SL Marketplace » Ciaran Laval

Marketplace Billing Engine Changes And Materials Project Viewer Arrives

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Jun 192013

A rather bizarre blog post appeared yesterday: Marketplace to Move to Second Life Billing Engine. I say the post is rather bizarre because I’m bemused as to what other billing engine The Marketplace was previously using. This is probably because I’ve only ever purchased items from The Marketplace using Linden Dollars from my account balance, which were merged with Marketplace accounts quite some time ago.

I can only assume that when people purchased Linden Dollars for use on The Marketplace, they made the purchase via some sort of legacy system, if that was the case it certainly makes sense to update the system to use the same system the rest of Second Life uses. I guess we’ll see if there are any issues in the future, but off the top off my head I can’t think why there would be.

In other, and rather less bizarre news, The Materials Viewer Has Been Released! I haven’t yet looked at this, although I hope to shortly but the blurb tells us:

“This Viewer will allow content creators to build objects using normal and specular maps and will allow users to view the effects of this new feature set. The end result is photorealistic textured objects inworld, such as the SL10B Bear Avatar, which will look even better with this Viewer.”

There’s a video, which I will embed in traditional style at the bottom of this post … well it’s traditional for me to do that! There are some important things to note regarding materials, one is that you need to be using a viewer that supports Materials, which obviously the Linden Lab Materials Viewer will do and secondly, you need to have a system that can handle advanced lighting, unfortunately not all systems will support this option.

No Booze In General!

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 3 Responses »

Apr 062013

Last night, whilst reading the Second Life forums I noticed an advert for Stella Artois appear on the adsense adverts. This was quite a surreal moment as at the time I was drinking a can of Stella Artois! Now as it wasn’t my first, the mind goes into the realms of fantasy and imagines a Google Adsense solution based on my eating and drinking habits that Google detect upon a person … one day maybe, horrid thought but I’m sure they’d love to do that.

However far from the Stella Artois advert appearing because I was drinking it, the more likely explanation is that the Stella Artois advert appeared because there are a few miffed and bemused merchants having their items unlisted from the General rating category on The SL Marketplace because they promote cigarettes and alcohol.

There are a few threads on the forums that discuss this issue:

Alcohol & Tobacco Police On The Prowl?

Marking Everything Mature

SL’s Maturity Rating System

The thing to bear in mind is that alcohol and tobacco are not supposed to be listed in the general category and this is not a new rule. The listing guidelines cite as examples of moderate content:

Depictions of or references to alcohol or tobacco use.

So if your item has been moved to moderate when it used to be in General, then it’s a fair cop guv’nor, but that brings us to the next question, who is instigating the crackdown?

Direct Delivery Migration – Demos Disappear

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Apr 032013

With the clock ticking on Direct Delivery, one area where merchants may have been taken by surprise is in the category of demos, which will have been unlisted today if you haven’t migrated. Linden Lab did warn merchants about the need to migrate, so why would demos have caught merchants by surprise? Well it’s more than likely to do with how some busy merchants think.

Demos are not an item merchants consider they are selling, they are there to demonstrate an item, so when a merchant gets an email telling them items they sell that are priced lower than ten linden dollars need to be migrated, quite a few merchants would be thinking that they don’t sell any items in that range, as they don’t consider a demo an item that they sell.

This issue harks back to the days when The SL Marketplace was first acquired by Linden Lab and people were asking for demos to be included in the item listing, something that still hasn’t been achieved.

Direct Delivery Migration Clock Ticking On Items Priced Ten Lindens Or Lower

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 1 Response »

Apr 022013

The end of magic boxes is nigh, sort of, as the clock ticks on deadlines for people who haven’t yet migrated unlimited items. Today is the end of the road for listing new items in magic boxes for items priced at ten Linden Dollars or lower, which would not be a smart move anyway as the item would be unlisted tomorrow!

Commerce Team Linden has updated a forum post with the latest information:

April 2, 2013 has arrived, and we have begun the first phase of Magic Box Shutdown. As of today, Merchants are no longer able to list unlimited-quantity items for L$10 or less using Magic Boxes. By noon PT tomorrow,

April 3, 2013, any active, unlimited-quantity listings for L$10 or less using Magic Boxes will be unlisted. Note that the following will still be allowed:

Magic Box listings priced at L$11 or higher.

All Magic Box listings with limited quantity items, regardless of price.

Note that the second deadline is fast approaching. On April 16th, 2013:

Merchants will no longer be able to list unlimited-quantity items using Magic Boxes, regardless of price.

Any remaining active, unlimited-quantity listings using Magic Boxes will be unlisted, regardless of price.

For the time being, limited-quantity items can continue to use Magic Boxes and will not be affected. “Limited-quantity” refers to items that the Merchant does not have rights to copy (such as breedable animals that are “no copy” for the seller).

Breedables Needs A Food And Accessories Category

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Mar 282013

I recently posted on issues with breedables food being moved to a category outside of breedables: Common Sense Required Regarding Incorrect Category Decisions. When I wrote that post there were examples of breedables food in the breedables category, whilst other breedable food had been moved to another category or unlisted from the marketplace.

Since then, things have changed. More breedables food has been moved out of the breedables category and planted under the Animals category. This goes some way to addressing the issue of fairness but does absolutely sod all in the common sense stakes.

There is some logic to the moves, there is no category for breedables food and accessories. The marketplace team don’t like people listing items in the top level of a category, that’s what sub-categories are for but the answer here is to create a category under breedables for items that are related directly to breedables, rather than moving items out of the breedables category altogether.

Food is often directly related to breedables, if you don’t feed them they don’t prosper, you can’t usually use food substitutes, it has to be the right food and it’s food that is directly related to breedables, not other animals, so it should be in the breedables category.

The same goes, albeit to a lesser extent, for interactive items. Where an item only works with a certain breedable, it should be in the breedables category. However there are areas where breedable related items do not need to be in the breedables category.

Common Sense Required Regarding Incorrect Category Decisions

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 5 Responses »

Mar 262013

There have been numerous reports of merchants being bemused as to why their item listing is removed from the marketplace for being in the wrong category. Sometimes it’s clearly an issue that the item is in the wrong category and sometimes it’s not so clear.

The Dwarfins Marketplace store has suffered a blow due to Dwarfins food being removed from the Marketplace due to it being deemed to be in the wrong category, the wrong category in this case being breedables. This is a rather odd move being as the breedables category has food for Meeroos, Amaretto Horses and Ozimals.

However it should be noted that Fennux and Snuffles food can be found in Animals/Animals & Pet Supplies/Animals Feed & Water Supplies. This sort of inconsistency is not helpful and really there should be some common sense applied in these situations. The Animals & Pet Supplies category is not suitable for Dwarfins items, being as they aren’t pets and as breedable animals do not belong in the animals category in the first place, it seems silly for Linden Lab to agree with whomever flagged Dwarfins food.

Now it has long been suspected that Linden Lab only respond to flagged items, they are not proactive, they probably don’t have the time to be proactive but a cursory glance at the breedables category shows breedable food items in that category, ergo breedable food should be left there.

Bring Inworld Items To The Marketplace

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Mar 132013

I’ve largely been supportive of Linden Lab’s efforts to bring advertising to their website. One area where I remain unconvinced is with regards to the dashboard, which I feel should remain unhindered. Another area where I’m not convinced it’s a good idea is the SL Marketplace.

One reason why I’m not convinced the SL Marketplace is a good fit is because people are already paying to advertise their wares there. However I do welcome Linden Lab’s blog post wherby they announce their intention to allow Second Life residents to be able to buy advertising space on their properties, Second Life related adverts are a good fit for any of their pages really. The devil will of course be in the detail, but the concept has potential. Inara Pey has a good blog post about LL’s announcement: Linden Lab Comments On New Advertising Moves.

However I often read people suggesting they use the SL Marketplace like a catalogue and teleport inworld to buy items. I think there’s potential here for extending the marketplace to have a catalogue section, such as an inworld items category, whereby a merchant would pay a listing fee for a limited time inclusion in this category.

Now you may wonder why they wouldn’t just list said item on the marketplace in the first place, well, when it comes to no copy items, they’re problematic, Direct Delivery doesn’t support them for a start, you’re better off buying the no copy item inworld and picking it up really, which is how sales of breedables often work.

Is It Time For Seller Registration On The Marketplace?

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 6 Responses »

Mar 112013

I’m always wary of discussing issues of malpractice within Second Life commerce, but there are scams out there and it seems the marketplace is one place where they are materialising. Inworld sales can also be an issue of malpractice and most certainly have been in the past.

However it’s the marketplace which seems to see some of the more blatant scams and I’m starting to come round to the idea of a sellers registry for being able to sell on the marketplace. I’m not talking about making it premium members only, there are plenty of leigitimate merchants who have no need to be preimium. There are also alts of premium members or people who have alts of accounts who have a payment history with Linden Lab.

I’m not a fan of restricting merchants inworld, largely because this would require some serious reworking of the systems by Linden Lab to still be able to allow people to transfer items to each other. Passing items around for free has many use cases inworld, from education to simply sharing information.

However the Marketplace is a different beast and it’s probably time for Linden Lab to introduce a system whereby merchants need to be verfied somehow to participate.

Project Viewer Available To Assist Those With Direct Delivery Migration Woes

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 5 Responses »

Mar 092013

Since the announcement that magic boxes are to be retired in April for ulimited quantity items, the merchants forum has seen posts from people to migrate. Dakota Linden has been given special dispensation to assist and Jessica Lyon from Firefox has also been offering advice there too.

CommerceTeam Linden (CTL) has also posted a FAQ, with FAQ’s …… I think you could have worked that out for yourselves! This is useful because it links to the direct delivery migration guide, which is a pretty essential source in this case.

However, there’s also a merchant outbox project viewer now available from the alernative viewers page on the wiki. The blurb for this viewer says:

“This viewer resolves remaining issues with the Merchant Outbox as laid out in WEB-4600”

Magic Boxes To Be Semi Retired In April

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Mar 042013

Commerce Team Linden (AKA CTL) has announced on the official forums that Magic Boxes will start to be retired in April, although they aren’t being fully retired as there’s an issue still with Direct Delivery and no copy items.

Magic Boxes have traditionally been used to list items on the SL Marketplace. However the time is now approaching whereby you will need to switch to Direct Delivery, the important information:

April 2, 2013:

Merchants will no longer be able to list unlimited-quantity items for L$10 or less using Magic Boxes.

Any active, unlimited-quantity listings for L$10 or less using Magic Boxes will be unlisted.

April 16, 2013:

Merchants will no longer be able to list unlimited-quantity items using Magic Boxes, regardless of price.

Any remaining active, unlimited-quantity listings using Magic Boxes will be unlisted, regardless of price.

However if the items you’re listing aren’t unlimited, for example a breedable for which you have no copy rights and therefore have to sell it as a limited quantity item, there is no migration date yet.

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