How can an roadside billboard network function in Second Life?

You know, Darien, it's just like those MS will give you money if you forward this letter chain letters - people are secretly hoping that the item really WILL increase the size of their whatever.

You mean that The Edge, Bad Girls and Goddess of Love do not have enough Traffic for you? How about Welfare Island? or CAMP ISLAND? Still not enough traffic? Then Try Naughty Neva's or Hard Alley - and the list goes on.

Not tested and not true. According to your argument - we all must deal with your blight so you can make a system that will make you more money. So much for your concerns about the community.

And because adfarmers have no concern for the community the TOS had to be ammended.

Are your children going to starve to death if you don't make $100,000L this month? Pull your blights from the landscape and develop the community-minded system and give everyone a much needed break.

Again not true. We all knwo what the META CARD is - its everywhere now - because they had a good marketing team. The maker of the game MOB MENTALITY gave many Venue owners the device to try and its all over the grid in venues. He offers excellent support and has a very good Customer Service team for his affiliate clubs. But its easier for you to throw a board on a plot and make money. Its much more labor intensive to develop something that would benefit yourself without harming others.

Thousands of ad terminals destroying the mainland. I would never get into your Venue ad board system as long as you have those adfarm plots. Any ad company that offerred ads in venues ONLY and no mainland blight would get much more business than you.

Lias,

To me you have somekind of personal grudge, and got misinformation. Single billboard does not constitute an *FARM*, an *FARM* requires an *FARM* to begin with.

See arbor's list, am i, or any of our corporate accounts banned? There you got an answer, an logical method applied to determine ad farming. Infact, we've been quite an contributor.

Also, as said, i've always worked with the neighbours, who act pleasantly, unlike yourself, bashing and trolling does not get THE JOB DONE. Emotionality only hinders business. Do not be a fanatic, be a logical being capable of reasoning. The very thing which defines being human, and differentiates us from animals.

Ad farming is a serious problem, and i've lost myself thousands of dollars, real life US Dollars, on estimate land value decrease. Infact, many ad farmers target us, see where we got lots of land, buys one of the cheapest parcels, and turns it into spam ad farm.

As for the romantic garden, could you provide the SLURL to the store you suggest to look for? I'm targeting 512sqm parcel size, with 4 ads on it (which covers roughly 1/4th of the cost to maintain the place).

See, the tiny amount of which of your posts is reasoning, has already achieved something, is that so hard? FANATICISM do not achieve anything else than hatred and anger at best, if anything ... and at worst, just google for results of fanaticism.

Also, our whole ad network was FOUNDED on the fact that there needs to be proper advertising venues for advertisers instead of ad farmers. Our business model has been copied many times over, fortunately for us, those who copied missed the details which makes Mainostaulu what it is.

There will be people that no matter what you say or do, will always be against you. No matter the argument or facts, they will consistantly try to twist things around in a never-ending attempt at having the last word.

That is your definition. That is not teh definition the community adheres to.

Why is your viability the community's problem? Thats like saying the government made it hard for me to make a profit so I am using a gun and sticking people up now.

Yes, those ads promising to increase the size of my brain *do* look temping...

I guess it comes down to what people really desire. I had someone spam sexbeds in a group I admin once (funny enough), advertising them for L$1000. I told the group members that if anyone actually wanted one, to save their money and I'd give them one for free, half jokingly. Sure enough I got several IMs from people wanting one. So I gave them all a copy of one I had.

But I had to wonder how many of those people would have responded to the spammer had I not said that. Sadly it must produce results.

You said you have THOUSANDS of terminals of ads on the mainland.

Remember, the TOS was adjusted to hinder your activities because of community outrage.

People who bought lovely plots of land lost thousands of dollars when you adfarmers moved in and destroyed their views.

Your just feeling hatred and anger? No one complained about your THOUSANDS of ad terminals on the mainland before? Perhaps you have been blissfully alting. Here is your wake up call.

A adfarm business wearing rose-colored glasses.

Unfortunately you are right
80/20 also applies here, like in every where else, along with many other "rules". Amazing how tose little things seem to just apply.

I would however assume something like that 80% are completely fine with proper ad networks, 20% are OK with it, from those 20% (4%) do not like it, and from those 20% (0.8%) is the very vocal minority.

So we endup with 96% is atleast OK with it unfortunately they are quiet also, the 0.8% gets all emotional and thus vocal. Advocates never tend to be as vocal as opposition.

Simple answer: It cannot.

Long-winded answer:
Billboards are a common and well-known blight in RL, and appreciated by few even there. However, I will stipulate that some outdoor advertising is useful. For example, "Cheap gas / good eats next exit" signs are a blessing driving down the road. However, I doubt either you or Ancient know why those ads are tolerable/acceptable by a "Luddite" (Ancient's term for me, along with "furry"; go figure ) like me.



To me as well as many people, ad farming and "outdoor advertising" (the PC term for it) are synonymous, not only because they both are almost universally detested, but also because the same people who are involved with one are (or were... sins of the past and all that rot) inextricably involved with the other.



Well, I have seen your adboards. You have a 96sqm plot with THREE of the frickin' things in my home sim, constant flashing your ads. Granted, I will give you that your network seems to be the only one serving real ads; the rest have been showing the same crap (or, haha, ads for their own network; a real "we're noobs" sign if there ever was one) for months. However, I still consider it a blight, even though there is NOTHING and NOONE ANYWHERE near it. Some other dipshit went and put his 50m prim adtower of death in the NE corner of the sim, where there isn't ANYTHING nearby. His ads seem to cycle a bit more than others, but it is clear he has no conception of what an advertising business does nor how to do it well.



I can't say I blame them. I certainly wouldn't advertise with anyone whose sole method of making money is finding the worst possible way to piss off my potential customers, too. Real businessmen with an ounce of business acumen know what kind of advertising works and why it works, and well know what kind to avoid like the plague it is.



If you are referring to the outdoor *cough* SPAM *cough* advertising model in virtual worlds, nothing can be changed. It is wrong, it is odious, and LL should have known better to allow it in the first place.

If you are talking about a REAL advertising model, one which allows people to opt-in, and doesn't sully their neighborhoods or drop their property values through the terrain, then maybe it would be best advised to use that model instead.



Sure it is. I plan to use the forums, blogs, events, classifieds, websites, and my own advertising network to advertise my business. Gotta get my name out there somehow. The difference is that NONE of it involves public outdoor advertising. NONE of it.Because I am nothing if not a community-minded businessman. My business operates in HARMONY with the community, and doesn't seek in any way to EXPLOIT it. That's generally a tenet of bad advertising systems.. exploitation, and in many cases, it shows.

While you may believe your ad signs are works of art, the only thing they make me want to do is put a large rock on top of them. The blink all kinds of weird textures for fractions of a second.



Define "A LOT". 10? 20? I can get up that many neighbors in my sim alone to tell you that we DO NOT want your billboards close to our places. Period.



Abandon the outdoor advertising model. It will bring you nothing but headaches in the long run.



Pay per click advertising LONG preceded Google, and though it was originally hated on by the true Luddites, most reasonable, rational people (like myself) understood it as an opt-in system, and didn't have a huge problem with it. I still do everything I can to block seeing unwanted advertising, even in opt-in situations, but I understand and accept it.

What do I mean by that? Simple. If I give away a free service or product (web site, broadcast TV program, ballpoint pens, etc), advertising is what pays for those things, so advertising is the price people pay for having those things remain free. However, when people start PAYING for a service, the ads need to go away. This is kind of murky territory for print media, since you pay for the newspaper or magazine, but the price is often more about paying for the paper and the delivery method, rather than the content itself, which is why traditional print media is losing out bigtime to the web. The web is FAR cheaper, and you don't need a pay-per-issue or subscription model to supplement it with advertising.

In the case of SL, *I* *PAY* for it. A lot. I have two subscriptions, and beyond that, I pay half a region's worth of tier a month to be where I am. I will be DAMNED if I have to be force-fed spam advertising in the form of blaring billboards near my land. That's why I see it as so odious and wrong. It IS visual spam, and it needs to be abolished. Last year.

Not to mention the fact that SL has a BUILT-IN advertising system which works globally, is 100% opt-in, and performs better by several orders of magnitude than all ad farms/networks combined. What's the point in hitting a few sims with my ads (most of which residents will never see anyway), when I can be right there where anyone can find me in the Real Yellow Pages?

Adfarmer group hug. Then back to the status quo.

That was an *amazing* number trick. Can you do that again?

He must work with Hillary Clinton.

What else would anyone expect you to say? "No, you're right, it doesn't work; I am going to take down all my billboards now and take up knitting." Come on, dude; no one believes for a minute that you would ever accept The Truth, unless it propped up your business somehow. Thus, whatever numbers you have are obviously tainted with your own bias, and completely unusable for any kind of "proof".

I only know what I think about the situation, and what others tell me when the subject comes up. To date, the ONLY people tooting the outdoor advertising horn are you all, the ones running (and ruining) that business.



I'm not anti-ad. I am anti-spam, anti-extortion, anti-ruining people's VW experiences. I am down on griefing. I am down on Copyright infringement. There are some things that are just wrong, no matter how you slice them or otherwise try and justify them.

I actually have a business plan to build my own advertising network. One that will NEVER own any land or put up a single public outdoor billboard. Personally, I don't want to be in the advertising business. I am simply going to build the software system (since that is my forte), and going to hire someone with real advertising experience to run it. I expect that it will be wildly successful, assuming the business plan comes together with the right people operating it.



..except that is your legacy. You all have been involved in land cutting, ad farming, and extortion (and still are! General Nuisance still has 16s out there for sale under his microplot land extortion group) from the beginning. Now you are trying to clean up your act, and are probably eager to put all that bad stuff behind you. It's kinda like a mafia gang turning good; it's almost too incredulous to believe. Well, let us know when you get there, and maybe what you are saying will hold more weight. Right now, I don't see the results being all that positive.



Actually, it is TOTALLY TRUE AND ACCURATE! No, really! Billboards ARE an anachronism. WTF does it matter if you have a billboard next to a road (and nothing else)? HOW MANY residents do you see driving down the road, let alone slow enough for your ad images to rez, hmmm? The Virtual World is a new frontier, and it doesn't need to drag the stupid, useless metaphor baggage from the past in RL with it.

Terrorists, huh? Well, I guess every person I have ever met in SL must be an anti-ad "terrorist", then, because I don't know anyone, ANYONE outside of you all who likes your advertising methods.

Are we really, REALLY in the minority? I tend to think that those who claim they represent the majority consensus and that everyone else who disagrees with them is in the "minority" tend to be the ones who are deluding themselves. But, hey, don't let me ruin a perfectly good craniorectal inverted fantasy for ya.

I think the issue isn't so much adfarming per se, it's zoning.

The absolute ability to do whatever you want on your own land, with literally zero regard for neighbours if you so choose.

I doubt it will ever change on existing mainland, for one reason: people bought in with the *expectation* that they all can do pretty much whatever they want on their own land.

Without a doubt, one of the primary benefactors of all this anarcho-capitalistic behaviour on the mainland are the offshore private estate owners like me.

Even so, I see pressure for change. 1/4 billion square meters of mainland may face off-grid competition someday, forcing it to be highly competitive. At which point business realities may overtake the current situation of our relatively isolated world.

Just one of the not so vocal minority..

I despise outdoor advertising in SL. To the point I refuse to do any business with those that advertise this way.. When I see a sign that particularly offends me I will IM the owner of the business and tell them how displeased I am that they support such a blight upon the landscape of our beautiful world, and that the have lost my business for as long as they continue to do such.

"I am here to ask those of you whom we are smacking in the face why you are so upset with us smacking you in the face, and to ask you what you would suggest we improve about our smack-you-in-the-face system to help make it better for you."

"Yeah, stop smacking us in the face. Smacking us in the face is stupid and makes us want to beat your ass."

"Oh, great, so now the vocal minority shows up. Trolls! You have nothing to contribute, NOTHING! We are here to stay, so you will just have to get used to us smacking you in the face forever! MUHUHAHAHAHA!"

"OK, so your point in coming here was, what, exactly?"



Never say never. This stupid, odious business model is being attacked on many fronts, and it is only a matter of time before it dies the painful death it so richly deserves.



Yes, I am sure you can get your 100 alts to all nod their heads simultaneously with that utterance, too.



Dear Ad Farmer,

Next time you come to a PUBLIC forum and decide to "test the waters" for sharks, bring a shark cage. Also, come with the understanding that the reason that we, the sharks, bite is because you provide a smorgasbord of inanity.

Love and bites...

Nicely played, but I'm not buying.



Why do you think that is? <.< Hmmm? >.> I bet you will get positive response lowering them in high-traffic areas, too. Whatcha wanna bet?



Yeah, because they are often a legacy of your ad-farming days, where they end up as chunks or holes out of perfectly good parcels. Yes, I want your "holes" gone out of and next to my lands, and no, I don't want to give you any to replace them, because I don't want you next to my land. Why simply move a garbage dump when you can clean one up?



Yes, all over those 6 56kbps modem connections to your servers.

It's not impossible at all. You build the system, test it, roll it out in small batches, optimize it, fix bottlenecks, roll out more, etc. Oh, wait.. you meant impossible for *you*... my mistake. >.>

Well, why don't you start with your 16sqm in Mocis, then move north to the one in Gabara. Those two "sigange"'s of yours have been there forever and they are in the middle of residential areas. They ruin the view for the other 65,520sqm of the Sim. At one time, you had them priced around 10,000 Lindens each - that was extortion. Obviously you can't do this anymore, but you would if you could.

<------ spits out the bait

If you're on mainland that's the price you pay for mainland. There's an ad farm policy, if the ads are breaching that it will get removed, if not, they have as much right to be there as you. The same as people who have builds that are less pleasing on the eye than others, they paid for their little plots too, they subscribe.



If only, have you seen the price you need to pay to get decent exposure in the classified system?

The Lindens think so too. They have places just like this, called "Infohubs".

I agree that's not the way to go about dealing with people. My process is to make a Fair Market Value offer for the land in question, why I want it, and to be as polite as possible initially. When I am then greeted with hostility, or immediately after, a stack of ad towers go up with light, fullbright, glow, spin, etc on the plot, I get nasty. I have a nice megaprim adtower encasement I use for just such occasions.

Small holes in larger plots should be subject to eminent domain anyway, as far as I am concerned.



I offer no more than L$10/sqm on any plot of land right now, and have been at that price for months, whilst the actual average price (Fair Market Value) for land has dropped to L$6/sqm and lower. Anything higher than that is insultingly high, and I consider it extortion. Your time spent in finding locations doesn't interest me or factor into any consideration I have for the land itself. I spend an equal or greater amount of time dealing with adfarming crap, so I don't really have a whole lot of sympathy for your time spent. Sorry.

I nominate Qie as the WINNAR of this thread!

Absolutely and totally 100% correct.

Yes, but you need to buy a clue with all that advertising revenue:

Banner ads are an OPT-IN system to pay for FREE CONTENT.

Outdoor ads in SL are (no way to) OPT-OUT system which is tantamount to spam and should never have been allowed in the first place.

I support banner ads on free sites. I DO NOT SUPPORT outdoor advertising models in SL. SL isn't free, and I shouldn't have to look at that BS.

<------ sniffs and doesn't even nibble