Do people actually search the SL web site for events and whatnot?

So I'm getting ready to go to the next phase in my business ventures in SL which will include a large, artistic build that'll double as a small mall/gathering place (gotta pay the bills!)

What I want to know is if anyone actually looks up events or the postcards or whatever on SL's website. Is it worth it?

Do you as a consumer/explorer/hobo look up events on a regular basis?

Have you as a business owner noticed an increase of traffic since listing events and other things beyond the in-world search?

Thanks for your input!

I have never looked up an event. Having said that I know people who have setup events and reported great success, one even rented more land from me on the back of an event because of increased sales.

So I'd say they work and that people do look for them, they appear as stars on the map anyway.

P.S. I am fairly ignorant to the different options even available on the SL web site since I only use in-world search and slexchange.com myself. Forgive me if I don't use the right terminology or whatever.

I don't use it at all for searching for event or classifieds listings. On the website, there is no way to narrow down the search by typing in a keyword, such as hair or shoe. I am usually looking for a specific kind of product, so I'd rather just use the in world, which reduces the amount I have to hunt through by a lot.

Now, I sometimes use the forums to do my seekings, since there is a keyword search.

PS: I'm not sure, but I think if you post an event in world, it's going to show up in the list anyways. Same for the classifieds.

To my knowledge, the Events listings inworld and on the website are identical. The only difference is the interface.

As far as I'm aware, you can't list events inworld. You list them on the website and they appear inworld.

I might be missing what you're actually asking .

If you want to post an event, you have to do that on the site, you can't do it in-world. If your event is PG then it'll show up on the site and in-world, if it's Mature you'd only be able to find it in-world.

When you click "Add Event" on http://secondlife.com/events/ you get the basic rules for posting events. Since it doubles as a mall, an opening event would fall under the "Commercial" category and needs to have a set start-time and end-time, rather than try and get away with one "Grand Opening All-Day" event that isn't actually a real event, but just an ad.

OK...so it turns out I'm as ignorant about this as I thought. Isn't there some "publish on web" setting for land?

Wasn't there also some "postcard" deal somewhere? Back in the day when they actually had a map of SL on the web site I remember there being postcards or something like that. Is that still around? Did it ever really exist?

Thanks for the feedback so far. It's looking like I'll have to resort to some good ol' hustlin' to promote any event I might do on top of the usual.

No, that's what I was asking!

There is such a setting but I have no bloody idea what it does, I've ticked it on a couple of parcels of land, I just assumed it was a throw back to older times.

The "Publish On Web" is actually a throw-forward to future times. They have it as an option, but so far doesn't do anything. They're just getting ready for future features.

Ah I see, I thought maybe there used to be a listing on the website, just like there used to be other forums here (before I started but I can see the old forum names in the list).

When you list an event on the website (www.secondlife.com/events/), it becomes part of the in world searchable event listings.

I've recently started listing a weekly live concert via the website and there has been a sizeable jump in attendance.

I actually don't get that much time to spend in SL, so I routinely use the web search to decide when to go into SL. I especially use it for finding interesting classes, but I also just browse it for interesting things.

The Events listing on the website gained a very bad reputation when almost every Slingo parlor, casino and yardsale was posting hourly "events" just so con people into visiting their sites. A real Event, something that happens only occasionally like a once a week costume contest at a club, with prizes for participants, or heaven help us a serious educational event, couldn't be found in the Events websire for all the trash listings.

I quit even looking there close to half a year ago. It was just a waste of time.

In-world classified ads do help bring customers to a business. The website classifieds I had far less luck with, mostly because anything but the newest listings were very hard to find.

Maybe both have gotten better over time. I hope so. But the last time I looked, the Events listing was a trashpile.

The easiest way around that is to use the Filter drop-down menu and specify what kinds of Events you're looking for. If you want Educational, select Educational and only the Events that were listed as Educational show up. Helps damp down a lot of static.

Of course, if you select Commercial, you're not likely to find much that's useful . . .