know soon enough that their neighbor is less than hospitable when they do their first flyby, and don't need to be reminded of it every time they are enjoying the sunset.

Keep up the good work, SL has never been better in my time here!

Cris.

In terms of land use there appears to be 2 distinct ways the use of one plot of land can interfere with someone's enjoyment of another plot of land....
1) The visual affect.
2) The performance impact.

It is relatively easy to see and judge the visual impact.

Would it be possible to create better tools that show the resource usage and/or performance impact of different parcels of land within a sim? You need both a dynamic version for addressing current issues and a historical data version to monitor over time, make judgements about past usage and therefore judge land and owners usage. This could then form the basis of a set of fair usage guidelines for resource usage and/or performance impact and give owners a method to assess their usage against these guidelines. It could also form the basis of automated warnings / action.

This might be my final post for a while, I'm fully expecting to get a real kick in the backside for this.

Attached is a picture of my new platform for a house and garden I am going to build on my land. (Hmm can't upload pictures anymore, oh well I put it on my blog, you know the one I never write anything in http://mitzyshino.blogspot.com/)

It completely blocks the view on 3 sides of a heap of extortion/ad plots, although it does not directly touch 3 sides of any 16sqm plot, just like my earlier "wall" didn't directly cover 3 sides of any plot.

I want to see if that causes them to be returned to me, it's my land right? I can build a platform on it? The prims don't stop the ad farms or extortionists from getting to their parcel, the ban lines do prevent them from going on my land though.

If my prims are returned, then so should the ad farmers, they block my view from ground level. I'm betting only my prims will be returned though.

anyway I will build a house up on my platform and a nice garden, and perhaps I will even get to use it for an hour or two before I get banned. (Yes LL I am pushing the issue, I want to see what you will do)

... as he salivates at all the soon-to-be cheapened un-zoned mainland left over.

What utter BS. This posting should give you all a clue as to how this is all going to go down.

I'm seriously about to give up this whole deal and cut my losses. I've had it. Lindens, you are slapping your current land-holders in the face, and about to hear a giant sucking sound from some formerly very loyal and spendy customers who aren't going to let the door hit them in the asses.

It's nice to see LL acting on this issue, and especially choosing this method for doing it.

One concern I would have is how newbies learning to build (but incidentally leaving structures around that might be considered ugly by others) are dealt with here. The fear is that, either, sneaky residents will use this combined with alts to escape regulation; or genuine learning newbies will be pushed out to the unzoned sims, which will be even worse than the current mainland (because most people who could go into a zoned sim probably would).

But I would hate to see LL going the way of some resident landlords and making insistences on that kind of thing in covenants (I'm always amused by a particular landlord who specifies that "every single build on this island, must be above average" )

Now this is worrying, what's your game? If Linden Lab make me send my advertising through you I'm gonna be more than a tad miffed

More than any single other factor, I feel the elimination or strict limitation of outdoor advertising, coupled with the creation of residential areas (essentially, zoning regulations) will improve the quality of life on the mainland. It is apparent to most people who have resided in the mainland that the majority of outdoor signs are erected for the purpose of calling attention to themselves by annoying the hell out of people who live within viewing distance. They are obtrusive, ugly, unimaginative, and in many cases offensive in nature. I, for one, will applaud the day that Linden Labs implements strict regulations on outdoor advertising.

If LL wants to ban clubs from forming on Mainland parcels, then LL should develop partial Island rental where clubs do not need to rent an entire island. I do not need an entire island for my club. I won't set up my club on a 3rd party owned island for the simple reason they can kick us out without any warning and that's "Okey dokey" by LL rules...

If LL is going to change the rules so that we'll end up needing planning permission to build on specific plots, how much red tape & time delay will there be...

A clearer understanding & a lot more discussion on proposals is required.

I am also glad to see Linden Lab taking a more active role in the Mainland.

I upgraded my free account to a premium account soon after signing up for the sole purpose of being able to own some land. I purchased a 512 parcel with a nice ocean view and no ads/ad farms for a reasonable 5,000 L$. I went to work on building a home when I realized the 117 prim limit was too restrictive - so I purchased an adjacent 512 parcel and had to pay tier fees. I felt a bit cheated that a premium account doesn't provide much in terms of a prim-to-land ownership ration and, of course, disliked the extra monthly teir fees just to play around and keep a virtual home. Then my neighbors set their land permissions to restricted, so I couldn't fly about much, and some of them built large walls through the clouds, dulling my view.

I eventually sold off my land and canceled my premium membership. The only benefit I see offered by premium membership was the ability to own land, and I was very displeased by that experience. The stipends/allowance was nice, but I find it is just cheaper to use LindeX when necessary.

I am happy to see that at least some of the issues I experienced are being addressed - but wish the benefits of the premium membership also get improved. Until then, I am very happy renting on a private island.

Firstly, advertising in SL was was a moot and futile undertaking. When a user has all the search tools at their fingertips, they could easily make informed decisions based upon interaction with these features.

Since the landbots began hammering the database, LL nerfed the list of queries and the the number of times the servers can be polled. The end result was bot implimenting several "search bots" to pass data to "buy bots" which completely eliminated the average user from finding deals and restricting anyone in the "mid-market" range from visibility.

The solution to this bad policy/feature is for land owners to erect spinning prims (et al) to have some visibility.

Secondly, implimenting the ridiculous Google type search and nerfing the "Old Search" has caused numerous creators to become invisible. Sadly, this has given rise to increased "hard sell" advertising and although some might be legitimate, most are not and hide behind this policy to be extortionists.

LL's lack of foresight and kneejerk reaction to failed policies and features have paved the way to the illegitmate claiming to be legit. Give some people an inch an they'll take a mile.

We don't discuss what we do with our land. Not because we are cagey or have anything to hide, but because we don't feel the need for scoundrels to undercut, squeeze us out and most of all, claim legitimacy for their hidden agendas.

If advertising was viable, we would be doing it. It's not... so we don't. I could easily put a one prim vendor on any of our group plots to sell my radios, but it's neither our purpose nor do we wish to be in anyone's face.

We are currently in a "land freeze" meaning our group will not sell, buy or trade any land until Linden Lab gets it's act together. LL's poor policies have caused us to operate at a loss in recent times, meaning no funding is available for extra labor costs by doing the "right thing" for the community.

Please find ways to encourage full-sim ownership as an alternative to island sales. SL would be so much more interesting if the best of SL was built on the mainland and you could look around and wonder, "hey, what's that over there?" You can't explore islands except through random teleportation, risking dropping in on people's private spaces.

A few ideas...

To discourage new sims from being broken up into tiny pieces and therefore rendered usless or expensive for anyone looking to build a large project, and to create a few places that aren't a patchwork of tiny, unrelated plots, set a few sims aside as full-sim-only for a period after purchase, or maybe even permanently. Group them together so that potential buyers know their neighbors will be large and financially involved. Make it possible for friends and business associates to purchase adjacent sims.

Please also consider other policies that encourage large parcel ownership. It'd be nice if people could afford some green space around their house. Openspaces are an interesting alternative for islands; how about a mainland equivalent? Sell low-prim mainland at reduced tier that is maintained even when split by land sellers. Also, a pricing structure that encouraged people to group their owned land into fewer sims would help. And it'd discourage tiny ad plots.

Thank you Jack and LL for addressing the mainland issues.

Especially "wild" advertising and "fragmentation" of mainland for advertising purposes has made it nearly unusuable. I sold my mainland parcels a long time ago and moved to a private island where an estate owner watches over certain rules wich regulate certain aspects of living and working together. Often simple, but effective rules, which make living there comfortable for all residents.

On mainland, ad farms, placed on 16sqm parcels, grew up to several 100m into the sky (including particle emitters, huge rotating boxes etc) and made living and business there an unpleasnt experience.

Private estates often offer commerical and residential islands and keep an eye on problems. Something which could be helpful for mainland areas aswell.

I don't believe in laws and rules for all aspects of life, but a handful of enforced "guidelines" are sometimes very helpful and well managed private islands have proven this.

Just my 2 Linden-Cent
Cobra

You may not need the space for the prims, but what about the avi's?

Think about your neighbors, I'm not saying this is what you do, but it is what I have seen many wannabe clubs do.

"They buy at most 4096 sqm of land, they build a "club", and if they manage to be a little successful they basically stop anyone else from going to their own land in the sim because all the guests of the club fill up all the available slots of avi's..."

There really should be some kind of avi cost to places as well, constant filling of a sim by the owner of a small portion of it should automatically kick in some kind of warning. Yes I know we can do it manually via an AR, but we all know how long that can take to be seen to.

Yes.
I can think of one recent auction where that sort of control would have been wonderful.

Picture an area with waterways, nice sparse builds and good landscaping. On one side the land rises out of a waterway and up to a Linden paved road that runs along under a cliff. The parcel from the road and up to the clifftop sold at auction recently. The cliff face is very much a dominant feature in the immediate area.
The new owner put it back on the market immediately.
Well - not *quite* immediately. He did take a few moments to cut a line of 16m parcels along the roadside. The 16s are empty and not for sale - yet.

One of the unsung problems with the crash in land prices and the increased abandonment of land is that nice parcels in previously un-raped parts of the old continents are being opened up to blight.