Stuff and all

Bartholomew Gallacher 10. Oktober 2007 0 Kommentare

• There is now a blog from Charity Colville in which she tells her side of the story about "The rise and fall of Phat Cat’s". The events around Phat Cat’s have been going on for quite some time now, I still wonder that they haven’t come to an end, yet. In the end it’s a story you cannot find out on your own, if it’s right or wrong, so it’s about whom you believe more.
• Metaversed has been running an article about a LL-function that has been disabled by the Lindens without notice and has broken many seats and other sitting furnitures. Ouch. It has been undocumented, but widely used all the time, the Lindens considered it a hack instead. And, oh well, one of the residents even got wind before it happened weeks ago and told them that it’s a bad idea at all. No reaction. Bummer.
• Want to ger rid of the "missing from database" error? Vote for the according error over at JIRA!

Braggs‘ lawsuit settled

Bartholomew Gallacher 4. Oktober 2007 0 Kommentare

You can read this on the blog of Second Life now:

Linden Research, Inc., Philip Rosedale, and Marc Bragg have agreed to settle the “Bragg v. Linden and Rosedale” lawsuit currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The parties agree that there were unfortunate disagreements and miscommunications regarding the conduct and behavior by both sides and are pleased to report that Mr. Bragg’s “Marc Woebegone” account, privileges and responsibilities to the Second Life community have been restored. For the benefit of the Second Life community, the Parties have mutually agreed that the terms of their resolution shall remain confidential. The Parties ask that this confidentiality be respected.

So this is lawyer speak. What does that mean in real speak? Something like this from Lindenlabs point of view: we would have lost the case! So better agree to restore Braggs‘ account and properties in world and see if this is enough for him to drop the case before our roof really starts to burn and we’re losing big money!

It’s that easy.

Vista is shit, part two

Bartholomew Gallacher 4. Oktober 2007 0 Kommentare

Microsoft has reacted to the demand on the market and now has created two new options for purchasing XP:

1. It allows big manufacturer now to offer their customers of computers with Windows Vista a free downgrade to Windows XP. Consider this – buying a new computer with Vista and you got the option to downgrade to it’s predecessor! This has as far as I know never been around before.
2. They extended the availabilty of XP OEM versions from 31. January 2008 to 30. June 2008 to "give the people more flexibility."

So the market has spoken and the market doesn’t want Vista. It’s really easy. Is there a greater way to admit that your software is bad and that you’re not content with its sales pitch?

What if…

Bartholomew Gallacher 22. September 2007 0 Kommentare

…too many residents would try to cashout all of there L$ at the same time? Would Lindenlab still be able to pay them? Or would the value of the L$ go down so quickly it wouldn’t hurt LL at all?

Just a funny thought that popped up into my mind after reading an article about a similar problem – bonus mile programs of airlines.

„Your host is working hard“ – nonsense

Bartholomew Gallacher 21. September 2007 0 Kommentare

Many good going clubs are living on the presence of some live staff, mostly a host, better going clubs also a live dj from time to time and a security officer.

In many clubs I can always here the slogan "Please don’t forget to tip your host – we’re working hard…" – this is nonsense. The work of a host is no hard work at all. It’s mostly greeting people, something you can do with some good macros at east. Perhaps just also looking if the people behave, and if not, ejecting or banning them as last measure and that’s all.

This is a kind of job, that’s quite easy to do and which I also appreciate, but it’s no hard work at all. I almost cannot stand this saying anymore.

New terms of service, anyone?

Bartholomew Gallacher 18. September 2007 0 Kommentare

It seems that Lindenlab introduced today a new version of their ToS according to their blog. This means, if you want to continue to play SL you need to agree after the next login in the client to them. There should be a dialogue box with the new ToS in it and you can either agree or disagree.

Well, in reality the dialogue box on my client looked like that:

This is something that shouldn’t happen. I could have agreed to it that way. After a restart the client showed the new ToS correct.

Police blotter on casinos

Bartholomew Gallacher 18. September 2007 0 Kommentare

It’s nothing new, but today I’ve taken a look at the police blotter after a while. Seems the Lindens are really serious on their no gambling policy now.

For example you can read there things like this:

So no one can’t say he hasn’t been warned, yet.

„I need a job“ – nonsense!

Bartholomew Gallacher 15. September 2007 0 Kommentare

When new people come into Second Life, it is always the same: learning how to use the client, learning how to get skins, shapes, clothes and such and learning how to get money. Many just camp somewhere to get some money, some are using the Lindex to buy it and others think that they need a job and ask everywhere for it. 

But do you really need a job to get money? No. You can use Second Life also with just freebies, you don’t need to have a home at all and many people when they work in a job work for ridiculous small amounts of money. Some then consider already 300 L$ per hour a high payment (something aboth 1 US$) and work and work and work their ass off…

Not using their brains at all. You would never work for those small amounts of money in RL, but in SL – it’s no problem for many people at all. That’s always amazing to see. If you want a job, fine, but then you should do it because you like it. Otherwise there are better ways to get money, if you really need it, just like buying it somewhere or starting your own business.

Lindenlabs opening up the grid – somewhat

Bartholomew Gallacher 4. September 2007 0 Kommentare

There’s been a drastic change to the website of SL: you can see a new graphic and link to a site called "Second Life Grid". It seems that Lindenlabs doesn’t want to rely any longer on land sales alone as main source of income and is now starting to market their grid more for certain 3rd parties, which is a good move to me.

It’s giving some insights in what the grid can do, about the dimensions and so on and on. The website is clearly targeted on corporate viewers, no doubt about that, and telling about how others use it and how you can participate with it. There are the old target groups like Education and Non Profit and Solution Providers, but there’s a new target group, Global Providers. To cite the site about them:

The Second Life Grid Global Provider program is designed to assist
international online communities in creating their own presence on the
Second Life Grid. This program has significant requirements,
obligations, and program fees. It is only available to operators of
existing online communities outside the United States.

So to make it short: who’s the target group? Big communities like internet providers, for example, or perhaps big web communities outside the USA. Since it is not going to be cheap to be such a provider and you should have at least about two million accounts, this is surely not for everybody of us. But it also means that Lindenlab is finally opening up their grid to 3rd parties, for example there’s already a company in Brazil as far as I know that did very much things for SL on their own like giving it away, translating it and so on. Now such a company can open up their own space in Second Life and localize it. I don’t expect existing online games to use it, of course, since they got their own special needs.

This here is about communities, really big communities. So for example, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Tiscali area somewhere in SL or T-Online for example as Global Solution Providers. The benefit side makes the target group even more clear, stating for example this as benefit:

Official designation as a Second Life Global Provider, including program branding and press release support.

So this looks for me basically like that: Second Life should spread even more further, but Lindenlabs is unable to do that in all countries on their own. So they open up their grid for paying 3rd parties, who get certain rights but also the risk, and if those providers work good in their country, they expect to get even bigger user counts. If those providers are now big communities somewhere (like myspace.com, which is not eligable) or internet providers doesn’t seem to count on that point.

So we all should wait and see who’s going to be the first company to open up such a local experience.

How to open a club

Bartholomew Gallacher 1. September 2007 0 Kommentare

Well, lately some of my friends (hello, Aquela, Eve, Kyz and Juliet ^^) either bought a club or are thinking about opening their own club. Since I am a frequent visitor of different clubs, some asked them on my advice how to get it running. Well, there are some insights I’ve got to share with this world about opening a club in Second Life.

So, here we go:

1. Don’t. That’s right, don’t do it all, don’t waste your time on it at all. Why? Clubs and also malls come a dozen on a penny in SL. They come and go, it’s one of the most frequent business types opening up and closing their doors very soon to be forgotten again and leaving their former owners with a big loss. They can be happy to have their expenses covered at all.
2. Having said that, if you’re not already scared off on opening your own club, don’t expect to make big profits with it. Running a club is a hobby for most of the people, so if you want to make real big bucks with a club, you’re on the wrong business model. Better sell clothes, start building, scripting or other high paying stuff!
3. Ok, so you’re still convinced to open your club? Good. That’s rule number three: be sure of yourself and your goal. Opening up your business is a hurdlesome task in SL and expect it to take quite many hours before you can open your club at all.
4. Be observant. If you want to have success, first take a good look at the established club scene, visit them, especially some of the bigger clubs, find out where their strengths are, where they are weak and for which kind of club there could be still a chance. For example, if 80s music is popular and there’s no such big club in SL covering this topic or you think you can do it better, this might be your chance. Go for it then.
5. Be unique. This can cover many topics: music wise, design wise, people wise. My opinion is people come most for the in crowd hanging around the place and the music. So cook up your own in crowd, your own special staff, your own live djs and keep it running. Some of the best running clubs in SL don’t have fancy architecture at all. It’s the people who keep a place running!
6. Hire staff. Yes, that’s right, to have a good crowd hanging around setup a schedule of hosts, who are there around the clock. Peak usage in SL happens at North American evenings and European evenings, if you want to cover both areas, hire them from those countries/continents.
7. Make events on a regular base, perhaps with some contests. It helps you to spread the word around and people are more likely to come when there are special events and they can win something.
8. Create something like a corporate identity on your venture. This means getting a club logo for your own, that you can use on freebie give aways, in the ads and so on.
9. Get your own stream. Nothing is more boring like the 42nd club running on the same music stream coming from an established web radio. If you are not willing or unable to hire a dj, at least get your own stream running with music that’s being in good vibes with your place.
10. Do you want to make money or just make it as a hobby? Some bigger clubs have attached malls or vendor places to get some of the money back. But not all places/clubs go well with them.
11. Make yourself a limit of how much money you’re willing to pay per month for the club. This should be pretty clear.
12. Some clubs have escorts, dancers and in former times games. Be sure before opening a club, if you want such hanging around or not. Normally not worth the money, they also come for a dozen per penny.
13. This also means: be sure, if you want to go into a mature or PG rated region
14. And at last: make your mind up, if you want to open at the mainland or a private sim. Mainland is cheaper in the beginning, but you’ve got normally the avatar limit of 40 on most places and when you club is good running, expect complaints from your neighbors. Private sim is better on that aspect, but normally you’ve got to pay it then for yourself, so that’s only an option if you’ve got enough money or already a big club making much money.

That’s all, folks. Could be, that some would make other main focuses on their own pet club, but those are my experiences so far.