Kategorie: Business

New terms of service, anyone?

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

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:

Date: Monday, September 17, 2007
Violation: Terms of Service: Gambling
Region: De Campion
Description: Operating a casino.
Action taken: Suspended 14 days.
Date: Monday, September 17, 2007
Violation: Terms of Service: Gambling
Region: Deepscale
Description: Operating a casino.
Action taken: Warning issued.

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

„I need a job“ – nonsense!

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

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

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.