Xstreet SL and OnRez to Join Linden Lab!

This is the single most huge issue with Xstreet users, and you address this please. It's an issue of trust

.... good in places

The good bits?
Well the recognition that SLX (yes, "XStreet SL" was a silly name) and umm .. the other one .. were providing an excellent and missing service.
The prospect of no longer having to furnish my SL authentication to a non LL site - a huge security concern.
The prospect of better financial integration.
Perhaps a better underpinning for resident-resident sales of unique items .. a bit of a lottery for the buyer at the moment.
Perhaps more assurance that the items you are buying are not knock-offs.

Bad bits?
Hmmm .. the gap in performance between LL's and SLX's customer service.
The worry that LL will try to 'integrate' the search capabilities in a way that ignores the fact that SLX's is fast and usable while inworld Search is slow and frankly pretty useless.
The worry that LL will try to 'integrate' the authentication processes in a way that ignores the fact that I can always logon to SLX and quickly at that. Logging on to any LL website is slow, painful and frequently not possible at all.
Monopolies. Always bad.
LL's earned reputation for being a bit PG-precious, for wanting the whole world to comply with the laws of La La land, for hysterical bans and for generally yanking the economy around whenever it suits them. Not, frankly, the people you would want running any sort of mercantile exchange. Oh well. Hope I'm wrong on that one.

Soooo. IF someone at LL has enough self-discipline to shoo away the integration fairy until there is overwhelming evidence that the integrated service is better THEN this could be a good thing.

One good thing could foreseeably come from this is by taking the SLX terminal and integrating it with the UI.

If want, vote: jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-11643

I do agree here too. I enjoy having that seperate balance. I like to try and keep track on things and having that seperate balance to look at is easier and simple for me, as I am sure it is for many others.

I am a successful content creator with a quality line of full perm sculptie kits and a loyal customer base. I am trying to keep a positive attitude about this. I believe part of running a business is rolling with change and looking for opportunities and finding what works.

That said, I am having a hard time picturing how LL integrating Xstreet will increase my revenue. Each of my kits is available both on Xstreet and at my in-world store. Revenue from Xstreet and store have been roughly equal, although percentage of in-store revenue has increased lately. I have worked to market each item in each venue. Customers find me in-world via a series of low cost keyworded classified ads. I am not to the level that I can pay for the top classified prices in all of my relevant keywords. I don't do well in search otherwise, even though my items are quality and sell well.

So somehow listings from Xstreet will be integrated and now duplicate listings from in-world stores and Xstreet will compete for the crucial top ten ranking spots?

Also, are you aware that people "camp" their profile picks, selling their search ranking influence?

Do you have any content creators on your e-commerce team? Have you really thought through exactly how sales are going to increase for individual content creation businesses?

We are really going to hold you to that statement, believe me.

Ok, so from Colossus post I gather that the speedy transfer of US$ to PayPal is no immediate danger - thx!

What about VAT for European merchants on X-street - it that going to be introduced?

Suggestions for X-street 'Real Estate':
The X-street 'Real Estate' section has transformed selling land for me and I'm very interested in its continuance and development.

Suggestion 1:
That a 'Re-submit' button be added to the edit page for the individual parcel! (At the cost of LD 25 per activation of course).
At the moment one has to delete each entry to the 'Real Estate' section 1 or 2 times a day, then go to the parcel/parcels in question in-world and do the submission procedure over from scratch, then go to the edit page in the 'Real Estate' section and enter the description and the picture again (as doing it in-world doesn't really function).
All this is both time consuming and annoying, as it could all be done by a single click on a 'Re-submit' button on the edit page for the parcel - causing the original entry of the parcel to be deleted and a new one copied and entered in top of the listing for the 25 LD listing fee.
This solution would both create an attractive option for the merchant and increase the revenue for LL.

Suggestion 2:
That it be possible to enter more than one picture per parcel - max. 3 would probably be sufficient. (In the same way it is possible to enter multiple pictures for all other merchandise in the X-street listings).

Not impressed.

Does that mean we're kissing goodbye independant services? Does this mean we'll have to aquire platinum accounts to receive any sort of future assistance or feedback regarding our vendors and items? My apologies but this is exactly how I see the current Linden Lab support team operating.

Appaled / Satomi.

I AGREEE LEAVE ONREZ ALONE I HAVE 1200 OR MORE ITEMS IN THERE AND I DONT WANT TO RELIST ON XTREETSL.COM. SEEMS THAT EVERY TIME PEOPLE ARE MAKING MONEY AND DOING SOMETHING GOOD LINDENS COME ALONG AND MESS STUFF UP THEY DONT WANT THE LIL GUYS MAKING MONEY.

LL will you regulate what merchandise is sold?
Will LL remove mature content; or content they feel is not within community standards?
Will LL charge a fee to upload graphic images of merchandise/services above the standard upload fees already in place for any graphic images?
Will LL charge a commission on any sales threw this new system; and if so;
When will these charges take place; A date please.
What will the commission percentage be?
Will LL remove any copy right infringement items from this new acquisition?

Mar aka Cat Cotton

I also hope they will become more common and I will be looking forward to your site as well

Of course the early questions never got answered. The quote talks about plans for future of xstreet.

So I'm wondering will they be making premium account holder only selling?

Raising price on sales commissions?, charging to upload images to the site?, raising price on ads?

so much for somewhat of a free market but at least there's http://www.vitty.jp/ and http://www.apez.biz/

I share many of your concerns, Sylvia.

There were advantages to having multiple markets in which to reach customers. Bringing everything into a single pipeline looks like it will dramatically increase competition (and decrease visibly) for most merchants who will all now be using the same venue. That's why I am so interested in what the plans for integration into the viewer might look like.

Thank you first for responding to my post Grant. I truly feel sorry for you and Colossus and T Linden as people in a customer service role, as I myself am all too familiar with. I hope that your eagerness to prove that you can make changes isn't moot. I do very much like it when people take responsibility, and like even more when someone is impassioned by their own cause and design when they think they can actually do something.

I'll be leaving my less then two dozen products on XStreet cause.. I'm officially to lazy to close them down. If, however, I even see the hint that I'm being charged more per sale, I'm gone. Like a puff of smoke in the wind blown over by a tempest. As for OnRez users, it is a true loss, and a bit disgusting, but not completely unexpected.

Thank you too Dolescum, I also take my time with my products and show them as best I can for my customers. Just really have never been able to afford the fees associated with making a product "Featured" anyway. They say you have to spend money to make money. As far as having in-world locations to display products... they are ghastly expensive, and even something small can cost quite a bit. I always laugh though when I see someone make a purchase from me on Xstreet, be it only once a month or less. Ahh but that's off the Linden Lab takeover of Xstreet and OnRez subject.

My concerns are most focused on the exchange in Xstreet, not even taking money out of XStreet in a timely manner... I am too much of a consumer, its all spent before I can take any out! But this won't be answered cause there is no answer, not yet. Too soon as they put it... only time will tell. Rest assured I'll be looking into my transaction history on Xstreet and Apez rates and seeing if I can still come out of Exchange Rates and Fees ahead of the game!

As for the frequency in the comments that Linden Labs has let its people down. They are a business, and are making business decisions. There is no heart in business, only logic. If you don't want them to be a bother in your life anymore, find a different online world. I've personally moved to a different one I'll not mention its name. Everyone there is like a family, very much like it was back in the day with Secondlife. I just can't bring myself to completely forget Secondlife, cause lets face it... I've spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars there trying to make my SL-life convenient (skins, hair, textures, clothes, and a variety) I don't forget hundreds of dollars spent on a game. So I guess in my own way, the reason Linden Labs has a hold over me is ALSO money related!!

Oh great, give them ideas.

Because the inworld shopping experience is laggy, next to rooms full of bots, if we find it in a search engine that barely works and is unpoliced, and the textures we need to see to purchase something take forever to load. If we wanted to shop flat web we would not be in SL.
I used SLExchange as a search engine that worked and then went inworld to check out the choices.

THE STAFF!!!! :-0

ARE YOU KIDDING ME! That is the worst part of SLX or Street or whatever it is called now.
Have you not been reading some of the posts? Technology yes, staff ahhhh NO.

<---Gets shiver up back. I have been giving you guys credit for this move but to say...
"reliability of the staff".... WOW. Of course I am sure they were all nice as pie to all of you.... This is exactly why I no longer create in this grid.

Excuse me I need to go be sick.

The hearts and brains, the visionaries, left or turned invisible last year (Philip and Cory for example) as the wallets moved in (M Linden and his helpers). Maybe companies like Sony or EA like to have everything under one roof when buying a game/virtual world?

Seems to me the only fair way to implement this would be to remove the per sale fees. You (LL) will/can make plenty off the advertising and added item features to support the site.

SLX charging a 5% fee was OK(private business and all), You (LL) charging us that 5% fee is a tax.

SWEET.

I <3 you Grant.

LOL! First you guys mass market OS Sims and sell them like crazy to ecveryone...THEN you take them all away and charge everyone MORE for a homestead..NOW you guys buy Xstreet and want to get a share of what we make to pay our tiers with LMAO this is just getting to the point where you all at LL will have total complete controll of every single dime in SL

So what does this mean exactly in the way of current bans at SLX...

"Originally Posted by Grant Linden
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"

Including the forum there....

Whenever you reduce the number of available options to merchants and customers, they suffer. The underlying truth here is that LL saw it as a viable revenue source and by purchasing both competing entities, it has captured the revenue sources of both, and eliminated any competition that existed between them prior to the purchase.

In my experienced opinion, as a shopper, SLX offered a better on-line shopping system than ShopOnRez.... better support in most respects... but Shop.OnRez was clearly better for Merchants who were not charged commissions and were offered an in-world vending system, also completely free of charge. It was totally amazing how Shop.OnRez ever survived as long as they did, given that there was no cost to Merchants other than a paltry fee associated with advertising options that were in fact just that.... optional.

I am one of the unfortunate Merchants who utilized the Shop.OnRez vendors in-world. To those like me, we must now find a new vendor system, like Hippo or Apez, and adapt at cost. Linden Labs offers no solution to this to Shop.OnRez merchants at this time and to me this is quite disturbing from a customer service standpoint - yet is not a big surprise.

From the Linden standpoint it now opens an entirely new area for revenue generation. So many possibilities will exist for them and a new era where they have become the gods whom merchants will have to pay homage to in order to sell goods in their virtual world.
Perhaps this sounds a bit over-the-top, but the reality is that where there is money to be made... the sad truth is that the powers that be will find a way to get a share of it... because this is RL...

My only real gripe here is that SL is eliminating the system that offered the best value to merchants (albeit, SLX had way more traffic), offering no solution to those merchants who utilize the on-line / in-world vending systems that they have.... the likely and eventual solution will be a LL owned, LL commission or other LL revenue generating system.

To those of you, like me, who will soon find that our Shop.OnRez vending machines are no longer any use... take out your lists and add another thing that was free and pure which is now branded "linden" and has a price tag on it, where it once did not.

You overlooked one thing, Lindenlab, SLexchange/Xstreet is butt ugly. Would you buy any fashion items from there? I wouldn't. You should have adapted to Onrez's design. It does matter.

I didn't give them any ideas...that they didn't already steal from there.com.

oh yeah I went there.