Sarah Nerd Liquidates
Yes, this is terrible news. Sarah Nerd isn't exactly leaving Second Life, but she's going out of business in SL. That might have been predicted by her own post a few days ago, "Second Life, Sorry, But I'm Seeing Other Games".
Apparently this departure of one of my favourite landbarons and newbie helpers involves a lot of financial loss for her, and for her investors, some of whom are screaming in the comments over at your2ndplace. I recall I invested in a bit of SNE stock myself more than a year ago, and I have no idea what happened to those shares, I may have sold them in fact, or I think they got trapped in WSE, which has now also essentially gone out of business saying it has moved out of SL (I have no idea how they think they can get people to pay money for a fictional stock market when they don't even tether it to at least the viable fictional world of SL).
Every day, when I wanted to find out how the land business is doing, I have looked at Sarah Nerd's profile. There, she tells us the number she is willing to pay per meter for land if you liquidate, i.e. sell below cost, and put it to her name exclusively. So that meant she was going in and absorbing what could have been losses for other people if they merely abandoned their land, and then attempting to flip it to gain back at least some margins for herself. It's a very highwire act to be doing, and requires constant nimble attention, even using automatic scripts or bots. For a long time, that SN liquidation number has not been good, i.e. it was falling, falling, falling as the Lindens glutted and glutted. It crept up a bit when the mainland auctions closed, but flatlined, basically. It's that impossibility of running a flipping business, as well as a viable rentals business with the openspaces debacle, that has forced Sarah under. I couldn't be sorrier, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer person, undeserving of such bad SL "karma". It makes me mad. And the mainland market is now a more awful place, with the loss of this key liquidator. Nobody undertands or appreciates liquidation -- until they do, from necessity. Will we end up seeing "Liquidator Linden" the way we have "Supply Linden" when LL finally grasps this fact?
But I can't exactly blame only the Lindens, we are all in a recession, and far from predicting this recession, as Beyers Sellers fancifully believes, SL is merely a mirror. It's a product whose sales are going to reflect people's sense of their disposable income. While it's true that people spend more on entertainment at home during recessions, so the theory goes, they often can be pressured to give up that entertainment in favour of groceries or gasoline.
The Lindens have somewhat cushioned their initial price shock of 67 percent by spreading it over 6 months. But the damage is done because everyone psychologically knows they are buying a product that will go up in price. It's like some newbies, told that they will have to move out of my newbie village (I've now increased the period to 365 days). They don't like the sound of buying into something they have to move out of, even though most newbies will want to move out of boredom or lack of prims within 30 or 60 days anyway -- they don't believe it, and feel the product is inferior if not "forever". Yesterday, a newbie kept persistently asking me if he could live in Tuliptree "forever". Uh, sure, until our heat-death from the sun...
The heat-death the Lindens have arranged for land barons is, in my view deliberate. It's a conscious policy, one repeated now through dramatic moves about 6 times over (GOM, dwell removal, first island price hike, VAT, island price crash, OS price hike), which all amount to the same, conscious, deliberate policy: making it impossible to use arbitrage for a business on this platform, and making it impossible for the world itself to gain an internal viable economy. These seem like self-defeating policies, and in one sense they are, but if you read into the fine print, you realize that the Lindens want to build a platform for "everyone" to use, and to "connect us all" to a better world, and that better world does not, in their view, including old-fashioned capitalism, and anything they can do to shake that loose in favour of techno-communism, they will.
It's particularly cruel when these policies savage someone nice like Sarah Nerd, who worked day and night, knocked herself out, went way overboard to help the hapless newbies of SL, etc. I frankly don't know what she could have done differently because she has been smarter than any of us on this, and more gutsy -- I couldn't bring myself to change an island to openspace when I should have, for example.
I don't know enough about the whole WSE situation to understand it, but I can't help thinking that having an imaginary IPO in SL, and raising funds from good-willed barnraisers, to "invest" in SL, is part of the problem -- although every indication was that it shouldn't have been one. It's not just that these stock markets are run by incompetents and outright crooks, as we've seen (they amount to a kind of glorified football pool that enables one office mate to run off with the kitty). It's that the whole idea of "investment" in the internal business world of SL is cracked, at least for now. The Lindens, of course, feed this idea, as has the media in the past. But there is actually no worse investment you could make in SL than believing that because you paid $1000 US for land today, that it will sell for that cost and at least repay your contribution. It won't. That harsh fact has to be understood again and again.
Part of the problem is the Mainland Mystery Math for rentals (80 percent occupancy=50 percent loss of revenue due to fixed tier costs), but it's also because the Lindens, again, engage in deliberate, conscious policies to invalidate "investments". No real-world business would be able to get away with this except possibly drug dealers, dealing with the reality of first the temporary crushing of the Taliban, and then the overproduction from Afghanistan's poppy fields. It's like that. It's an addiction economy subject to brutal warlords locally and huge impersonal states and multilateral organizations globally. Of course, the Swiss have a solution: legalizing non-medical heroin possession and injection, which is roughly the equivalent of the Lindens opensourcing their code.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from Sarah Nerd, and probably she hasn't imparted all of them to us yet. One is not to love the Lindens or Second Life or newbies too hard, they will stiff you, all of them. The other is to take your brutal cue from the Lindens' Positive Monthly Linden Flow business definition, which does not view land sale as a business, but claims to view it as a business cost (they actually use the word "investment"). That's how you have to understand it then -- like payroll. An investment, but not one that you get back, exactly, until you have a separate product that you can sell and profit from.
Looking at the Sarah Nerd Experience, one that has duplicated for other barons large and small we haven't heard from (like Anshe Chung, who is taking a big bath now and stiffing her customers nastily as a result -- I got turfed off land I'd paid through the month for, with no refund, when it became necessary to liquidate that poorly-selling sim.) Last month, as in July, I suffered my biggest losses in SL as well, and they were big because I combined those poor rentals months with more "investment". In the summer, I decided to invest in developing the Moth Temple, which meant both that income had to be spent on a cost, and also that I had no time to really run the business properly, struggling to develop just one parcel on a horribly performing SL due to a graphics card that had been made obsolete in six months (for me, the graphics card instability and rapid obsolescence has been an even greater problem than the land glut because it means I literally can't come on and place houses, do minor building, terraforming etc to keep the rentals looking great -- finally that's over now with my new computer).
I did this not in the belief that I was "investing in Second Life" or my little business -- any more "investment" in such a thing that already absorbed initial land costs isn't "investment" but "folly". Instead, my desire to make the land preserve is a non-profit effort, a kind of avocation, really, and someone like Khamon Fate would simply call it "my hobby". Some people have fishing tackle and others collect Hummelware. (Good Lord, when I think what my mom's Hummelware could be fetching now that they've gone out of business, and we let it go for a song at a tag sale).
I'm going to write about the whole land preserve thing in a minute to explain the concept there, which I think is generally part of long-term research on how enterprise works in online world that's useful.
Business picked up in the fall, and I got both returning old customers who had left for various reasons and brand-new customers. I had to dance around on hot needles as usual, trying to stand on my head figuring out advertising, and figure out what was popular now (4096s, which were a staple and perennial for my rentals for 4 years, fell out of fashion, and I had to both make larger lots and smaller lots, which I wasn't as quick as I should have been doing). Then, when I should have called it a day on expenses, I decided to buy 3 Nautilus lots, which cost me about US $650, really hardly a price to justify at all in SL, given that it could have bought an openspace sim or more mainland that would have rented better (at my rates, I'd get back the "investment" in Nautilus some time in 2010 lol). I'll write about that, too, but this expense was in part a desire to keep up with reverse-engineering the Lindens whenever they do something so I can see how it works, and again, from that "hobby" sense of "just liking" the area and wishing to make something of it. In the long run, a Nautilus buy, due to the $5 instead of $15 tier is a good buy that might pay itself off in time but...see above re: "heat-death of the sun."
This month, I'm taking money OUT of SL instead of putting it IN, which is how it should be, of course. Business has been better, although some long-time customers left. The only reason I'm here to even experience "better business" is because I was willing to eat a loss in the summer -- most people wouldn't do that with their small businesses or hobbies. Overall, it makes the year then look pretty shabby, and almost not worth the effort if it didn't have other enjoyable aspects -- profits have steadily declined or stayed flat in the four years I've been in business and only someone who is on a scientific expedition could justify this.
I don't pretend to have any bright insights about business in SL. I'm a very slow learner and not adaptive, being old and stupid. Other people would get more automated rentomatics -- I've decided not to, for various reasons, and I think that I have been able to hang on to a good base of returning tenants precisely because I can be more flexible "live" for them as to prims, moves, pricing changes, discounts from tier donation, etc. But probably at steady, eroding losses.
Here are some things that I think all SL businesses have to be doing to survive, especially rentals:
o Do not buy new land unless you have a firm waitlisted customer to rent that land. Desmond Shang seems to have used this concept effectively, and you have to be ruthless. You can't go by something like hearing from a few prospective customers that they wish you had open spaces. You can't go by a customer asking if you have an 8192 as they might like to move. They will disappear on you in ways you could never imagine. Instead, you have to get a deposit and a scripted box and a waitlist -- and then produce that rental for them and even then, see some attrition.
o Don't help newbies by giving away freebies only. Newbies are just other adults with DSL lines, high-end graphic cards, and disposable time just like yourself. They are not war-torn orphans in Afghanistan. They are affluent Westerners for the most part who are just lazy about learning how to buy Lindens, dependent on suspicious spouses who won't let them buy Lindens, or just geeks who insist on a freetard republic wherever they go. Don't indulge them. Everybody can pay *something*. A dollar a prim is reasonable. Even if all you do is get $50 as a fee to join a group once, do that much. It's really disrespectful to yourself and your own labour to give away everything, and not even charge $1 or $2. You do no one any favours. The poor ye always have with you. They will come and come, and drain and drain. Don't do that to yourself, and don't set a bad example for them.
o Diversify your holdings relentlessly, i.e. a mixture of mainland and private island seems good to me, or a mixture of styles of land, or offerings ranging from an empty lot to a move-in furnished beach house. If you plan on making a year-round business with Swiss chalets on a snow sim -- don't. It will never work. Snow is on the no-buy list always and everywhere. I think I've basically had to become the Wal-Mart of rentals, with a huge variety and a range for every budget, but not going into the high-end rentals of more than half a sim, because even two weeks with a vacant half or full sim would put me under.
o Advertise ruthlessly. This means not just spending obscene amounts of money that cut into your profits, but finding ever-new ways to show your logo and get your notecard givers all over the place, in malls, at existing rentals, etc. I finally started doing something that I had always found rather tacky before, and that was putting in my "latest listings" sign with a lot of the offerings on to many rental parcels. This worked well for Nautilus which is still getting a lot of look-sees. It's a tasteful enough sign not to clutter up the neighbourhood and it works, although I am still not up to putting it on every single lot the way some people do as I think it looks crappy and then of course you have to come fetch it off the land when it rents. I think the one thing I haven't done yet which I hope to do some day is sponsor an event or live music, but I'm too broke now. But I've tried every single kind of advertising out there, Xstreet.com page impressions, magazines, websites, malls, signboards, classifieds, etc. and I still find that search/places and word of mouth work the best. But ever single day I have to re-do these ads, change their locations, their wording, etc.
o "Time to lean, time to clean". This adage instilled to me at a tender age by Kenny, my boss at the 7/11 store, as I leaned idly on the counter, still galvanizes me into action with my sponge. If I am standing idly in my store with no customers and not anything happening, there is a problem. I don't have a customer. I don't have business. Why am I leaning on the counter? So I need to get out there and at least front the merchandise, clean up the deli case, put the shopping carts away from the parking lot -- that sort of thing. At least feign action by sweeping so far into the parking lot that I land over at the Swirl, to meet half-way my old friend who also sweeping the lot and applying these same lessons from his boss at the Swirl, and is now an important Congressional aide lol.
And I find in SL, you can never do TOO MUCH of this. One of my favourite things to do is to go around to places that aren't renting and figure out why they aren't renting. An obvious thing (which I think probably took me two years in SL to realize) is the music left over from the last customer. Although theoretically, new customers know they can change this music, arriving on a parcel and hearing music they hate will make them TP away immediately. So I turn it OFF. I become actively frightened when I find cello music has been allowed to linger on a non-performing lot for more than a week! Another thing that can happen is odd blockages, that can happen for all sorts of odd reasons. Perhaps a previous customer had the block for "no payment info on file" turned on. Perhaps some odd terraforming has happened to throw up a huge earth mound in front of the doorway. Perhaps a neighbour has some giant piece of stray plywood in their sky from a house getting out of control and it is ruining the view. Something. It's endless on the mainland, and it's sort of fun finding out why. After a certain point, a recurring non-selling rental has to be removed -- sold, or combined with another lot, or turned into something else completely.
o Have plenty of help instructions and remove confusion relentlessly. Be consistent on keeping your own rules.
o Don't suffer fools lightly. Many people like to lecture me on how I should be selling charming personality instead of my rentals. I will not be doing that. I'm selling discount rentals, not becoming your friend or your paid escort. Adjust your attitude accordingly, just as I've adjusted my prices : )
Even with all these homey adages, I'm well aware that I'm just one new Linden policy away from bankruptcy. The trick is to try to see it coming at least 2 weeks in advance so I am not needlessly paying a new tier bill.
Some very good points there, I'll never agree with the way you talk to some of your customers or potential customers but you're right about being ruthless. When I started on estate I sold estate parcels, I then found I didn't have the heart to reclaim a parcel someone had paid for so I had to switch to a straight rental model as refunding people wasn't a good business model (I was offering discounted tier for upfront costs compared to straight rentals).
The whole Sarah Nerd episode is depressing, like you I hold Sarah in very high regard, she is a good person. She blogged about the issues for some months, issues that were raised and ignored by the Lindens and now we see some of the results of policies outside of the control of landlords.
Times are hard and Sarah won't be the only person going under, but she is a person who doesn't deserve to be in this position. Linden Lab need to realise that inworld business needs must be respected, otherwise they'll find out too late that ignoring them is damaging.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | December 05, 2008 at 04:48 PM
Linden Lab only cares about content creation. They've said that now a million times, so trying to persuade them otherwise is futile. And even there, they only care about content creators they like. The Lindens can afford to let a treasure like Sarah Nerd go from the mainland because the mainland is a fraction of their customers and their product. Their main product is islands, and the content creators that feed the islands are more important to them than the island owners themselves in the long run.
Ciaran, they have no objective need to "respect inworld business". It's like me telling, oh, the land barons of New York and its mayor that "you all better RESPECT this little dry cleaner guy in my neighbourhood who escaped the Holocaust and ran this little tailor and dry cleaning shop for 40 years until his rent went up." They have no objective need for little dry cleaning guys who escaped the Holocaust and struggled in business in a constantly changing area for 40 years. They are selling building space and upscaling neighbourhoods, not selling memories and respect for old people and small businesses. The fact that the old guy also served as a kind of neighbourhood watch on the kids and an exchange post and socializer for old people didn't matter to anyone, you couldn't put a price on that.
Let them go on the Internet and remember the Holocaust and the old folks and watch the kids...there.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | December 05, 2008 at 05:01 PM
One thing doesn't make sense to me. If all that LL cares about is techno-communism, why do they charge for tier? ;)
I mean, if all they wished for was nice, cute content, they could simply set up a handful of OpenSim servers, let everybody share their content their in bliss, and sell profiling data, like all those social thingies out there do to survive.
No, I guess that the "real reasons" are more complex than merely attributing it to LL's techno-communism. Also, there isn't a "The Lindens" any more: there are *many* Lindens. They think different and handle things differently. And they don't communicate as efficiently as in the Olden Days when Philip just needed to step on a desk to talk the whole crowd. These days, some Lindens read the Massively blog to gather news on their own company before the "internal communication" reaches them (when it does at all). And I'm pretty sure that these days the techno-communists, the libertarians, the visionaries, and the Protestant Capitalists are well balanced out at LL, and might not even be speaking to each other.
It's the pains of growth again. I'd say that LL is currently going through a very difficult stage where the leadership and the direction of change is more fuzzier than ever before. They want to appeal to businesses and education, but... how exactly do they propose to do that? They don't *really* know how — they just have "clues" from talking to both. And they want to sacrifice absolutely all in the name of stability. Ultimately, after all, the drop of the OpenSpace sims was made in "The Holy Name of Stability".
I'm personally a bit touchy when a company prefers to lose customers until their number is technically more manageable. In my book that is poor system & network administration. Perhaps the OpenSim crowd and the Architecture Working Group have got a point after all: Second Life apparently is not as scalable as LL would like it to be. And using that as a pretext, they're kicking customers out until SL reaches a more confortable level.
Then again, LL has often had a bipolar behaviour. Some changes (like fixing 3 lines of code that have a bug in it, and a patch has been duly published) can take up to six months to be fixed, "because of the intense quality assurance tests that have to be made". This almost sounds like Microsoft's excuses for not fixing their code (and Microsoft at least has the excuse that they have to develop all bug fixes internally; Linden Lab can crowdsource a vast number of developers to fix the bugs for them, for free). But some other times change comes abruptly, out of nowhere, with immediate effects, no appeal, no grandfathering, and not caring about customers.
M Linden's task will be to make LL's "policy decisions" more balanced out. That's hard, because many Lindens still pulling the strings are too spoilt at "playing God", and continue somehow to be disconnected with the in-world reality. Playing autist to your customers is never a winning strategy.
Again, we can only wait and see — for the ones that can afford it. For Sarah Nerd, there was no time left.
Posted by: Gwyneth Llewelyn | December 05, 2008 at 06:20 PM
" I'd say that LL is currently going through a very difficult stage where the leadership and the direction of change is more fuzzier than ever before. They want to appeal to businesses and education,"
I agree this is their target group. I work in education and manage a budget. There's no way I'd authorise my budget to be used on this platform. The world is a lot smaller than Linden Lab seem to realise, I'm also on educational mailing lists and have seen discontent since the trademark issue, our mailing group specifically for Second Life was renamed to virtual worlds and now we get mails from education institutions opening up in other virtual worlds.
It's a small world, my own money I'll risk, I won't risk my work budget.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | December 05, 2008 at 07:02 PM
Gwyn, have you studied communism on your RL Eurasian continent?! The communists are always selling the capitalists the rope used to hang them...
Germany depends on Russia now for 42 percent of its natural gas. All those years Siemens sold equipment to protect the sacred Soviet border! And so on...
Oh, stop it about the "many Lindens". They leak the news to Massively, they don't read the news on there, unless they are really behind the door...There have always been different factions of Lindens, but that's a different problem.
The idea that crowdsourcing fixes bugs is a fiction. There isn't always company buy in and prioritizing, and that's fine with me.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | December 05, 2008 at 07:12 PM
The thing that doesn't make sense to me is if the Lindens are only interested in content creation, then why did they bother with an inworld currency and all that entails?
Posted by: Morris Vig | December 05, 2008 at 07:13 PM
Im interested in what you say about advertising (realizing this is a bit off topic) obviously as its the only income a TV show can make, and let me tell you its bloody tough at the moment to get advertisers. I watch the Classifieds regularly to see trends and I watched the price for the top payer for the last 6 months going up and up to ridiculous prices 500 thousand L's a week! then last week it dropped down to 400L per week...this week it up over 600 thousand L's per week! I guess its the Christmas panic the retailers are feeling this year. Do these people who pay that have RL money to do this? or is being on the front page of Classified really that good!
Sarah going belly up is concerning, I wonder what this means for Land investment on the whole and how it will effect other business...Ive been wary of buying land from very early on, and listing my business on the stock exchange I don't understand it so I don't wanna do it, and I don't trust any of them in the Stock exchanges :) "Don't invest what you can't afford to lose" has been my moto. "in SL I invest time and money in my TV company, if SL disappeared tomorrow I would have the archives of my show, I will have spent a lot of money in wages and and expenses (a lot of money to me not a lot in the Sarah Nerd type way) but I won't OWE money to anyone. I've said this before, there must be loads of people out there now thinking like me. This increasing lack of trust in SL and the Lindens, will also transfer over to RL business coming into second Life, why invest in something where you can't guarantee that your investment will 1. pay off and 2 be secure?. No way would I do it if I had a RL business.
Paisley
Posted by: Paisley Beebe | December 05, 2008 at 07:20 PM
They want content creators to get paid, Morris. They don't care if other people get paid or not. It's of no interest.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | December 05, 2008 at 07:23 PM
Personally, I just think oldbie business mogels got comfortable about their megaprofits in SL the first years up to Q4 of 2008. Business models need to constantly change... If you're not willing to do this, then consider yourself lucky for making all those bucks the first years.... but SL ain't the same anymore, but the profit possibilities are still there.
I've seen many many MANY people "go out of business" or "quit" SL, and within a week, start right back up again.
I think the term "business" & "company" are thrown around in SL. Ya rent a 512, stick a vendor in there, and then call it a business.. why not.
Many people came into SL, set up their somethings, found out it made money, labeled it a business, and now when it's not making money, they need to announce they must "close their business"
It seems slightly falsified or embellished to me. People start "companies" in SL daily, on a whim, on an idea.... and they fold in SL just the same.
The "companies" that survive are run by companies that are willing to make substantial changes to survive. If you just get overwhelmed and frustrated with LL's new world order, and would rather complain instead of find new methods of profitability, then the company is gonna fold.
footnote: Did you ever notice in SL that no company ever goes bankrupt? they only close. It's because the owner has decided to quit, not because the business is failing.
Posted by: Doubledown Tandino | December 05, 2008 at 08:31 PM
Paisley Beebe wrote: "I'm interested in what you say about advertising (realizing this is a bit off topic) obviously as its the only income a TV show can make, and let me tell you its bloody tough at the moment to get advertisers."
I'm finding that not to be a problem for us at NCI. We have a waiting list for space on our ad system. I wonder if that's because of the demographics (exposure to new residents), or because a number of NCI advertisers consider the ads in part a charitable contribution.
Posted by: Carl Metropolitan | December 05, 2008 at 10:23 PM
Sarah Nerd is a class act, and for this to happen is a tragedy.
I don't see it as a business failure. She's better at business than that. I see it as a solid, sensible review of the risk side of the equation, brought on by a crisis of trust.
* * * * *
The crisis is not over by a longshot, either. We'll continue to see a market shakeout for months, even if we are briefly buoyed by new users.
Trouble is, and this is the part so few get: a world's history *does matter*.
Even if the users themselves have churned over and replaced themselves to a man three times since a disaster, the effects linger with incredible tenacity.
It still matters what happened in 2004 with the Snow lands; the perceptions remain and are passed on.
It still matters that Anshe built her empire in 2004-2005. Even if she sold everything tomorrow, the Business Week article would still define her presence more than any current situation ever could.
It still matters that 1/4 billion square meters of largely unmanaged mainland was poured onto the grid in 2006-2007. It would take maybe five years to turn around the mainland's brand perception no matter how beautiful it could become before then.
The openspace mess will still matter for years to come, even after the market has seemingly corrected. People don't forget things like that easily.
* * * * *
And now to make the statement that is likely to upset a few people. Oldbies and early adopters matter. A LOT. New residents are wonderful, equally intelligent and all that - but with the exception of some 18 to 22 year olds we were *all* capable of accessing the grid back in 2003.
The difference here is that early adopters actually *did* sniff out the grid early, start digging in, and doing well. And it's not just an accidental 'born date' FIC advantage I'm talking about here. A lot of oldbies really are the 'explore and inhabit new worlds' types. The types somewhat more likely to land on their feet running and build success. Whatever the benefit of being randomly first is, it was pretty well balanced out by the vast expanse of nothingness. There wasn't any reaping until after a whole lot of sowing. And those worldbuilding acts weren't random at all.
In a world where perhaps 10% make the items and businesses that support the other 90%, we pretty much started with that defining 10%. When I see people like Sarah Nerd go... it's a stark signpost, and no amount of new residents will quite fill the hole. It's not that she's gone, or that she was such an early adopter (she was a bit later). It's that her business would have grown strong and resilient with us, making all those magical connexions that make a world special. That is what's gone, going forward. Now the impact of this and a thousand other similar situations will propagate into the future, no matter what we do.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | December 05, 2008 at 10:23 PM
I'm quite sad to see Sarah Nerd closing her business. I don't have anything interesting to say about how it affects SL beyond that. It's just very sad. She's a good person.
Posted by: Carl Metropolitan | December 05, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Come to think of it--I do have something to say. Sarah Nerd has been for some time the land buyer of last resort. I wonder how her departure from the business will effect the floor of prices. Maybe there will be a new person along to take her place, but I suspect we will see a lot more land abandoned.
Posted by: Carl Metropolitan | December 05, 2008 at 10:28 PM
"I'm finding that not to be a problem for us at NCI. We have a waiting list for space on our ad system. I wonder if that's because of the demographics (exposure to new residents), or because a number of NCI advertisers consider the ads in part a charitable contribution. Carl Metropolitan"
Carl that would be like comparing apples to oranges it depends on what you offer, how much it is, proven sales results, demographics yes, I have to compare my TV shows with other TV shows or media, not sure if your advertising is web based or billboard, different in many ways I would imagine.
Paisley
Posted by: Paisley Beebe | December 05, 2008 at 10:47 PM
I have never met Sarah, but I have always admired her. Many of my shopping habits were born in her paradise. I found something there, I enjoyed and I wanted more. So I went shopping. She has been the last resort for many people before abandoning their land.
She is/was an important actor in the SL economy.
And what the Lindens did when she vented out her frustration when the openspace crisis blew up ? They banned her.
Posted by: Wildstar Beaumont | December 06, 2008 at 06:21 AM
Sarah's rep seems to come largely from looking generous being "the buyer of last resort." That is, she's credited with buying land that people would otherwise have to abandon.
That's nonsense. People are always able to sell for the current market bottom. Maybe it didn't make good business sense for Sarah to pay more than that. US$30,000 of WSE money afforded her some generosity, and that goodwill apparently outlived her business.
I'm sorry that such a hard-working proponent of SL failed in her business, but that's tempered by the knowledge that she had a huge financial leg up on most everyone else, and that she mis-represented herself as a team of four in her WSE prospectus.
Posted by: Anna Gulaev | December 06, 2008 at 03:46 PM
You can sell always sell at the current market bottom--- but it's hard to find the bottom unless you turn to a liquidator. Liquidators can afford to buy speculative land because they have 'bots (which saves a lot of time) and because they get some bulk discounts on tier. They can also do some marketing of their land as well.
Lately, the only people buying land at all (aside from the occasional established resident who is moving and/or expanding existing landholdings) are landbarons' 'bots. There seem to be few if any recent in-migrants wandering around looking for a mule and 512 or 1024 square metres to get started with. Yeah, there is still a steady trickle of newcomers, but they don't seem very interested in participating actively in the in-world economy.
Posted by: Tammy Nowotny | December 06, 2008 at 04:28 PM
"...the Lindens, again, engage in deliberate, conscious policies to invalidate 'investments'"
But as your (quite justified) scare quotes indicate, those aren't "investments". "Investment" is probably the most abused word in technology marketing, along with the more mainstream "premier" and "world-class".
But those are merely meaningless. People saying something they are selling (or have bought) is an "investment" often do so on the merest excuse to satisfy a need to rationalize a decision they've already made.
Wanna buy a credit default swap? Great investment, you know...
Posted by: Maggie Darwin | December 06, 2008 at 08:58 PM
Maggie Darwin wrote: "Wanna buy a credit default swap? Great investment, you know..."
I'll give you 1000 Ginko Perpetual Bonds!
Posted by: Carl Metropolitan | December 06, 2008 at 11:45 PM
Liability people forget that simple lesson...
Sarah has purchased some parcels of mine (I do buy and sell land when I think its right for me). Way back I had seen her purchase a 1/4 sim from me and resell it at a very low margin. The lesson here is that although you can flip it faster you assume a great deal of liability for little return. I've seen every "land baron" dump land and hold onto parcels that just don't make sense.
Anshe dumped a 8192 lot to me for 4L$ per m2 but still would never sell the little strip of land in Samoa. She still has a silly high prices on some canals for sale in the Islandia sims. Even if they are for sale, why should people buy them if they sort of protect their view?
The logic is also screwed up with people using a certain person's software to run land sales that they depend on to set resale prices. Quite a few times I was shocked to see her purchase land and have the sale price adjusted to a point that was non profitable.
A mainland 1/4 sim costs a land baron about 3400 Lindens a week (453 per day). Each week the parcel doesn't sell you loose that amount towards your profit.
This is simple basics...
Posted by: Blaccard Burks | December 09, 2008 at 06:17 PM