So what are we doing with the Island?

First of all thank you for all the messages of support; we are humbled by the enthusiasm and excitement this project has generated.

We have exciting plans for this Sim. In fact, we are developing our ideas solely around supporting the SL community: economy and content. We are creating two initial commercial ideas; rest assured these will compliment and build upon the great work in the SL economy and world. We have carefully chosen our ideas, we love this place, as we know you do.

Before we can get going we need to verify the Digital Rights Issue with Linden Labs; we will be writing to them over the coming few days to get their input and support.

I can leave you a few tid-bits of stuff we are thinking about:

revenue streams to support the in-game economy - narrative creation – real world anchor points – educational use – personal appearances – real world fashion – retailing inworld/offworld… plus a lot more.

Also to dispel some of the rumours:

We are not the Playboy corporation.
We are not Disney.
We have no agendas just the desire to explore and help create something exciting.
We are commercial based, but we are fans and active participants.
We will be suporting a charity and promoting good causes
We will need help.

We are a London and Chicago based Innovation and Branding agency.

That’s it for now, we will let you know more in a few days. Would love to hear your reactions and your input. We are building this around all of us.



Fizik Baskerville

So what are you going to try to sell us?

We would like to know who we are dealing with

So who is your "we"? (could be Womens Entertainment, but I'm doubting that.)

I'm glad you seem to be taking a more community involved course on this. And understand you want to get your details all sorted out before telling anyone else those details also.

I do think it would make everyone feel more trusting though if you said what company you represent.

There will be many rumors flying and its best to dispel any of them early on as you seem to have noticed.

Edit: Also, what Digital Rights Issue are you speaking of?

Bah, I'm so out of it the only rumour I had heard was Disney, which I could easily dismiss because Disney would NEVER participate unless they could set all the rules for the whole environment. (They're much more the type to buy a "walled garden" version of SL.)

I am very interested to know who it is, but I have one general guess. It's not a MAJOR brand. If it were, I think they would have negotiated directly with Lindens and not parcipated in the land bid. This makes it even more exciting, AFAIC. Think what a small, boutique brand could do in SL if they really make or market something we all want! For insance, I don't really want to see a Zest Soap sim, but a Dr. Bronner's Pure Castille Soap Sim? That would be really cool and VERY trippy! (If you've never read a Dr. Bronner's Soap Bottle, check it out: http://www.drbronner.com/labels/tea.pdf ).

I'm very interested to see how this works out, and what it suggests for other brands moving into SL. I hope that, along with the other offerings, "they" will provide us with some information on their marketing strategies and how well they work!

I highly doubt Disney would ever buy a Sim in SL, they have ToonTown.

I haven't really heard any rumors, but you know how quickly they start etc.

As for the topic of how great commercial sims would be, well... there was a topic for that and it was quite lengthy and heated.

Frankly I'm glad Fizik and his "we" seem to be thinking more community driven than commercialized lets all buy souvieneirs kinda thinkin.

Don't wana go too much into that topic though as this thread would take a quick turn off the probably intended one.

Fizik: You said "tit-bits," but it's spelled actually "tid-bits." Are you sure you're not Playboy?

Oz: Yes, but ToonTown is for kids. It's a far, far cry from SL. Mind you, I agree with you that I doubt Fizik is Disney. Just that... What was my point? Oh, yeah, why doesn't Disney have an MMOG for adult? I wanna be a Space Ranger!

Your physician, corner grocer, nearby farms, Prentice-Hall publishing, Linden Lab, amazon.com, your ISP, your computer manufacturer, the manufacturer of the chair you are sitting in, the folks that built and installed the heating and/or air conditioning and the people who make your coffee are all commercial enterprises. Even Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Make-A-Wish Foundations and the local SPCA are all incorporated too ("commercial" may not be apropos to a non-profit). Commerce is not an a priori bad thing. Yes, there are bad and obnoxious commercial entities just as there are bad and obnoxious people.

Merely being commercial is a pretty poor basis for assuming that anyone is trying to sell you anything you don't want. And if the commonweal isn't served by the activities on Fizik's island, it ain't too hard to avoid... really.

Disclaimer: I have no connection that I am aware of with Fizik and his associates. I know that he built an interesting "test build" beside my plot a few weeks ago.

Strangely, the first thing I'm curious about may seem strange to most:

Is an island sim best suited to your intentions, or would you have preferred a "mainland" sim? If a mainland sim became available in the future, would you be interested in swapping land ownerships?

I say this because I hope there will be more *island* sims up for sale in the future, so that someone or a group who enjoys doing highly experimental things will be able to do so in an isolated environment.

Of course, this issue would be entirely moot if Cardova were an island sim.

Why does everyone try to steer away from heated topics? Isn't that the point of public discourse, to debate in order to inform?

Okay, here is my new thought... what if a POLITICAL CAMPAIGN wanted to buy space in SL? (Dean immediately leaps to mind.) Or perhaps a political organization. (NORML would be funny - The Heritage Foundation would definately be unfunny.)

Makes you think!

Have you thought of buying up a thin strip of land all around Cardovas joining edges and digging it down to water level? Instant island, just add water...

Good points all around.

How did that "test build" look?

Also I guess I should be more specific about what I mean when I talk about commercial sims, but I don't really want to go into detail about it all on here. I'll try to watch myself more with that as you are right, there are alot of good intended corps.

Kex you raise a very good point that I didn't think of, while a "commercial" (see i added qoutations ) sim is good for us if its seperated (easily avoidable if we don't like it), its bad for the company that owns it because of the low traffic if its not good.

I too would like to see more island sims, Cayman is a beautifull sim which I most recently almost spent all night on because it was so nice and peacefull and lag free. I hope anyone who buys an Island sim keeps Cayman in mind while developing it.

Edit: Not saying I want to avoid a heated discussion, I love to debate when all parties are agreed its just that, a debate, and nothing personal. However I just meant that there already was a thread for that and it should be bumped if you want to get into it. Didn't want to hijack this thread.

Another Edit: Yes an Adult Disney MMOG would be great, but I highly doubt if they can make something like ToonTown on their own they'd need to come to LL to buy a server on SL to do that. The only reason Disney would probly ever have anything to do with SL would be for advertisement for you to switch over to their MMOG.

roflmao Howard Dean's campaign team buying an SL sim...hehehe.. well he's probably nutty enough to do that. I can only imagine the influx of people that'd be visiting the "Dean campaign sim" (only $10!)....lol

That'd make SL interesting for a few months...

You have already provided me with great entertainment. The auction was a hoot!

If you financially support LL without impacting my daily experience in the game (unless, of course, I choose to interact with your venture), more power to you all.

Money for LL means I can stay and play. And that's a good thing.

Hey, Fizik....if you're in the industry....do you by any chance know how to get rid of scripted ants...? ROFL.

Maggie

Well hey, the important thing here is that this ISN'T Disney. I'm glad to hear that one.

Maybe thats what they WANT you to think Garoad, maybe it IS Disney, Dun dun duuunnnnnn!!

Bwahahaha!

Are you affiliated with GAP or another trendy clothing company?

Sorry, "interesting" in SL can be quite a loaded word. The build was small, clearly someone exploring geometry and the affordances of SL. The texturing was exquisite consisting mainly of some sort of romanesque intaglio. And it didn't make me want to buy anything at all.

If I had to guess, there is ample promise of another Elysian quality build.

As with all new builds and creations in SL, I look forward to seeing what becomes of the island. I'm not too worried about the fact that it is being developed by a "commercial" organization, because as someone else pointed out earlier, we can always choose not to visit or support the Island development if it displeases us. This of course being true of any business, build, etc. in SL.

Good luck with the Island!

Fizik Baskerville currently has a build in Tan (202, 21. Not to be derogatory, or anything, but it looks rather like a normal SL build, to me.

It's exciting that a company considers SL to have the potential to support some sort of advertising or marketing venture. It's also disheartening to think that the future of SL could include the "little guy" (i.e., the average player) being unable to afford to buy land here. I hope the Lindens will implement some auction methods to ensure this doesn't happen.

LMAO...um all I can think of at this point was the war with Si and Rathe and a few others about 6 months ago that were making a go of Bill Boards.

Do I like comercializm. NO! Can I stop it..NO! its like trying to stop a leak in a dam with paper towels...((notice I didnt say Brawny or any of those hehe)) but its something thats comming Look at TSO with the Micky D's Stands and other industry games supporting commercial affiliation. Nothing we can do folks cept let it ride who knows we might even like what they build one never knows.

MY dream would be to build a Spire with a central court that extended to the sky while the landscape around it lay untouched. Condensing 15,000 prims in a central location on the server making for a truly Unique build and if it was done comercialy ..hehe Id play there just to use the open land to fly about and play with my friends..hehe.

Ok said my $.02

See all Y'all in game..hehe

A bunch of us have been sitting about the island going back and forth over the pros and cons of possible corporate expansion in SL. I am sitting on the fence at the moment...but what I do not like is the idea of corporations having an upperhand over the residents of sl in the bidding war. I can only hope that the odds will remain in the favor of the average gamer and not lean towards the commercialization(wow that is spelled so wrong!) of SL. We will see I suppose...and if anyone wants to come out and play I will be at the island all day untill they come in with the back hoes and tractor trailers of neon sign light bulbs...

fascinating! cant wait to see what youre up to fiz

Yes, in retrospect it is easy to see now that the winner was a comercial bidder with far more monetary resources than the average person. The jumps in the bid amount were quite obviously from someone with plenty of cash to burn.

I and a friend run an online game, and we could easily afford to buy an entire sim in Second Life. But other than advertising our game (which is web based and totally diffrent than SL) I can't think of a good financial reason to do so. I would love to do it just to provide interesting things to teh community I have grown to enjoy being part of, but frankly my concence tells me that if I am going to spend $200 a month to make people happy I'd be better off putting it into a charity.

I suppose my point is that LL really needs to rethink auctions like this.. to provide commercial entities a way to simply BUY a sim, and leave the auctions to public players. Or as I have mentioned many, many times.. do away or modify teh auctions to make them help distribute the land fairly instead of simply making them go for as much money as possible.

Land is not a scarcity here, especially when the auctions more than pay directly for the hardware which supports the land.

I expect that for as long as this keeps up, there will be some rapid expansion of the SL world...

Eventually prices will lower once the initial demand is met, but when that happens, it will take LL longer to recover their hardware costs, which means slower world expansion.

> A bunch of us have been sitting about the island going back and forth over the pros and cons of possible corporate expansion in SL. I am sitting on the fence at the moment...but what I do not like is the idea of corporations having an upperhand over the residents of sl in the bidding war. I can only hope that the odds will remain in the favor of the average gamer and not lean towards the commercialization(wow that is spelled so wrong!) of SL.

The advantage of course is the possibiliyt of remuneration. They obviously have their own texturers and artists already but if anyone is really skilled and knows SL object design inside-out, there's a potential market here either for directly contributing to this organization's constructions or providing tuition (in-world or out-world)

I for one would very much like to be able to travel the world with a laptop and just plug-in from anywhere and either play, or work, or chat, or do whatever seems to be a good idea at the time.

Azelda