Feedback on Ad Farm Post - Part 2

I dont remember SL being advertised as "Your word, Your imagination, unless you want it to be a game" its a game to many, a hilarious one to be sure

How about a business, or a playground, or a passtime? It's not a game because it doesn't have any gameplay. WoW is a game, from what I understand, as is Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, American Football, Golf, Tennis, etc. etc. etc., but SL is merely an environment.

you once again miss the whole point, if I want it to be a game its a game to me. My World, My Imagination. Not Phils World Phils Imagination. Okay have the last word now and lets get the thread back on subject.

That is precisely my point. The essence of spam is that it is untargetted......just aimed randomly at 10,000 people in the hope that some of them might be the true target audience. The whole idea of spam is that if you target a large enough group of people at random....a small percent will be the proper target market....and one doesn't give a stuff about annoying the rest.

Lets say I make POS systems. If I just select every name in the phone book beginning with J and send a note saying ' Hi....wanna try out my great new POS system ?'.....THAT is spam. If, on the other hand, I collect the names of all local retailers who might be interested in a new POS system and send the same note.....that is not spam...it is BUSINESS ! It goes on a thousand times a day between good honest genuine companies !

I mean, for crying out loud, when BMW took over Rover.....someone at BMW must have sent Rover a letter or something saying ' We'd like to buy your business '. Do you suppose the Rover executives just chucked it in the bin as spam ???



On the subject of ad farms.....I came across something rather curious yesterday. Responding to an advert for 1/2 a sim.....I went to the site. Hmm...where is this 1/2 sim ? What I found ( from the parcel lines ) was a 4000sq meter sized area right in the center of the sim with 'Land For Rent' signs......which was surrounded by an entire developed sim with stuff on it. Now, the curious thing was that within that small area in the middle it actually said 7,500 prims.....32,000 sq meters......yet no such parcel that size was actually visible and the '1/2 sim for rent' parcel tag disappeared outside of the small area in the midde of the sim. I spent over an hour there trying to figure how this was possible.

Actually, it's you who missed the point. Of course, if you want it to be a game to you, and you find some gameplay somewhere, then it's a game for you. But you do need to find some gameplay somewhere. You can't just declare it a game and it is a game, any more than you can declare an office desk to be a game and it's a game. SL isn't a game - it's an environment.

Btw, I thought you weren't going to respond to any of my posts.

That's due to the same owner having more than the one parcel in the sim.

LOL ! And how...might I ask....do you establish that social and business network on SL in the first place without first contacting someone ( what you call spam ) to say you do business ??????

I believe LL have done the right thing leaving things vague, it gives them more scope to act in whichever way they see fit.

My problem is whether they have the staff and ability to control all of the problems in around 5000 Sims, in using a sensible case by case approach to the many different problems that will occur, treating all users fairly.

I am sure they will be reliant on users to abuse report cases as they appear.

I am sorry but I just don't see LL checking on all plots owned, by the few known scumbags regularly enough to stop them continuining their current practices.

Unless LL state limits to the number of small plots allowed for a user then there will always be people exploiting the use of them whether it is just sitting on them for months or years with ludicrous prices, or harassing other users to force a purchase.

As many people have stated gambling was banned because of an external requirement not through LL's choice and yet they can't even manage to enforce that ban effectively.
What makes them any more likely to succeed in preventing harassment and extortion, than the gambling?

My 'joke' about someone on the dance floor chatting me up...really isn't such a joke after all....it hits the nail right on the head :-

Mr X decides he likes the look of Agnetha.....so he decides to advertise himself. After all....that is what chatting up is. So he sends a totally unsolicited advert via IM that starts ' Hi - how are you ?'....etc.

Hmm....a clear case of unsolicited advertising ! And he's probably done the same to all the other girls on the dance floor, which is spam. In advertising his product ( himself ) he is in clear violation of the TOS, which specifically says do not spam people with unsolicited adverts.

Thus, I'm affraid to say that under Second Life TOS.....it is actually an offence to chat someone up ( sell yourself ) on the dance floor. You have been warned !

worried?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/game
1.an amusement or pastime

there are many definitions of game, you chose one I chose one.

Humm so strange this discussion about SPAM. Is it not just another tactic to close the thread as the last one so no new ideas appear? Create confusion, provoke people to cause the unrelated chit chat so the thread is closed and no usefull ideas are discussed?

About the SPAM:

Since I come o second life stores have groups. In the event I adhere to that group I will receive notifications. So if I find a store of shoes I like and it has a group and this group dispense anoucements about the products of that store in particular. I will not AR then. After all I entered this group for receiving this notices.

However if I enter the bird lover group, a group to discuss birds for example, and while at it I receive a unsolicited shoe adv I would of course AR the advertiser. Because he just join the group to SPAM.

Also appear silly that a member of bird lover group will be interested in buying the shoe or rent a space.

Why not be efective, create groups for the people you intend. Ex:

XXXXYYYYY Land Sales Group - Land for sale notices
XXXXYYYYY RENT a PLACE MALL GROUP - New place for renting

Etc, then you just place the group in search.

People that is interested in MALL rent will find you in search, will adhere to your group and will not AR you for your notices. You will have a well defined target, you will not be ARed and will be very effective.

So simple

The recent request by Jack Linden about what we think about the current ad farm rules proposal has been sent on an odd tangent..

Proposed AD FARM rules have NOTHING to do with PARCEL CUTTING

Get over it. There are many people that cut parcels, more than Robo Marx. If someone wants to pay high prices for a micro parcel, then that's THEIR choice. Be it a mistake or good fortune.

The new ad farm rules I think will effect the sale of ad parcels in two ways....

Premium real exposure parcels will be worth more because ad network companies will want to place their 50 sign allotment in choice places.

A glut of parcels in places that are under developed may sit longer and those carrying costs will have to be recouped, thus prices will also go up.

A CHANGE TO THE RULES PROPOSAL I WOULD LIKE TO SEE.

I would like the rules to have a sign quantity cap, with NO EXCEPTIONS. This way advertising will be focused on sims that actually produce results. You know who is clicking on your signs and viewing them, so why waste your allotment in a sim that doesn't work? This will reduce spam and clutter simply because REAL ADVERTIZERS want an effective space. Advertisers who are trying to gain visibility by annoying neighbors will be forced to pay up for good lots or have annoying signs limited.. Those signs however with the new ruling cannot be that annoying..

Thanks,
Blaccard Burks
www.RentMainLand.com

And my choice is the correct one in this context.

In your eyes Phil...... okay through with your trolling, no more replies.

RL is the game. =^-^=

The essence of spam is that it is unsolicited and broadcast. There is definitely targeted spam.
Then that is spam.
No, it doesn't. It goes on between disreputable companies and honest ones, yes, and enough of the honest ones are "taken" for CRT cleaning cloths and overpriced printer supplies to keep the dishonest ones in business.
One company sending one message is not *broadcast*. You keep ignoring that qualification. It's critical.

You say you get 1000 spams a day. And yet you have room for one "perfectly good business email" in the middle of it? No, I call shenanigans.

Stop pretending that you're missing the point:
The essence of spam is that it is unsolicited and broadcast. There is definitely targeted spam.
Then that is spam.
No, it doesn't. It goes on between disreputable companies and honest ones, yes, and enough of the honest ones are "taken" for CRT cleaning cloths and overpriced printer supplies to keep the dishonest ones in business.
One company sending one message is not *broadcast*. You keep ignoring that qualification. It's critical.
Same way you do it in the real world. Networking. Personal contacts. Face time. Not by broadcasting unsolicited messages no matter how tightly you say it's targeted.

Not only in my eyes. We all know what is meant by a game, and SL never was one, isn't one, and won't ever be one. Get used to it.

The reason that some people refer to it as a game is because they came from similar environments that are actually games, such as WoW and Sims. To them, SL looks like a game, but when newly arrived people ask, "What do I do now?", nobody points them to any game playing part because SL isn't a game. It's just a 3-D environment in which people do what they want.

Huh? I said I get well over 1000 a day. There is always "room" for normal emails - it doesn't matter how much spam you get.

For instance, yesterday I received an unsolicited email form a UK insurance comparison website (a TV advertiser). They want to write a few pages of content for one of my relevant sites absolutely free, except that each page will have a link to their site. It's a normal way of promoting websites, both to my site's visitors and in search engines. I've never had any contact of any kind with them, so the email came out of the blue. It's a genuine business proposition, and is no way spam. You may call it spam if you like, but you would be wrong.

FTI, I'm not interested in taking up their offer, but I might have been, because it is highly relevant to my site.

game:
1. An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games.

I think it most definitely qualifies as "providing entertainment or amusement" as "a pastime".

While it may not be what many people would consider to be a traditional "game", it most certainly falls into that category when considered at the broadest definition of the word, as opposed to other forms of entertainment / pastimes.

It is more than simply a game, to be sure, but it can logically and, by definition of the word be fairly considered a game.

Wow! This thread grew 20 pages since I last looked at it.

Did I miss anything new?

What you're saying is that it's not spam for the company that I mentioned on my previous post, as long as I'm the only one who the email was sent to, but it is spam if they sent it to more people than me. How many more people would it need to be sent to to qualify as spam in your book? 2? 10? 50? 100? How many?

Only by looking for obscure definitions of the word. But we all know what is meant by "game", and SL isn't one, any more than going for walks in the countryside is a game - it's a passtime, but not a game. Gardening is a passtime for some people, but it's not a game.

..and was one, is one, and will always be one. Get used to it.

See? Hard-headed reasoning works both ways.



No, we refer to it as a game because it is entertaining and amusing as a pastime for us.

Can argue it back and forth as long as you want to. Face the facts, Phil; you don't consider it a game, but that doesn't make it any less a game for many people.