We Need a New In-Game Classifieds Tab

We need a system of classified ads right in the game, on the UI, just like LAND SALES or EVENTS. Yes, we do.

Such a pull-down list would contain events that wouldn't be fake educational events trying to be passed off as "educational"

Instead of the prudish Linden admonition (engendered by the hectoring of the high-minded minority) that you couldn't make these ads be about "see my land for sale" or "see my new build" or "rate me positively," this new classified ads interface would most unabashedly be about all of these things -- and then some!

Instead of all those allergic to commerce (and they're a distinct minority) getting the ear of the Lindens to ruin the events listing with forced limitations like 3 events a day, or for-sale land only on the pull-down menu of land, the new classified interface could have any number of events, anywhere, about anything for sale (or for free as a loss leader) because it would be OK. It would be more than OK. It would be a long-awaited and too-long-delayed feature that would finally recognize that player entrepreneurialism can be the engine of the game, rather than squeamish Linden social engineering or haughty faux high-culture FICisms.

Here's what could go in this colourful, gaudy, unabashedly commercial listings that will look just like your neighourhood shopper!

-- land for rent
-- real estate tours
-- new product displays and demonstrations
-- special sales in stores
-- "try before buy" occasions
-- beta testing of new products
-- posrating or negrating of creators and merchants
--contests that are for the display or give-away of existing products

This tab would be something that some of our FIC friends as well as newer utopianists would NEVER look at. They'd NEVER peak at it. They'd NEVER use it. But the rest of us would!

Now, let me pre-anticipate all the silly little arguments that come up every time you try to do commerce/business in this game:

1. "Posrating will just be gamed". Um, and so what? A really clever idea to end the "gaming" of something is just to allow it -- that ends most of the motivation for "gaming" it LOL.

I think that any avatar who can manage to log on to this game, keep logged on and not crash, cross sim seams that often mess up even without attachments, brave the lag of 39 other avs, and perch on some kind of slowly-rezzing object somewhere on a sim that might crash *deserves a goddamn fucking posrate*. And he's going to get one from me, that's for sure! At least $25, if not $75!

New players can then set themselves up as a willing and mobile critics' audience, roving around to product displays, real estate tours, vehicle riding lessons, etc. and use their posrate at the end of the event -- or negrate.

Far from gaming the system, this will help restore meaning to it as freedom reigns. People begin to use negrate ordinarily for just a shoddy product or a crappy rental house in a bog somewhere, and the producer then has to go back to the drawing board. They begin to use posrate as it was once intended, as a reward for a visible job well done. Let them game it. It is a game. It will circulate more meaning into the whole ratings system if the person who has the skills to put on events with good products and get good ratings can do so!

2. "Why should you get to hog the events calendar with your thing?" Well, becaues if I have to pay for land and tier, why can't I try to get more value out of it? You can ignore this tab if you want. Or make your own thing, in which case you, like me, will just have to fill in the blanks and press "upload".

3. "Who needs to feed rapacious land barons and slacker middlemen who just flip land? We have too much of this in the game." No, we don't. A lot of land sits unsold. All over the place. Including YOUR land YOU are trying to sell. If you have an in-game tool to help rent it or promote it better through forthright events about it, then the whole economy can improve. And if it gives land barons TWO places to shin in, OK! They need to sell land! It's a land-based game where land ownership is the highest value in the game!

4. "This game is too commercial already. I just come here to hang out with my friends or create robots. I don't want that crap in my face." Then I suggest you not look at that tab -- ever -- but let the rest of us get on with the business of helping the economy and developing the guts of the game that are required to move all the content-heavy and land-heavy sides of it now.

5. "Are you fucking crazy? You think people are actually going to come on a real estate tour in SL?" Yes, I do. Based on the constant bombarding of IMs I get all night long from people who want me personally to take them around to land and hold their hands, rather than just clicking on a landmark or a rental box info card. So I'm happy to meet that need, but not by having each and everyone one of them waste 2 hours of my life and not rent LOL. I'd like to schedule tours for them. They'll come. Like they'll come to a product demo and give a posrate, and a chance to give newbs a leg up by having them get a freebie and a posrate while they shop at their store *and* give me traffic. (I'm all for that, because it's a business-related loss leader, not a massive crippling of the economy with no real monetary benefit).

If none of these activities happen, and the entire list is a ghost town, well, you fold it up. But I have no doubt in my mind it will be a huge hit and will end the striking paralysis so many people experience in trying to get some business started, and end the terribly steep obstacle newbies face in getting into business, except for the sex trade or Tringo binges.

Please look at what happens in the game, what people actually do, and what they want, and don't look at just the screaming of the 20-30 percent computer/IT people who dominate the forums and who also have a terrible allergy to "crass" commerce (especially when it is not their own LOL).

Maybe product testers, real estate tourists, and vehicle racers aren't your idea of really exciting SL careers. They are pretty low-rung. But it is a way of providing at least a little more granularity to the stark SL highs and lows of club ownership and sex work.

Another benefit of the new classifieds tab is that if a club is just trying to get traffic and just open, it goes under classifieds, where people have begun to expect such special occasions to appear, and its contest for best-dressed avatar, more of a real event rather than a disguised event, gets to then have more room on the original events calendar.

I'm hoping the in-game player alternative to the Linden list will also go along these lines.

This is a clear step in the right direction, however I don't think it is sufficient.


What we need is a query mechanism where people can go to find out about the world around them in a way that delights them and gives them the ability to narrow down what they're looking for.

And then we need the ability to advertise alongside that query mechanism where our ads will be context dependent on what people are searching for.

Basically, we should have the all tab, except that the search box should be at the bottom of the screen and we should replace one of the buttons with the word "search".

The concern, of course, is that this may reduce exploration because people can find things immediately.

You're talking about a yellow pages, which has been discussed to death, but nobody has ever done it (I once tried it as a newb and it was just way too hard).

But a yellow pages or classified directory with the ability to purchase bigger classified space, etc. is another evolution of what I'm talking about which is a very bare-bones shopper.

It has to be integrated directly and clearly into the client by LL. A user can not do this.

Squagmire's InfoNet Terminal may be a step in that direction. I have one set up on my land - see sig for location.

Erm... Yaknow what's funny, there's this little item called "Find" on the bottom bar of your screen... 30L per week to list land, events are listed, there's a tab for major sponsors to SL (auctioned regularly externally), a tab to find anyone in-world, and a tab for groups?
Not to mention a tab for finding all, if you're just not sure what it fits under.
Wow, LL already included this... cool... yaknow?
It's also available by hitting ctrl-f at any time.
Land's listed at 30L per week, as part of the land tools, you can specify if you have just a cool place, a store, something for sale, malls, etc...
Find groups and users for free, and IM them through LL's own IM interface, gee wow.

Spare me your condescending crap. FIND does not find commercial events because there is no way to tag into the system a sales event.

FIND can only give you a location and a keyword, not an event.

Yeah, cool, yah know? not to find an EVENT because it's a finder for THINGS. TIME versus SPACE, yah know?

Specifying if I have a "cool store" or a "mall" is a FIND PLACE but it is not a FIND TIME. And the whole point is to have EVENTS that have a duration from one fixed point in the chronosphere to another fixed point in the chronosphere.

Or does your branch of tekkiedom not distinguish between time and space?

Prok, how much would you be willing to pay in US$ to see this happen on an independant server?

Could have sworn that places specified stores... and land sales does sorta show what land is for sale (thus the name) why pay a bunch of money for what LL makes available for cheap?
Seems like a waste of time to reinvent a working system.

And... there is an events tab. ^.^

o/` tekki wikki wa wa woo o/` ^.^ heh, that sounds cool.