SoP Panel: Stock Markets in Virtual Worlds

Quite Serious. And yes, I do. As soon as it becomes practical to do so, this will change. For now though, that's the situation. That's how it is. You take it, or you leave it lol. I really don't know what else to tell you along these lines.




That was kind of a general "your". It wasn't meant to indicate YOU specifically. Bill, I really don't expect to be managing anything of yours. To put it mildly, you don't seem like a potential investor. Mostly I'm only continuing to reply to you at this point to see what you'll say next.

We do manage about L$4,000,000 in assets at Cyberland right now though, and we do it pretty well.




I've been accused of this from time to time yes. I tend to be quite confident. You are welcome, however. As you've correctly pointed out I AM confident enough in the company I've created to be comfortable being compensated for all of the work I put in on a percentage basis rather than a fixed basis.




Of course I'm serious, but I guess that managing equity is a better way to look at it. Afterall if you bought stock right now it would be very hard to buy from the company rather than another investor (read: you'd have to do something very silly) and soon it will be altogether impossible.

I'm also not asking anyone to do anything. I have NOTHING to sell you here, Bill. I sell LAND. Whether or not someone would like to invest in the company that I formed to sell land, or any other company that appears on the exchange in the future, is ENTIRELY up to them. I have no hard sell for anyone, all I have is potential risks and potential rewards to take or leave.

In fact, it seems that in your efforts to spin the thread you'd failed to notice or just failed to care, but this thread isn't even ABOUT Cyberland. In fact, it is about the stock exchange, it's discussion at a very important virtual world industury conference, and the direction that the public would like to see it moving in as it progresses. You may or may not have watched the video, but that and the issues of a virtual stock exchange are the topic at hand here. We can talk about Cyberland in another thread.

Have you had a chance to watch the video, Bill? If so, do you have anything to add to the on topic discussion? If so then, by all means....

Sounds great Shaun. I've pushed back the opening for LindenMarket.com to the 17th. I would rather be later in launching than miss something important. My services offered just can't afford to be less than top notch. I'd love to discuss the possibilities of how we can use both services to provide the highest quality of financial services for the benefit of all SL residents. My entire goal is to make things better and easier for my clients. Primarily by offering a choice or additional option to what is already available.

...... now if we could only hook up for a few minutes.... giggles

The total cost for the stock come into play. Since there is just one company listed, the only thing to compare to is that one company. If more companies listed, I would have compared the fees to the average return. For those that did not come in on the ground floor, trading is really hard. With the fees it is somewhat hard to even day trade.

PS, thanks for the rate decrease

Always glad to help when I can!

THIS JUST IN!

As a part of our new long-term commitment to extending the scope of our virtual stock exchange beyond the Second Life community, it has undergone another renaming. We are now known as the Metaverse Stock Exchange! For those of you who may not have been exposed to this platform in the past, the stock exchange spoken of at the webcast in the first post of this thread and the stock exchange linked to in my forum signature are the same. Only the name has changed!

Now you just need a new domain name

I like what you are doing with the exchange, I do feel that you need to have more stocks listed in order to really make it what you seem to be saying you want from it. Also, I like the idea of a board of directors desiding who gets listed and running the exchange.

I am sorry if these seem like dumb questions - but I can't think of any good answers.
What do we need a stock exchange for? How does this benefit the community? What business requires that much capital to be succesful in SL?

To me it seems the obvious answer is for people to make money. But if the 10% a year dividends is true wouldn't it be safer to put your money in a real world mutual fund?

Ah, that may be true today, but as SL grows, maybe the captial will be needed. 10% growth a year is quite good, even in the stock market. Think of what can be, and not just what is now.

I still don't see what capital may be needed for. Land is the only thing that costs anything. What am I missing?

I'm just at a loss as to what it should be.



Yes I agree 100% with this, obviously. All things in time. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but I must balance my desire for a fast path to a large market with doing things in the safest and best way possible. If some people step up to take a stake in the exchange and work with me as directors though, perhaps together we will be able to figure out relatively safe ways to take on small and/or young companies.



Thanks. This is all about empowering groups to reach greater heights than any one person could in their field.

Sigh. I should have complained *before* I bought the stock. hehe.

What about paying others to do design work on something you are running? Or maybe employees for what ever business you are running. Land also cost money, but what good is land if you don't have anything on it, or anyone to run it while you are away? Or maybe you just want to buy out the business down the road from you.

Actually, these are very good questions.



The BIG kind, to put it simply. One example that comes to mind off the top of my head is a small 1 sim game of some sort, which is showing signs of popularity/profitibility and has a GREAT plan to become a 10 or 20 sim game. The kinds of things that I would MOST like the exchange to serve as an enabling platform for are things that can be advertised in the real world as "HEY! YOU! COME DO THIS! ... oh and, by the way, do it in this great virtual world called Second Life..."

Some other examples that come to mind are things like financial services, land services, etc. It doesn't have to be content oriented. Any type of business which requires large-scale capitalization to reach the pinnicle of success and the highest levels of market share in their field can benefit. The exchange will also most likely be offering small-scale debt security listings soon for companies that need SOME capital, but not the kind of capital that comes from our mega equity listings.



This is an extention of the Second Life economy though, not the real life economy. It is intended as an enabling platform for large-scale, collaborative, profit-oriented ventures that have something uniqe to offer in taking Second Life to the "next level" in their perticular area. If that appeals to you as a resident of Second Life and a potential investor, great.. If not, yes, virtual securities are probably a long way from being the safest bet out there. Here, just like in RL, things can and do go wrong. But we also have the additional downsides of being a mostly anonymous environment and dealing in a "fictional currency" that's subject to a lot of volitility.

I would love to be a fly on the wall when you make that statement before the hundreds of SL residents that make money on all the things they make and sell and the services sold.

When my partner and I opened Excalibur Club, we did purchase land, and we puchased a killer lighting system, most of the little extra things like... scripted beer kegs, custom made roasted wild pig, scripting services for things we didn't know how to script. So even though we did most of the actual building of the club, we did buy a lot of items. Slot machines and games, a free tarot card game for our patrons and a dance machine and dances. We also purchased our first dance floor and replaced it later with one we made, and we had our Excalibur Sword made for us and a custom money ball... the reasons for raising capital for whatever you need are endless. And that's what SL is all about anyway. If EVERYONE can provide everything they need for themselves and build and script whatever they use, there goes the economy right down the flusher!

And we didn't hire employees, buy advertising or install security or other things that cost money.

It seems to me that there are some who are missing an important set of facts regarding Cyberland profitability:

a. It is not common for a business in RL or in SL to be profitable in a mere 3 months. Any profit distribution one gets from a first quarter of operations is noteworthy rather than a paltry sum.

b. Projecting annual profitability on a first quarter of operations is rather invalid, unless you wish to project an absolutely worst case scenario.

c. Although there is an algorithm for placement of a percentage of funds resulting from sales into a profit distribution bucket, there is nothing that precludes the Board of Directors from reviewing the preliminary profit/loss statement and determining that an additional contribution is prudent, given the net profit compared to the minimal distribution in the bucket at that time. After all, Board members receive no salaries, our only means of compensation is the same as yours, distribution of profits to common stock held. This is the incentive for us to run Cyberland as effectively as is humanly possible and further, to pay out as much of the net profits as possible.

So, do not make the mistake of stating as a matter of fact what our annual return will be based on the first quarter's operations. We are not a bank that pays a specific percentage on a dollar. We are a growth oriented venture that will pay profits as realized. We don't know what it will be a year from now, but it damn sure won't be 4 times the first quarter, if the Board has anything to say about it. It will be more, much more.

Cyberland is the stuff of entrepreneurs, not long term secure fund investors. No guts, no glory. No pain, no gain. Don't think outside of the box, think outside of the solar system.

That sounds wrong. As in, dishonest. As in, every single share should receive the exact same amount of dividend regardless of how many other shares the owner owns. As in, nobody should NOT receive dividends when dividends are paid. Either allow fractional L$ or pay dividends in L$1/share increments.

Raising capital for the company is not the only reason companies go public. A very important reason is raising capital for the owner. The owner is allowing others to share in the success of the business, in exchange for a certain amount of money per share. That -is- a win/win situation.



How about greed?



Aside from the fact you are mistaken in the assumption that cash cannot improve the business, IPO's are not simply about "the company". It's about the owners of the company. Increasing the liquidity of their wealth.




That is what an open market is for. People that do this gain reputation and can get a higher price for shares of their businesses. People that don't, might not manage to sell anything at all, or only attract speculators. It is a fair and efficient system.



It helps me understand your mentality, yes.

At the current pace of dividend returns, if they wait for whole $L increments, we wouldn't have received dividends until April 2007.

Fine. Fractional L$ is easy though.

Personally, I would just prefer much higher dividends.

ha

anyway, it's not nice to discriminate against (very) small shareholders like this. Are people who hold say, 9 shares, if the dividend is 0.2 per share, going to receive L$1, when someone with just 1 share more than them receives L$2??? That is just wrong.

Agreed.

It's always frustrating to see commentary which makes statements as though based on absolute fact, when indeed they are not at all, or at the minimum, ill-informed or mistaken.

It will serve no purpose for me to go tit-for-tat on mean-spirited or emotional comments. Suffice to say that the Cyberland Board of Directors has given significant thought to the profit distribution mechanisms for the first quarter. There were tremendous growing pains to be dealt with and something less than perfect was implemented with the best long term interest of the stockholders in mind. We recognized the need for an improved dividend mechanism for subsequent quarters and we believe we have made significant improvements going forward.

We will be announcing a stockholder's meeting in the very near future where important announcements will be made about the exciting future for Cyberland, as well as a statement of profit and loss and a meaningful summary of operations during the first quarter. Additionally, the dividend payment for the first quarter will be announced and the details of the dividend distribution system for the second and subsequent quarters will be explained.

I encourage all stockholders to attend this important meeting and obtain Cyberland operations and financial information first-hand.

Oooh, you better watch out there. Either *all* money is play money or none of it is, and if you don't understand why, you shouldn't be running a corporate share exchange. The chances are good that one day the courts in some jurisdiction (I'm specifically thinking the UK with it's ... pragmatic ... approach to law & justice) will in fact hold people in gaming worlds responsible for the ways they handle that cash. It just hasn't happened yet because the size of the damages isn't large enough. Creating corporate entities - with the corresponding increase in capital at work in the metaverse *will* hasten the day.



Disclaimers are only a limited protection. If there's enough money involved, a lawsuit may still occur, and you may still lose.



Indeed. And while it may sound like I'm negative on the idea of corporations in SL, in fact I'm not. I *do* think the problems are non-trivial, and the liability issue is one where I would liike to see very clear legal advice - written fromthe PoV of someone who was highly incentivized to make it hard on the SL-based corporation and/or the virtual share exchanges.

- C

Multi-sim PvP games where the partners only know each other through the metaverse would seem to be a fairly straightforward application. Yes there are other ways, but people may prefer to keep that layer of virtuality between their SL & RL identities.

Whether that is psychologically, morally, ot ethically healthy is a topic for a totally different debate

- C