Beware Business Owners

Allow me to play the world's smallest violin.

Camping chairs game the popularity system, and you complain about people gaming your system. Boo hoo.

Its for this reason that if I see a camping chair anywhere near my destiantion I immead leave, after awhile you know where to go to find some nice items, look for specific creators, builders or sims. Counting on "Traffic" is a miserable way of finding a destination

I have to concur with the rest of the group. I generate my own traffic though adverts and events and classfieds. I know that if I want to further raise my traffic, i can install a camping system. What are the downsides? Zombies and Lag -- Upsides? Traffic and Exposure.

As someone who expects to pay for a service or has to pay employees -- I, personally, expect people to show up and earn their dough. I expect consistency because that is what my customers expect from me. Am I willing to pay for that? Absolutely! Everyday of the week.

If I choose to install a camping system, I expect there to see some of the same people from week to week and I welcome that. They are providing a service and I am happy to pay for it.

As far as being fair to others who don't have money? Pfffffffffttttttt Screw that. As a former camper, I needed dough to get a few things off the ground and I did what I had to do initially to fund projects. There are plenty of places to camp in SL. Like anything else, you gotta work for it. You have to go find them -- the camping spots are not gonna come to you. Have you seen some of these money tree fanatics? These people cruise around SL all night looking for 2 or 3 Linden at a shot!!

So I suggest you consider heavily what you deem to be morally objectional and stay away from it. Cause like in RL -- Business is Business and Strategy is Strategy. SL appears to be extremely idealistic, initially, however can be just as ruthless if not more than RL. In Utopia, there is no cash.

Same here. If I see camping chairs I leave. Somehow I don't have as much of a problem with Lucky Chairs, if only for the reason that I might pop in somewhere, see an "O" and get all excited.

*rubs chin* Now if there were a way to game the people gaming the system that people use to game the system...

(Oh, and I agree. Camping chairs are crass no matter what way you look at it.)

A lil off topic but...

I saw really neat "campers" yesterday. One was at a landscape place, and the animation for the av was planting flowers and putting dirt into a wheelbarrow. That just struck me as a rather pretty way for people to camp.

Y'know we get a consistent 7-15k traffic a day on our island...and spend far less for advertising and traffic than many places with camp chairs and comparable traffic. We also have live people giving us this traffic. Which means they are moving around and shopping hence contributing traffic and increasing our sales all the while keeping us competitive with those gaming the system and lagging the grid by encouraging the use of bots and anti idlers.
I also have to agree with the "dump the camp chairs and give the money away" ideal. Host events for live people who can improve the social experience that is SL by having costume contests with cash prizes or random money/object orbs etc. Be creative and honest to get your traffic as many people are and improve the overall experience for everyone. Especially those newbies who don't realize what camping is and cant get a response out of the 50 people dancing before them therefore thinking "whats the point of this if no one is going to respond to me or help me figure out how this all works"?

Yeah, the money tree gives folks more of a fighting chance at the funds than a camping chair does. It requires more work on the part of the visitor though, and it doesn't boost traffic like occupied camp chairs do, because residents typically leave as soon as they pick up their Lindens (traffic is less about 'how many visitors' as 'how long the area's occupied'). I installed a money tree on my public island because a lot of 'freebies' in Second Life cost between 1-10L$ to acquire, and I like to give folks with no payment info/Lindens a way to make their avatars look better (I provide a list of good freebie locations at my welcome area).

I can honestly say that while I get visits to the money tree every few minutes, it doesn't really affect traffic much. There might be indirect effects- someone comes for the money tree but becomes a regular visitor because they like the island (and in fact, I know this has happened at least a few times)- but the actual traffic generated by people porting in solely to pick up free lindens is nothing compared to what a fully occupied bunch of camp chairs will give you. I consider camp chairs/dance pads/sploders, etc. to be 'cheating,' though, and I don't have the money tree for traffic anyway, so that was never really a personal concern.

I had several camping chairs on my island but have dropped them now. I didn't need the traffic but figured it was a way to give a start to new SL residents. At first it pretty much worked out that way but lately I have noticed all the chair taken up by alts of one person or by bots that TP in the instant that the chair becomes available. The bots are incredible, I put out a new chair and turned it on, in less than a second a bot was sitting in it. Since I don't need the traffic I've decided spending all day banning alts and bots from my island is not how I want to spend you time so I am dropping the chairs.

Everyone's understanding the situation. You don't have a leg to stand on. Traffic is traffic. If your business is banking more on traffic than advertisement or events then you have nothing to complain about. You aren't putting chairs out to help anyone but yourself. You got what you paid for.

This is like calling the cops to report stolen weed...

I think this has been said several times, but I want to concur:

I do NOT pay attention to traffic. I pay attention to the design and tact of an advertisement. I pay attention to the text that is used to draw me in. In fact, a lot of times (unless absolutely necessary) I stay far away from highly populated areas.

I get all my attention from well designed ads, and word of mouth. But then again, I’m not a wealthy land owner, so I could care less about traffic. I’m not looking to support RL habits and necessities from SL, so all the attention I get is from proficiently marketing with style and enthusiasm.

That's how I rolled when I was into buying vs. building everything I use (not that one is superior to the other...I sell my stuff now!). I based it on the picture and the information given in the description.

I usually make the window show the listing order from least popular to most popular. Mostly to help the "little guy" but also because of how the system is gamed. The places of ACTUAL quality are usually somewhere in the middle of the list.

Then again, nothing beats the "hey where did you get that?" factor!

If someone was paying attention they should make a "word-of-mouthBot" that randomly walks around high populated areas wearing/using items and recognizes when people say "nice av" or "where did you get that" and things like that and automatically says "thank you I got this at ____" and gives a lm automatically. I'd buy it!

god help me i totally agree with squeeze.

I got my start in SL by camping. I didn't have RL money free to invest in ANY online entertainment, and I intended to build from the beginning. I earned enough to upload textures and such by camping, which I sometimes did while AFK but mostly while chatting with new folks.

I found some of my favorite places through some very lovely open camping methods, such as simply being paid to be in the sim while I looked around and met people.

I've always thought it would be nice to give back to SL someday and put up some interesting camping spots that double as cool 'background' that matches the sim. The gardening in an outdoor spot is an example of that.

However, I see how people are gaming it; using alts, hovering up in the sky so they don't have to interact with anyone, etc. I'll have to get more creative with my concept to give lindens to newbies and add color to a sim.

I never cared about traffic; I figure people will come for the product, if it's good enough. Just an FYI, though I doubt people who are dead set against the camping concept would believe that.

i was reading about a 'chat camp' system. basically people stand around, and if the chat they get a few $ kicked to them every now and then.
sounds like a system with a bit of hope, cos you would obviously spot random bot chat and it would encourage real people to talk and whatnot while earning a bit of $.

Just either make the chairs only work for certain group of people like your own alts or pay those you know who need it and can camp there.
The issue is for those of us who can't buy lindens and need it often we can't find jobs or even people to buy our goods.
If truly want to help others with jobs while increasing traffic and creating community why not advertise for people make your camping equipment group only and the group invitation only then you can prevent bots from using it and give the jobs to those who truly need it.
The sad thing is most people who use camp chairs they don't really care about anyone except there own traffic and getting people who feel obligated to buy products from them in exchange for few lindens a hour.
If I had the means and the lindens I would create area that would have camp chairs for people who truly needed it and way to get together and socialize and not make it about traffic or making money but about creating income in the economy where there is none.
For some people like myself we don't have lot of money and the majority of money goes towards paying for tier and land, the few L we earn camping is used for photographs, uploads and occasionally being able to buy products from others like textures, gifts for our friends.
Those who get huge hunk of Lindens in world very few I bet put it back in the economy and its all about profit and cashing out.
If there was just 25 percent spent more in actual things that built communities, provide jobs and social networks SL would be whole lot better friendlier place to those of us who can't buy tons of lindens, or will never be able to be skilled enough to compete with highly skilled and well known who are able to earn income through jobs.
Yet sadly for most its about greed, profit and getting theirs at all cost and not about friendship, creativity and community

Now I'd consider setting something like THAT up at my place! I wonder if it could detect voice chat as well...

YOU are gaming the traffic system by using camping chairs. Unless you are on a private island of your own, those campers that YOU are USING to boost your traffic rates are also using resources on the sim, possibly barring other people who own land on that sim from entering, which would interfere with their user experience, and also probably causing lag.

Some people that realize the detriment of camping will not even patronize a business that uses these tactics. My suggestion would be to find a better way to make your store recognizable.

If you're agreeing with me than it shows that God has helped you already!

... by putting out camping chairs.

and someone else is gaming the system to make money.

and SHE is mad?

No, actually, she said she was doing it to give money to new folks and didn't care so much about traffic. If all she cared about was traffic, then she obviously wouldn't care if they were all run by the same player. You don't have to believe her if you don't want to, but bypassing her argument altogether in favor of a different one that you have concocted is a bit unfair, as well as extremely poor debate form.

i may be wrong about her motives for the camping chairs.

if she wanted to give money away, why not use a money tree?

Actually, you're getting your posts confused. The OP specifically stated that she put the camping chairs there to get the traffic numbers higher. SOMEONE ELSE mentioned originally having camping chairs to help the new guys out but noticed alts and bots using them and discontinued it.

And the OP seems to be avoiding the obvious of not caring "if they were all run by the same player". Logic would clearly dictate this assumption, though.

Because those suck. I gave up on them my second day in SL.

My apologies then!