Business

…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.

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.

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.

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.

[Mehr]

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.

I teleported today onto the Phat Cat’s dancefloor. Well, strangely it happened that I was teleported under the dancefloor, take a look at this picture here:

It seems that Dilbert Dilweg really wants to get rid of his club fast, the price for it already went down to 800.000 L$ or 3.000 U$. Why he’s selling it? Because he’s moving in with his love and having much less time for SL, then. Quite easy.

Under Phat Cat’s dancefloor.

The biggest and most popular jazz club in SL, Phat Cat’s, is for sale, again, but this time for real, as it seems. The owner, Dilbert Dilweg, wants to get at least 1.000.000 L$ (equivalent to about 3.501 US$) for the whole private island including all buildings and objects.

Now I wonder if we are going to see the most popular place in Second Life at all according to Tateru Nino under new management soon…

Let me quote the in world sales pitch here:

Phat Cat’s is for sale. The sale is 1,000,000 Lindens and will include full transfer of simulator and costs.

Buy at time of tier payed and get 1 full month without having to pay tier.

All transfers will be completed WHEN ALL monies have been transfered.

Paying thru pay pal without Lindens is also acceptable payment. Payment should be the equivelent of 1 million lindens at current market rate the total would be US$3,500.72.

[Mehr]

SLMillions, the in world lottery where you could win one million Linden dollars, is gone for good. Seems to me that this project was creating way too much loss for the people behind it to let it run much further.

According to the Lindens there is coming an age verification to us in about one week. If I read the FAQ correct, it is done by a third party company and you’ve got to provide them some info, e.g. social security number, drivers license number, passport number, to verify that you are over 18 years old. If you provide the info successfully, then you’ve got the “age verified” flag and are allowed to enter parcels with “adult content” flag. If you don’t have an age verification, you still can play in Second Life, but don’t enter such regions anymore.

The question I asked myself can be split up in two parts: how is this going to influence the game and is this verification process going to be really secure?

Well, the first part is: I expect, who until now enjoyed adult content, are going to leave the game, since they are not willingly going to provide the necessary infos. I can understand them. If you take a closer look at the search and don’t check “mature content” in it and search for some things, like escort, you’re still going to find such content. Now the Lindens want that the people rate themself or they are going to take measures against them. If you take the big size of SL into account, it is not hard to predict that many people are not going to rate themself properly and that, if any, actions are going to be taken against them, this would take quite some time and they would still try after that, again.

A few days ago I visited Mercedes-Benz Island to take another look at their in world presence. Well, there was not much happening, anyway and there was also no employee of the company present at this time. They are around there, normally, at some time.

They’ve got not very tight settings on security there, either. This means - just pushing is forbidden, all else works - user scripts, flying around and placing objects is available for every visitor. This means: very bad settings in concerns of security and an open invitation to griefers. I guess, autoreturn is in action, though, but placing objects allows the use of weapons.

And guess what? There were some bored griefers, who came into the island and wrecked havoc upon it. They were somewhat harmless, though, since they did not cage or orbit people. This would have been possible for them, too, without big effort at all.