How can an roadside billboard network function in Second Life?

Exactly. And this is the difference between people like yourselves and adfarmers-billboarders. You add value. They do not.

Example:

An RL company put up huge billboards along our street (because the bylaws allowed them to). They are universally loathed by the neighbours and the products they advertise and are always a hot topic over the garden fence. I make a point of not buying any products advetised on them and I cheerfully fire off an email to the seller everytime a new ad appears, informing them that I'm happy to let them know I won't be buying any of their products while their ad campaign runs. Appears to be working because one of the four boards has been advertising itself for nearly 2 months now, and another one is plain white quite often now =p

On the other hand, the local Council was approached by an ad company who offered to replace and maintain the bus shelter in return for being able to place ads in it. We got a brand-new modern and stylish bus shelter in our road, that doesn't leak in the rain, way better than what the Council could ever afford. And the ads are really stylish, tasteful and funky. I like that ad company and their customers get a happy email from me as well =)

I checked, i didn't see any campaigns of mature nature (ad itself, or the product) not being marked as mature, can you send a screencap if that happens again, so if i did miss it?

I also thought we had stopped using full-bright ones and none existed anymroe, was this Firespire sim?

Do BNT communicate to their residents or not, is not of my deciding, aswell as the deal isn't finished yet.

We have billboards on our sims, and people are fine with it, i regularly move them around if anyone has a problem with them (ie. blocking entrance), infact, that's the only type of complaint i ever hear.




At the time she offered i did not know she was blocking it, she did not mention it, and i saw it when i arrived there. So calling me now a liar? I wonder what the GTeam / Moderators have to say about your trollish tactics .... Want me to ask?

Sooo, what if i'd come and completely build walls around your business? Would you like that? Expect me to visit there, and if it were mine, expect an AR.

Oooh, i had completely forgotten that spot already, there was 3x32sqm or was it 6x16sqm for sale CHEAP at the time, would you rather have seen on that spot some spinning cubes?

If not, i did you a favor if you live around that place.



Our residents are very happy, ty for asking



No virtual loansharking, just an service for those in need, what's so bad about that? Is subprime mortgage called loansharking? NO, but it is. Many people lost their houses for a few grand.



Oh they stopped flooding already couple days back, that's the silently portion, those who noticed it before announcement made quite a few bucks



We already know you hate pretty much all forms advertising unless it's your. You are so fanatic and emotional about this issue, how come?

No, banking policy does NOT stop offering loans, it only limits automated vehicles for banking activity, PAYING interest in return of a deposit(investment). Banking inworld is still allowed if you do it manually. The banking policy was an blanket ban aswell, there's no possibility that say US would grant you a banking license for something which is not a currency from legal perspective.

Yes, subprime crisis. But i do not offer unsecured, it's always a secured loan what we offer. Otherwise, everyone would abuse that, and we would be essentially giving cash & land away. There's no trust in secondlife, it's utter fairytale to people honor non-enforced contracts in SL.

I don't so much mind advertising in shopping areas. For example, if you have a load of ads for clothes, then I wouldn't be put off by an advert for clothes sitting in a vendor space in a mall that serves primarily in clothes.

However, it's when you get large billboards that advertise things you're not interested in that it starts to get off-putting. This is why Google targeted ads are sometimes considered the lesser of the evils of advertising, as the ads are at least relevant to the site you're on (where you are) so might be of interest to you.

My recommendation therefore for advertising in SL is to make sure all adverts are tagged correctly, then place advertising in shopping areas or other relevant places, and have them serve only adverts tagged with relevant keywords. So in a clothes mall you might have a billboard which serves tags like "clothes, shoes, fashion" etc.

Anything else is always going to be super-controversial and people will be put off because they will be seeing advertising where all they wanted was to enjoy a park, or a drive in a new vehicle and so-on.

Jeez.

Pally, I don't complain about even the scummy ad-farmers. But your attitude toward potential customers is pathetic.

If you understood the ad business, you'd not be saying such things to people - no matter that it's true that building around a business/home is against the TOS. You come off like a self-righteous git. Like an ad-farmer laughing at the adjoining property owners complaining about their blight and taunting that to take care of the problem, they can buy the 16m^2 parcel for 100,000L$.

You wonder what makes merchants avoid free-ranging in-world ads? That'd be a hint there.

Aaand, we should just allow such action against us? Someone who blocks our installation is NOT a potential customer. And no we don't have 16sqms, and no we do not ask something that ridiculous.

Now would you like to advertise on such a platform where a significant portion of the billboards are being blocked?


As for the targeting, we've been having plans for such, we just haven't had time to develop it yet.

See? You just have to be "right". Self-righteous claptrap.

I didn't say to ignore a real TOS offense, I said not to say such things as "I'm goin' out there to check up and I'll AR you if you did that to me!" to potential customers. Everyone is a potential customer. How you treat anyone is going to be your measure to customers, potential and current. I also didn't say you were a 16M^2 extortionist, I compared the attitudes of such with yours.

Amateur. You really need to read up on customer relations, son. It's your weakest point. That's a disaster for an advertising biz.

You'd probably be upset too if someone could buy all the neighbours land around you carve off the front 4m to fill with empr rezzing & particle signs and then sold the rest off to the wolves. Basically carving a nice quiet residential sim into chaotic non functional spam. And thats what adfarming is is about as legitimate as the hundreds of nigerian & viagra emails bouncing round the net.

Who'd even notice, with all the screens I've had to build to block out the goddamn ad farms?

It seems as if the folks who run in-world display advertising networks don't really understand what they are doing to their neighbors. Back before the initial adfarming ban, at least some of them must have understood because they were using the ads as terror weapons in their extortion schemes. But now that those "businesses" are separated, the ad-runners appear to think that the neighbors shouldn't be upset--they're complying with the ToS, right? And who wants Big Brother policing ugly builds?

But nobody else makes a business of scattering outrageously outsized ugly builds, optimized for generating annoyance, all over the grid. Nobody else relies on exploiting the land surrounding them--one part in 4096 destroying the sight lines of the rest of the sim and beyond.

There's a reason billboards are regulated in RL. There's a reason my ISP doesn't sell web advertisers the right to put up banner ads on everybody else's webpage. There's a reason the ToS *will* change.

You still don't get it, Tyrian, do you? You come here asking for positive suggestions, but refuse to accept the reality that for many of us, the only positive suggestion is to rid SL of the vast preponderance of advertising altogether. I absolutely respect your right to hold your particular view on the matter, but no amount of justification and wheedling on your part will make me agree that the majority of advertising in SL is a good or necessary thing.

I, like many others, have no interest in suggesting ways to 'improve' it - I want to see it gone. That would be the only way to make the situation more bearable, for me. A replication of the nauseating bombardment of advertising I have to put up with in real life has no place in 'my world, my imagination'.

But, as I said, I respect your right to hold your view - please, have the courtesy to respect the right of others to disagree with you, and give up continually flogging a dead horse.

To me it seems like the general opinion is that i should drop what i'm doing and leave all the scattered tiny plots i've purchased to prevent real extortionists to the extortionists.

I see a lot of rose color attitudes here.

I do not expect to everyone like advertising, that's the nature of advertising, there's people who hate classifieds too in SL. However, the fact remains that outdoors advertising is in use, and people use it, and it remains until regulated.

As for the regulation, there's rumours circulating that LL has been considering zoning specific areas for advertising. I welcome such a change, it would make my job much more pleasant.

However, isn't anyone here willing to admit that the advertising is there, and probably is to stay there?

I've done much work to make the advertising more pleasant to those who view the adverts, and i would like to do more, that's why i started this thread.

No amount of griefing, trolling or shooting flamebaits is going to change me running the advertising network.

I'm giving YOU a real chance to make an impact, an change! as long as we keep realities straight, having an 1024sqm for a single tiny advertising doesn't have a viable business plan, if it does, show it to me, how!

Find me ways to do it so that YOU as a viewer do not hate the advertising, yet it's as a business viable, that means for advertisers viable as well. I haven't yet seen good suggestions to achieve all that.

Take the bull from it's horns, and take advantage of the chance GIVEN to YOU. Show me a way to run an outdoors advertising network which has business viability and is pleasant for the neighbours.

Why waste such a chance to stupid flamebaits and trolling? Someone with the skills, money and clientele is giving YOU an chance to make an IMPACT. TAKE ADVANTAGE

Listen Lady, here is what is going to happen; There is a off-shoot of Arbor Group forming that is a little more 'aggressive' in their methods. The wesite with the list of Adfarm advertisers that will be boycotted is already in the works. These business' will be identified in-world also. If it is a real life company their CEO and Board of Directors will recive a link to the boycott site so they are well aware of the 'impact' of their virtual advertising. Get it? Got it? Good.

Tyrian
While I will be the first to admit that there may be a need for advertising the point that many will make is that advertising HAS caused harm in SL. To attack people makes you just as guilty as the people who are attacking you. People who are into advertising tend to be blind to the people around them. One perfect example is someone who recently spent 20 minutes in Concierge chat talking about this after Leo Linden sent a message stating that inappropriae commentary didn't belong in concierge.

It's not that we question your right to exist. We question how much you listen to the people who make legitimate complaints against the industry.

Because of the way you have "won the hearts and minds of the people here" I've decided that ads will be banned in all regions I control as part of the covenant. When advertisers become this agressive I want no part of them in any areas I control.

I tried that last night, and you could click right through it after.

AR away AD-Boy I get to operate on the same rules you abuse I can build anything at all on my land and I dont have it for sale so cry to the lindens all you want.

While the legitimate complaints are in the shape of "DIE SCUMBAG!" ... Uhm, yeah, thought so.

That being said, there is legitimate concerns, but i keep getting binned the same as Umnik Hax and Robo Marx. Hell, those two HATE ME A LOT. Robo seems to also target places where i have a lot of land so he can devalue the land around there causing me losses. Umnik did that, he spent a lot of time hunting where i have my billboards to hide them with his spam.

I am here to try and listen to the neighbours, but i need something usefull to work with, instead of all the bashing, trolling and griefing. These same people who grief do not recognize even my right to live. I've been constantly targeted not only by Robo Marx and Umnik Hax, but aswell other people from neighbours to Prokofy Neva, Nobody Fugazi, and some other people thought to be rather reasonable.

Yes, advertising has caused A LOT of harm, that's why i formed Mainostaulu, in an attempt to mitigate that harm, i am trying to benefit the community, while admittably i intend to profit from it aswell. However, the trend is that very few is willing to recognize that.

I don't want to grief people, nor do land extortionism, or harass people.
I've managed to do an impact on the markets to the better, no one wants to admit that neither.

This is highly relevant on that group btw, it does affect the mainland, it's not personal stuff, the thing from which was warned on that group.

as for Lias, i'm no lady. And what "offspring group" might that be?

That brings me to garbage collectors, an group i formed which collects land dumped by ad farmers, and puts on them trees. And this is the feedback i get from that: "Causing Annoyance", "Harassment", "Land Encroachment", "Visual Annoyance", "Disturbing The Peace" and "...causing actions which interfere or disrupt the SL community.".

That comes from someone who does partially the same exact thing, with some small changes: charges for access to the land to get their "anti adfarming information", land not for sale.

And i thought Trees are fine, sure sometimes the trees encroach, in every single case he's come and acquired the land after me so that it's quite certain that encroachment will happen, after i had bought on the edges of the ad farm the cheap parcels and put trees so that if someone puts there spam, it wouldn't be atleast that visible, he buys almost all, if not all of the cheap stuff, and therefore actually benefitting ad farmers.

I'm considering dropping that stuff as well, i don't have time for such as this guy keeps complaining. However, i do consider that guy being an adfarmer on the more serious side despite his "nice anti adfarmer act" due to charging access to land, attacking people who tries to combat adfarming as well etc.

QFT. I do not want to see in world ads, especially from RL companies, or Internet businesses that don't even have a presence in SL. Figure out a way to put all ads in some sort of classified system, that I can look at IF I want to. Or create an Ad Island, where you can go and get Landmarks and TP's to the businesses. Esentially an Opt In System, but we know what a dirty word that is to Internet types. But again, no business that doesn't have an SL presence. Keep yoour RL garbage out there.

One thing that all successful extortionists have in common is they are quite upfront and honest, for want of a better word, about their activities. Less successful ones have an alarming tendency toward believing their own spin.

OK, here's a snapshot I took a minute or two ago at Firespire 183, 110, 30. As you can see, the billboard is is clearly full-bright, and the ads displayed here include ads for a "Gentlemen's club" and a BDSM club, neither of which I would consider appropriate businesses to advertise in a PG sim. Also, as the snapshot shows, the ads are visually noisy and obtrusive. If they were situated in a park or open area that contributed something to the sim, I'd find them a bit less obnoxious. As it is, they are bright, brash and ugly, and add nothing positive at all to my home. All they do is make it a less pleasant environment to spend time in.

If you used a transparent texture, you can right-click through it and get the pie-menu for the object behind, but a left click should be blocked (at least it is for me). To block the right-click too, use a blank texture and llSetAlpha(0.0, ALL_SIDES).

Oh Pleezue, that ad isn't Fullbright, it cant be more than 98% bright at the max, and the woman isn't completely nude so it fits right in, and look how harmonious it looks under the moonlight. This is just the family friendly advertising they are known for, nothing to see here, just move on, preferably to our BDSM club. </sarcasm off>

Thanks I'll try that