Xstreet SL and OnRez to Join Linden Lab!

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.

Imho its not that bad, if they do some effort to really improve it and integrated it into the grid.

It would be pretty nice, if the should could be integrated into your account, so you could directly create a shop/put items for sale w/o having to buy or rent a piece of land. I think this is one of the many things which stops some people from making and selling content, because they have no land to sell it.

With the aquisition of Xstreet SL and OnRez, LL could make this an integral part of Second Life and implement it into the Viewer, so we could put items for sale w/o being forced to rent land to place the vendor on it which of course will increase the diversity of items offered on this new plattforms.

Would be nice if someone from LL could post here if there are such current plans to allow direct sales via SL Viewer w/o vending machines and land rental/buy?

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.

There are several Key negative concerns with LL running Xstreet:
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.

Hey FlameRose,

We will be keeping the commission and most other features of Xstreet. We will also look at additional ways to help merchants sell their goods and services. I apologize that you'll be losing a free service, but I've seen evidence that Xstreet supplies well more value to the merchants than they pay back in fees. And those fees allow us to provide that service and value. For us to succeed, our merchants have to succeed, so we'll do what we can to provide you new services to help you in that endeavor at reasonable rates to support those services.

Thanks for the input
--Colossus

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.

From the blog... "But like Amazon or Ebay, the core of the experience will always be about efficiency."

I would rather have the core experience be about reliability.

My experience as a merchant and customer with xstreetsl has always been *reliable*, efficiency should simply be a given.

I think, based on LL's track record of messing things up, LL will do a "great" job at breaking both reliability and efficiency. Along with dependability, fast money transfers to Paypal, prompt customer support, and other things already mentioned in the previous pages.

Again from the blog: "new tools (sharable wish lists, anyone? Gifting to non-Residents? "
- The track record also goes with other things such as the viewer, that whenever upgrades are added to add "new tools", something else breaks and existing features take for ever to get fixed.

I would like to think that this move would be different, but I simply don't trust LL to be able to make a such a promise based on past performance.

There are several Key negative concerns with LL running Xstreet:

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.

This is indeed a very interesting concept but I do have reservations about it.

My 2 major concerns are thus:

1: The ability to sell L$ for USD and transfer rapidly over to PayPal. I have used XStreet to handle these transactions because the services offered by LL are too slow. XStreet has in the past been able to move USD to PayPal within moments of submitting the transfer request. Will this remain the same once the transfer is complete or will we be forced to use the slow system we did our best to avoid? I ask this because I use PayPal to cover tier and expenses associated with SL and if it will take a week or more to see a single 20$ transaction go through then I do not see how this will benefit the merchants who rely upon the services of XStreet. Does LL plan on jacking up the wonderful system that is behind XStreet's SL/USD conversion system or does LL intend on putting their hands into a system that works very well?

2: My business specializes in adult oriented items. I know those items are a controversy in SL but alas, it is what I do and it helps support my SL use. I need to know that this merger will not affect my product or the ability to list/sell them on XStreet. How does LL plan on dealing with adult related material that is currently on XStreet?

Torrin

Come to SLU...it's better anyway.

Reliability and efficiency are both critical to the success of this effort. One of the reasons Linden Lab chose to bring Xstreet directly into the Second Life experience was the reliability of both it's technology and staff. We look forward to learning from the Xstreet team and making Xstreet even more successful - by making Residents even more successful.

My wishlist for XStreet SL improvements ...

1) A "Skybox" Category ... I've asked Xstreet SL staff over an over for a specific category for skyboxes, and it's always "at the top of the to-do list." This is my NUMBER ONE NEED in XStreet.

2) Ability to Group Similar Products for Updates ... I have many products that are 20 copies of the same thing in different sizes or colors. Xstreet's template feature is a first step, but I'd like to see a better model for grouping nearly identical products so that I can update them all at once, instead of taking half an hour to add a note to the text of each of them, or to change the price or the photo on them all individually. In particular, I've found a need for a "grouped" text section and a separate section that's info specific to that particular item. And, as I have hundreds of products, make this something I can use for managing existing listings, not just new ones as the current templates are.

3) Ability to Categorize Products in a "Storefront" ... I oftentimes send people directly to a XStreet search for my name, which then shows all of my products at once. Instead of the chaos of hundreds of products all listed alphabetically, I'd prefer a "storefront" concept that lets me present my items to my customers by theme ... a folder for skyboxes, for scripts, for furniture, etc.

4) Make New Product/Image Uploads Faster ... this is my number one time waster.

5) Tracking XStreet & SL Income Separately ... from the FAQ on this, I see you're planning on merging SL and XStreet accounts and combining the L$ balances of both. XStreet's tracking of sales and income is much superior to SL's, whose 1-month archive limit is frustrating for real businesspeople. Also, having my XStreet sales wrapped into my SL transaction record would make it very difficult for me to pull my SL and XStreet sales apart, so I can see how much I'm making from each venue.

Thanks for listening!

Hi Torin Talamasca,
Thanks for your informative questions.

Our Desire is to give our merchants and users the best experience possible. We don't have immediate plans to change how depositing USD via paypal and withdrawing USD via paypal for Xstreet works. I believe that there are two sides to the equation that we need to keep in balance here: speed of transaction and security of transaction. We won't ever introduce a delay for no reason. However, we will monitor fraud levels and other security concerns and will introduce a delay if security concerns require it. There are not plans to do so right now and we will alert our users to any planned change.

Torrin, there is no shame in having an adult oriented business. This is part of the ecosystem and we intend to support it. As long as you flag your adult items for listing in the adult section, business should continue as usual. What we will do our best not to allow is for adult oriented items to be listed in our general section where youths or professionals may come across them while expecting a family friendly or business oriented experience. So, the adult related policies which Xstreet has will stand for now and we'll refine those as we learn more about what our shoppers and merchants desire for an optimal experience.

Good luck in your business. I hope you sell a lot of items in the coming weeks as we send a plethora of new shoppers into Xstreet.
--Colossus

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.

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.

What sort of compensation package will you be offering merchants who have paid to customise their OnRez vendor systems, and now, presumably have to replace them? I can see nothing in the FAQ about them being compatible with a new system.