Recent economic changes have killed my sales!

Really, there is just no easy money left.

But as far as drops in sales go, the grid being down so much has a lot to do with that.

watch SL's home page for the 'currently logged in users' which usually maxes between 8,000 and 9,000 and bottoms at a little above 3,000 each day.

Thats your population

I would have to say the active population is much higher than 9,000 because that is only the amount of people online at that time.

.

Thats true....not everyone is constantly logged in.

I saw the post above that 203,000 loigged in at least once in the last 60 days, which is 2/3 of the populace.

But those that are really REGULARS, here for a few hours every day or every other day, you're looking at maybe 11-12,000, tops. thats a large town's population. Spread over hundreds of sims. 8000-9000 is your available 'target' audience at any one time.

i haven't tried , the main brake to me is the fact reproduction of items in RL take time and is annoying, like if you create an outfit you will have to re make it over and over for each person that want it, since glued latex can't be assembled by a machine.

Just the design would sell. Let others care for manufacturing ?

i dunno, i am deeply rooted in the proudness of hand made stuffs, like a bit how would do a wood sculpter, it sone of the reasons why i hire nobody in sl

1) Find $1000 and buy a region.
2) Parcel up into 128 x 512m/2 plots. Perhaps using a ready made RAW file uploaded.
3) Set parcels for sale for L$5000 each.
4) Wait.
5) 128 x L$5000 = L$640,000 which at today's sell rate is US$1,972.15.
6) Calculate that US$1,972.15 - original cost - land tier = US$1,972.15 = $777.15 profit.

Maybe a risk, but assuming that the land is useable (ie fairly flat), a 77% profit isn't a bad markup really.

If the land is zoned, and managed properly you can charge more, and offset a little of that cost by putting in some roads a little, you can still make that amount of money all for a risk.

We all know that good quality land with a reasonable view and low lag is hard to come by, so it would sell. There's enough people already doing this thing, and making lots of money simply by having it up front in the first place.



Administrative work for a large Christian charity based in London, with responsibilities for managing a diary and booking speaking engagements for 120 or so people, working up to 18 months in advance of today's date, plus transport manager with responsibilities over bookings for several vehicles, plus co-ordinating with car hire companies and booking train tickets/flights to enable these speaking engagements to take place.

Outside of that, I am on the committee of a model railroad club, having recently stepped down from organising the annual exhibition (which draws over 600 people in one day - perhaps not a great number but when your club only has about 20 members it's quite an achievement to pull off something of that size).

In my free time... I play Second Life, and sleep (but not necessarily at the same time).

Lewis

Mainly because these, for years, were the only profitable sectors on the internet . If you just want to make money, that is where you go. This doesn't mean other businesses can't make money or that, long-term, they might make serious money. Just sex and gambling is perceived as more of a quick money-maker.

That said, I haven't made any serious money out of my slot machines. You can't just dump some gambling games on a 512 sq m plot and expect to make any money. I notice most casinos were essentially empty unless they offered camping chairs, free play slot machines or other goodies. The lesson of the web is that to make money from gambling requires a high profile, brand leader status, and a very attractive promotional scheme. So, even here, it is no cakewalk and requires serious investment.

It's more than that, too: in interactive virtual worlds, it's because sex, when role-played, gives equal benefit to all the people involved. If you are dreaming of being beautiful then you'll get far more attention from people if you play the role as an escort or dancer because that way the guy you are with gets to play the role of a "player" who has sex with escorts and dancers. If on the other hand you set up a catwalk and do a fashion show, then if you're a good marketeer you might get some external PR but you won't get anything like the interest from the general public that escorts and dancers get because the general public aren't so keen to play the role of "someone who is in the audience at a fashion show."

I've even seen somebody who initially just wanted to roleplay, and disliked BDSM, but wound up after a while becoming a BDSM "dominant" because that way they could get "submissives" to play the lesser roles they needed other people to take in order to complete their fantasy. ("You, slave, watch me on the catwalk, applaud and tell me how beautiful I am!" ) Of course it meant that the nature of the role-playing had to change, but it appears that it was a choice between that or being ignored.

What do you consider an active user? Someone who is logged on a few hours a day would be considered hardcore in most circles, not just active...or they run a full time business in SL. I would consider an active user someone who logs in 2 or 3 times a week. Most people have jobs and families.

Even still, a quick look at the economic stats page shows those numbers are highly unlikely.

- There are 1284 private islands, are you saying 1 in every 10 active players owns a private island? How many people do you know who even own land?

- There were 5,728,194 total transactions made in July. Do you think 12,000 people made 477 purchases each last month? Lets even ignore all purchases below $L20, leaving 2774273 or 231 purchases per person. Those people are not only hardcore, they're shopaholics as well.

- There are currently, as of this moment, 1,663 residents with parcels for sale. By your numbers that would mean roughly 14% of the current active population has a parcel of land for sale. That's highly unlikely, I think.

Taking into account there are people from all across the globe, and subsequently across multiple time zones, in SL I would estimate there are roughly 10% of the active population online at any one time (a number also mentioned in many MMO estimates as well) which would put the active users closer to 80,000.

The proverbial nail hammer and head you touched there.

I myself keep a Basic account. Let me explain why:

What would be my benefit to be paying USD9,95 a month compared to USD0,00 per month?

1. The ability to buy/owe 512m land (with approx 100 prims or so)? What am I supposed to do with that? Sell it for a (good?) proft and revert back to normal (costing another USD9,95 administration costs)? Rental is cheaper and gives more prims...
   
2. The weekly 400L$ stipend? Don't make me laugh. If I'd need L$ badly, I ship in USD10 and be able to buy about 3000 L$ (compared to the free 1600L$/week for that amount of money).
   

As it is, the whole premium is ment for people with a lot of RL money and are really trying to make money back with SL. To me, it gives no benefits at all.

That said, I'm part of the Economy. I'm renting a nice place which give me a good amount of prims for the price I pay weekly. I've decorated the house with indeed, a kitch, bathroom and stuff like that, because it's more immersive for RP. My job is being a Scripter for hire and I make some specialized furniture myself (low sales, but then again, with only one item... ).

But that is me. I can see very well why others cant be bothered to rent and/or put down a house to put furniture in... Without job in SL it's a tough call at best.