Xstreet SL and OnRez to Join Linden Lab!

Repetetive message removed

I just took all my Magic Boxes offline.

Is there any possibility of keeping onrez.com? I use both as a shopper and find that they both have their usefulness.

Onrez for me has been very user-friendly. It's quick and easy. I can transfer money easily and love that especially when I'm shopping. I hate the hassle of searching.

Slexchange is great for its forums and consistency - most sellers are on slexchange.

I would ask LL to consider keeping onrez as they work to create a whole experience for their residents. Not to mention the fact that residents enjoy the differences of both.

Even though OnRez has not provided much sales, but it has brought "newer residents" to the store. It's always good to have a choice.

Xstreet SL offers the flexibly on listing, ie add picture links to cross sales. A youtube link would fantastic. Bottom line is I hope Linden Lab doesn't change what Xstreet SL has going right now.

Cheers

That's not the issue people are talking about. They're talking about the time AFTER you have converted your L$ to US$ credit and you want to cash out that already-converted L$ via Paypal.

And I'm just the opposite. I can find thing on XStreet a lot faster than with OnRez

I have been using SLX as my private texture viewer because it is fast and the search on it is very precise. As a merchand with hundreds of items on SLX, I only stand to gain traffic from it as will all other merchands. Surprisingly few residents on SL even knew that SLX existed so now hopefully they will get a lesson on how to shop there properly right from day 1. It is the best way to shop for stuff.

I was once told by someone that there are thousands of people who refuse to shop there because of who owns it, and I didn't really care.. so now, those thousands of people will have no reason to not shop there anymore again potentially increasing traffic for all the merchands with listings there.

The only suggestions I have is that LL keeps the site as a standalone system and change the name back to SLX because Xstreet is a dumb name haha

Not sure it's wise to do development on something that may or may not exist in one form or another. Come on, there's too many variables there and seeing how slowly the other grids have been developing, we're not talking "just around the corner" are we.

3rd party shopping sites may indeed offer something unique but the cold hard facts are that with LL owning XstreetSL and able to integrate it tightly into the SL experience, and thus obviously put it directly in-front of the main stream of SL users in an easier to use and more seamless manner than any 3rd party could do, you can be as unique as you like, it's not really going to go that far in gaining you traction. This was the hard fact that GOM faced when the Lindex was produced - you can't compete when the compeition has such a massive competitive advantage.

Hey, Lotte, can you get Colossus on the horn? They're a-tearin' up the bleachers an throwin' their goldarn unmentionables on th' field.

This is from a notecard sent to the "STFU - clothing with attitude" group in SL:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2009/01/20/xstreet-sl-and-onrez-to-join-linden-lab/

As an SL merchant, STFU deeply opposes this move. Linden Labs claims they made the purchases in an effort to improve the in-world shopping experience.

LL also is asking all OnRez merchants to move to Xstreet accounts by 11 February.

STFU will not be moving for the following reasons:

1) Ease of use. We find the Xstreet site very unfriendly to use as a merchant AND as a customer.
2) Rampant stealing and re-selling of other merchants work. A cursory glance will show multiple sellers of the exact same product...made by the same person, using the same photo. Xstreet has made no effort to stop this practice.
3) Commissioned sales. LL stated that the current commission charged on sales via Xstreet WILL be kept. This will cut into the financial health of many SL merchants, and may ultimately force some out of business.
4) Lack of vendors. You have seen the OnRez vendors at STFU and many other merchants. Xstreet does not support a workable vendor system. So in order to display all STFU items, we will need one shop with a minimum of 200 prims. This means any expansion plans for new STFU locations are now on hold.

I encourage you to pass this information to your friends, and support shopping IN-WORLD directly from those merchants that strive to provide you with a good SL shopping experience.

That is indeed the underlying concept. For after all: costumers, necessary as they may be for keeping the money coming in, are basically a nuisance. The object of the 6-Step Program as described in 'How To Introduce Policy And Pricing Changes 1.01' is to give them the illusion that they would have a say in the planned changes.

This will of course mean that some old customers decide to go and spend their money elsewhere. This can be compensated by the influx of new customers. The good thing about new customers is, that they don't know any better so they'll pay up eagerly.

Well....at least we know LL is reading our posts...they might have been childish....but they got a reaction...now we know you are there...TALK TO US.

Lotte, instead of going through the blog and killing people's freedom of speech, why not get someone on who can answer some questions?

Im not sure what to think yet.. my first reactions were concern for linden exchange rate and speed, both of which were superior at xstreetsl.com .

Also I worry that we will lose the warm and open community forums that I have until now enjoyed. Everyone is aware that anything seen as too "rude" or "back talk" to do with Linden Labs can easily get your account suspended.

Sometimes people just need to vent about things someplace to get past it. Will that place dissapear now?

I am migrating to a non-LL owned web based vendor system

Presumably You wont have to go anywhere or even register.. it will be ur SL money account buying from the in-world store or Sl website (xsl/onrez), you wont have different accounts anymore just one... one "pocket" that pays for everything ...

*reactivates Apez account*

http://www.apez.biz/

Hey Jonquille I will trade you a 3 year account for your 4 year one....

*sighs*

I do not have the luxury of tossing aside my biz as it pays a lot of my RL bills ~ but if I could I would

And not that this makes you feel any better, I know for a fact many who had "friends" in the Sheep contingent got no whisper of things to come either.

what a hot mess
*screams*

I like both SLX and Onrez and can see big advantages for merchants in this move. As for commission how about waving it for premium members and estate owners? Only for their main accounts though and not for their alts (unless of course the alt is premium).

Areas of concern, the excellent customers service and speed of cashing out from SLX, this is vastly superior to the service we get from Linden Lab, this really should be addressed.

Concerns about the land market, how many prims do you need for a SLX box?

Thats seconded

There are several Key negative concerns with LL running Xstreet:

1. The efficient L$ exhcange system will be compromised and reduced to the 2 week transfer lag to paypal that the Lindex currently forces most people to go through.

2. The Xstreet forums, a well regulated but surprisingly open arena for dissenting opinions about SL policies and customer abuses of Linden Labs will now be silenced in the same way that free expression is often silenced in SL forums.

3. Vendors are worried that LL may put them out of business with a competitive universal vending system. The assurances from Lindens in this forum that this isn't worth worrying about are less than assuring.

4. Pricing structures, ease of use, and the robust circulation of product information provided by Xstreet will now be compromised by LL interference.

5. Onrez users resent losing a free service

6. Login info will be consolidated, forcing users to use their SL names and passwords on both the website and for SL.

7. Linden Labs will have a monopoly over the online, web based, marketing of SL products.

I would like to address points 1, 4, 6, and 7 by mentioning another website driven marketplace that services networked vendors in world. APEZ. apez.biz is much like Xstreet as a web based market, but it is no where near as efficient as Xstreet, nor as easy to set up product pages on. Xstreet's user interface is far superior.

However, when it comes to using APEZ for a L$ exchange, I have jumped to them when Xstreet was down, it cost me a little more to make the exchange of L$ to $ but the transfer to Pay Pal was just as quick. So that's the point, pay more, but get you money without a long wait. You can do that on APEZ, and on Xstreet. LL still hasn't monopolized that part of the market.

I have not always been happy with APEZ, but they are already set up, offer some semblance of competition to the new Xstreet/Linden Labs cartel. I originally set up an account with them so I could offer affiliate vending, but that is also not as convenient apparently as Hippo network vendors are for that purpose.

So there are alternatives. Linden Labs will not have a monopoly, however, I think the odds are they will spoil the great efficiency merchants have enjoyed with Xstreet, much in the same way they have spoiled the user experience of Second Life.

I am grateful to Apotheus Silverman and his team for their very valuble service and hope they benefited well from the sale of their incredible marketing website.

To Linden Labs, does it even worry you that a majority of your users have so little confidence in you? I would like to see you honestly address your negative image among your own users sometime.

In the Xstreet forums polls are showing 70% of users polled view Linden Labs involvement with Xstreet as a BAD THING. only some 16% felt it was a GOOD THING. The rest had no opinion either way.

That says a lot about LL's customer service, and public relations.

And get someone to fix the broken layouts on the respecitve web-pages that looked fine before the take-over signs was placed out

The menu on the street is unusable as is now. Way to go NOT!

Lets really let them know how we feel NOW, they are watching, so let's be tactiful and keep the swearing to minimal. Maybe they might respond to our concerns PLS.

It's great to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I am highlighting a few of the topics and here and providing some thoughts.

Linden Lab support competition and new marketplaces and Linden Dollar exchanges are emerging up all the time. Our interest is to improve the reach of the Xstreet services by integrating them directly into the Second Life experience.

As Colossus Linden commented earlier, we understand that the Onrez vendor system was a feature that the Residents valued and we are looking at the best approach to a networked vendor solution.

Xstreet is now a part of Linden Lab and will be following the same policies and processes as in world claims. Linden Lab's DMCA Policy: http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php

It has been great to hear Resident suggestions for features for us to consider as we work to improve the Xstreet experience: Sorting by permissions, Tagging Merchandise, Vendor systems, Delivering items in folders to inventory instead of using boxes, bulk edit of item listings. I will be holding in world round tables to gather more Resident feedback as we work on the next steps for improving the commerce experience.

That's "Apotheus Linden", to you...

I want to know to!