how rich are they getting

What we (WBA-Advertising) discovered during our preliminary research prior to starting our machinima company in SL was, that with the likes of Electric Sheep charging around 10kUSD for a 'advertising' movie, and the 'hobbist movies', was there is a large hole that can be filled by those serious enough to invest in developing a business.

The reality is, that you have to look at what people in SL consider a 'reasonable' cost based on the monetary values within SL, then convert that into RL money values, to see if you have the foundation for a viable business plan. If we had to exist purely on the SL income, we would not sustain growth and expansion, giving us investment money to develop sufficiently to meet the growing demands on 'technical' requirements. We found that gaining a foothold within SL, gave us the portfolio to take to RL companies and gain RL contracts. For us, this business model worked.

It was always our intension to fully host and stream into SL every movie we make, without using 3rd parties taking care of that, this was to support the introduction of the Silver Stream Network, which is a fully secure media system, that will develop into a 'media anywhere in SL for all' network, overcoming the 'limitations' of media rights, permissions etc. The introduction of the systems were not cheap and investments in both time and money have been quite steep, along with financing and supporting the host and streaming network of servers, along with powerful PC systems to make the media in the first instance.

The payoff, has been that our investments are producing the forecasted revenues from both SL and RL clients. All these contracts have created the 'steps' we needed to create the markets needed and within the 'ceilings' created by the likes of Electric Sheep. However, creating a profit is always a borderline excercise and we do not expect to see any real profits this year, until the full rollout of the Silver Stream Network. The key to the whole thing was the production of a solid Business Plan and CashFlow forecaster, whithout which, given the levels of investment, would have meant sailing blindly.

Anyone can achieve a market underneath the likes of larger companies within SL, simply on the basis of evaluating costs against potential income, dealing soley with the L$ values.

With places like ESC, they have to cover big overheads such as a large amount of staff - not sure if they have a central building to work from as well.

For "Fred and a shed" or "Chuck and a truck" one man businesses, mostly run from home, most are 'part time' developers, with little to no overheads as they are already paying for premises (home), power, computer, internet access etc as part of their daily life, hence they can have much lower 'end costs'. Obviously everyone has different 'profit margins' v 'time taken' - but the simple fact is that a lot of the 'freelancers' can provide as good an end result as the 'big four', at a fraction of the cost. I still find it staggering that ESC has only completed 17 projects - albeit for big name corporations - in all this time.

I don't know how this is going to work, or whether it might impact what you are doing - but one resident has already filed a 'patent' for ppv streaming media in to Second Life: http://www.slnn.com/article/patent-in-second-life/

Broccoli

Our business plan is a large undertaking to say the least. We are budgeted for 24 employees. There is also a very high barrier of entry (15 million USD) to try and pull off what we propose to do. It will be very interesting to see if someone gets pay per view in second life, although i don't know how someone can patent what exists already( i can understand getting a license for ppv on this platform). That still is a very good idea, but i foresee potential problems with the SL technology supporting it.

As for technology, we have developed something called "liquid technology". It will allow our customer base to grow into our technology ( unlike SL) we will not be caught on our heals due to fast growth.

We plan to market our idea to the residents in SL through every possible media outlet in-world. However, we have a multi- million dollar ad campaign planned for the real world. Because of the finicky taste of the SL residents, we felt this was necessary to have a larger RL campaign just incase the residents did not take to our idea (even though the novelty will attract both residents and non -residents alike).

We will be profitable by the end of the first year. And we think that the barriers of entry are too high to worry about competition. If they do come eventually, we will have the more mature model. I like the network idea as well, but it sounds like you might be leaving money on the table with the way it was explainedor maybe not. All the same good luck, and i will be watching your growth. Good luck, and thanks again for the input.

AMW, we may need to collaborate, when i am up and running. I will certainly keep you posted.

You can find more information on the Silver Stream Network system at which is a sister company to WBA-Advertising, this allows us to prove investements/expenditures against potential taxes on VR platforms, we put this all in place prior to starting our companies, which in light of things, was a good move. [url=http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2833957.ece

EML-Entertainments handles the 'domestic' rollout of the Silver Stream Network selling TV/Movie screen/Player combination units, whereas WBA handles the commercial rollout through its activities of Movie media advertising.

Later this year is planned the Media HUD, an attachment when worn gives the user access to any media within SL, either through user input, or commercial menu systems. It doesn't require any permissions such as media, building etc... once you are in a SIM with a Silver Stream Server installed, you can use it. The rollout since launch 3 months ago is running to 100's of SIMs creating not only 'hotpots' but an integral SLIntranet for media. The system can handle static 2d pics, movies, music and can incorporate 'radio', advertising, virtually any media available from the internet, with the correct permissions of access.

BTW, the Silver Stream Network has no connection to, or with the ppv system. This is a completely different business model and system that doesn't require the user to pay for media content.

Great. When the time comes, we can advertise through you. We'll be advertising through the normal channels in SL. We also want to add more media content to SL in the future,our ideas might compliment each other.

How do you guys get around IP rights? (you may have answered that, i'll reread your post).

Might be preferable to discuss this via email in the first instance, don't wish to appear to be hi-jacking this post
[email="contact@wba-advertising.com