Ciaran Laval

March 14, 2013

LL Offer Tier Discounts To The Select Few Educators And Non Profits

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has broken a very interesting story regarding Linden Lab offering discounts to selected educational and non profit customers: Linden Lab Quietly Offering 50% Discounts to Select Non-Profit & Educational Groups Who’ve Given Up Their SL Sims.

Inara Pey has excellent additional coverage: LL offer discounted regions to educational and non-profit organisations on the QT.

I have a deep and passionate interest in education, both professionally and recreationally. This is not a good way to go about encouraging educational institutions to come back to Second Life, but I suspect Linden Lab know how badly they dropped the ball when they removed those discounts and that many wouldn’t come back even if hell froze over. The reason it’s not a good way of enticing educational institutions back is due to how vague the qualifying criteria for educational discounts is, indeed the criteria is almost non-existent, this isn’t how business planning works and at this stage of the year, many educational institutions are deep into business planning for the next academic year.

I suspect this is why Linden Lab are apparently targetting the recently departed, rather than the long departed, the recently departed are more likely to be able to make a business planning argument for keeping a Second Life sim if the costs are reduced by 50% or not being increased by 50%. However for the longer departed, they will look at such news with scorn and it’s hardly likely to improve their mood over the tier change Linden Lab made.

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March 14, 2013March 14, 2013

2013 SL Buddy Walk

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2013 SL Buddy Walk!!!!
March 17-31, 2013 • World Down Syndrome Day Celebration
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SL Buddy Walk

The Buddy Walk® was established in 1995 by the National Down Syndrome Society to celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness and to promote acceptance and inclusion of people with Down syndrome. It is also the world’s most widely recognized public awareness program for the Down syndrome community. Last year in RL there were over 295 Buddy Walks world wide.

The Second Life Buddy Walk is done in conjunction with the NDSS (National Down Syndrome Society) and takes place around World Down Syndrome Day

Myths and Truths About Down Syndrome Continue reading “2013 SL Buddy Walk”

March 13, 2013

Bring Inworld Items To The Marketplace

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.

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March 11, 2013

Open University Events For The Rest Of March

I don’t work for The Open University, I have studied with them in the past but no longer do due to fee increases for coures. However I do still think they are a very worthy organisation. Therefore I am quite happy to promote their events. The following is from a mailing list I’m on, Tori Landau is the contact:

Below are the rest of the events confirmed for March, there might be another event but currently due to RL the person can’t confirm. Hope to see you there and please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think would be interested.

Wed 13th

Drop-in at 2.15pm slt / 9.15pm GMT

Come along to the friendship circle at the Welcome area for 30 mins of support and chat.

Slurl: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Deep%20Think%20East/224/38/32

Mon 18th

Monday Meet at 2pm slt / 9pm GMT

Speaker: Doctor Zeritonga (real life: Chris Hardy)

Chris will be talking about Designing for Navigation and Wayfinding in 3D Virtual Learning Spaces which was the topic of his MSc research for The Open University’s Master of Science Degree in Computing for Commerce and Industry. Chris presented his findings along with his supervisor Dr Shailey Minocha at VWBPE in 2011 and a paper written along with Dr Minocha received the Gitte Lindgaard Award for the best paper at the OZCHI 2011 conference (http://www.ozchi.org/). This talk will be in local chat with optional voice transcription.

Location is inside the communal room on Deep Think West.

SLurl: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Deep%20Think%20West/73/45/24

Continue reading “Open University Events For The Rest Of March”

March 11, 2013

Is It Time For Seller Registration On The Marketplace?

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.

Continue reading “Is It Time For Seller Registration On The Marketplace?”