A Rouge Analysis

Last week I had the opportunity to take part in the opening of Codebastard Redgrave’s new sim, Rouge. It was an enormous success with over 750 guests, and you can see my gossip-laden pictures here. But before, during and after the event I wondered how Codie actually succeeded so well. An examination of what took place could be instructive for any business wishing to stage a successful event.

In any complex undertaking, success comes when many dimensions are covered. You can’t expect everything to go right if you correctly execute only a single aspect. Codie, always an energetic personality, saw no boundaries and used a business-flavored version of the Powell Doctrine:

when a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy

That’s right – many techniques were employed to achieve her objective: a successful launch. What were the specific techniques? I can’t say I know all of it, but here’s a list of things I observed:

• One of the best, if not the best sim builder: Eshi Otawara. By engaging Eshi, Codie not only landed a top-notch builder, but also the reputation of the builder. Eshi’s work always attracts attention, regardless of what she’s building. For the weeks surrounding the opening, attention to Eshi also meant attention to Rouge.
• A truly unique design for the sim. For those of you who somehow haven’t yet seen or heard of it, the sim is designed as a gigantic version of Codie herself! You can stroll up her legs, and, um, where ever...
• Party time and date sufficient to cover all planetary time zones. Most avatars now seem to originate from time zones other than North America, a fact often forgotten by many who host events. Codie carefully selected a broad weekend time slot that enabled everyone to have a fair chance of attending. Of course, it required her to be around for a massive number of hours, but that’s the price of success.
• Announcements. One of the most basic promotion techniques, announcements flew in every direction before the opening. Codie used her own blog, of course, but also through here extensive network of friends announcements or mentions appeared on many blogs.
• Generous invitations to her SL group. Invitations to the CodeRed group were offered, especially before the event and anyone who wished an invitation probably received one. Announcements went out to the group members on an increasing frequency as the date and time of the event came closer. If you were a member, there was no way you could have missed the information.
• Press Conference. The evening before the event, Codie held a press conference where invited media and bloggers had an exclusive preview of the sim and were able to ask questions of not only Codie but also the builder, Eshi.
• Incomparable DJs. The long duration required multiple DJ shifts. Codie arranged for many preeminent DJs to appear during the event.
• Quality Free Gifts. Gadgets detected guests and provided items randomly. If you weren’t lucky with the random gifts, there were several name-brand gifts for the taking directly.
• Leveraging social networks. Like many of us, Codie belongs to the vast social cloud of blogging, tweeting, flickring and most recently plurking. Codie has a habit of telling everyone what she’s up to, and the Rouge meme spread thickly through the SL social sphere. By the way, Codie happens to be one of the most active SL Plurkers (#2 as of this writing, with Gabby Panacek #1 and yours truly at #5).
• Blog Post-Event-Buzz. After the spectacular event, many blogs (including this one) posted reports, pictures and commentary. Codie rounded them up and posted an extensive list of pointers to all of them.
• Anticipation. The most important and final item was how the entire operation unfolded. It began weeks away when Codie announced on Plurk that she was obtaining a sim. We then saw every stage of development mentioned: The sim was transferred. The sim was named. A designer was hired. DJs. Ideas for the build. More ideas. Contributions. Building. Questions. More building. Scheduling. Invitations. Frantic activity. As a mere observer, I read the bulletins and gradually began to feel like I was somehow part of the action. I wanted to know what happens next, since the bulletins became a kind of story with an unknown ending. Finally, when the sim actually opened it was totally obvious that I should go. That’s how everyone felt, because we were with Codie every step of the way.

Is there a better way to open a sim? Perhaps, but I couldn’t tell you. Maybe Codie can. Well done, my friend!

Product Pricing Revisited

Last week I posted the basics of product pricing, but there is a lot more to the story. Friend Dandellion Kimban posted her theory of pricing, which proposes a number of psychological and sociological factors are also at play. I believe this to be true, and in spite of the advice I provided last week, I often do guess at prices because of these very factors.

While the pricing of particle effects is not as sophisticated as in the general fashion industry, I have personally observed two examples of Dandellion’s theory.

Many months ago a large-scale landowner came by and recommended that I raise my prices. “They are too low”, he said. At the time I believed that lower prices were required to “beat the competition”, whoever they might have been at the time. But this guy appeared to be successful and therefore may have known something I did not. I like to experiment, so I raised my prices to nice round (and larger) numbers. Amazingly, business picked up immediately. Not lots, but definite and consistent from then onwards.

The second occurrence was much more recent, and dealt with the issue of pricing custom built particle effects. I get many visitors coming by requesting all manner of custom builds. Sometimes it goes badly, but most of the time I am able to more than satisfy customers with cool stuff. I guess they like the products because people keep asking for more. Eventually, I simply did not have time to handle all the requests. I had to do something, as the situation was getting out of control. I could have just turned them away, but instead I did what most business owners do when demand outstrips supply: I raised my price.

I set a minimum fee for any custom effect. And depending on the complexity of the item, the price could even be higher. Take that, numerous sequesters!

My thoughts of having a more relaxing time quickly evaporated when I discovered that no requester balked at the minimum fee. Fine, I said to myself. I will do the work and get paid more for it.

Then something interesting happened.

More clients began to arrive over succeeding days. So many that I suspected them of conspiring with each other. Yet they were not. I was making more money and getting even more demand, but why?

Dandellion has the answer: the price sets the price. For a quality item, a higher price transforms it into an exclusive item, more desirable than it was before.

My advice: set your prices very carefully indeed.

Score Your Avatar's Name

Last week I posted an analysis of the important characteristics of avatar names. The post proved so popular that I decided to build a tool with which you can calculate a score for your name's coolness!

After some experimentation with scripts, I believe I now have an easy-to-use tool ready for use here. It's quite straightforward: just answer the questions below, hit the "Score Me!" button at the bottom and your name's rating will be automatically calculated. The maximum score is 100.

How does the scoring system work, you ask? I devised scores for all the characteristics based on how I feel about them. Again, like the characteristics, it's my own opinion; yours may differ.

I've added a category for Gender, as correctly pointed out by Vint Falken's comment on the previous post.

Please give the scoring system a try and add your score to the comments; I'd like to see how your name ranks. Mine is only 56.

Length of first name:
--Specify length of name-- 1-6 characters 7-10 characters 10+ characters

Spelling:
--Rate the spelling of name-- Can spell correctly after hearing name only Can spell correctly after seeing name in text once Can spell correctly only after multiple attempts Nearly impossible to remember correct spelling

Pronounciation:
--Rate pronounciation of name-- Can pronounce correctly after seeing name only Can pronounce correctly after hearing name spoken by others Can pronounce correctly after multiple attempts Can pronounce correctly only occasionally, even after hearing it spoken Impossible to pronounce correctly

Memorability:
--Rate memorability of name-- Can easily remember name the next day after first hearing it Can remember name if prompted with a clue Have to write down the name to remember it Cannot even write it down

Uniqueness:
--Rank uniqueness of name-- Only one hit in search for name Less than 10 hits in search for name Less than 100 hits in search for name More than 100 hits in search for name

Case:
--Specify character case in name-- CamelCase (embedded words capitalized) Sentence case (first letter capitalized) lower case (no capitalization) FULL CAPS (all letters capitalized) mIxeD cAPs ()

Gender:
--Classify name's gender-- Both avatar and name have ambiguous gender Name's gender matches avatar's genderGender is ambiguous and shouldn't be for avatar Gender is wrong for avatar


Does name include any digits?


Does first name "flow" into last name?


Can name be easily abbreviated to 2-4 characters?


Does meaning of first name match or complement last name?



Your name scores:
out of 100 possible points

Thanks for participating! (and you answer honestly, right?)

Why Radar Can't Pronounce My Name

He can't. Few can. Even I can't. How did it come to this?

It's a sad tale that I've seen repeated several times in our virtual world: people with very awkward names. But why do they occur? I will tell the story of how my name came to be, and then to pronounce it.

I'm a very inquisitive person and I love to try new things, especially online services. I'd heard about the Second Life Virtual World™ and how people were apparently making millions living in a virtual paradise. Finally I obtained a computer sufficiently powerful to enable me to try it.

As I do with any new online service that I happen to test (and I test an awful lot of services), I use a throw-away id. I don't use my real name unless it's a serious service, which at the time I did not believe SL to be. The trouble was I couldn't figure out SL right away. Usually you can jump into a service and determine how it works within a few days or even hours. Not SL. Not with its steep learning curve and deeply rich culture.

So I continued slogging along as a pathetic newb for days, learning the ropes. Weeks passed. Then months. At that point, I had grown virtual legs and was finally capable of operating competently. But something else had happened. I was connected. I had a reputation, friends, stores, and even a pretty serious blog. It was too late to change my name without losing a ton of social capital.

So here I am, with my awkward name. I sympathize with others who also made a mistake when they signed up, especially those unfortunates with digits attached to their first name.

More recently, I've been showing up or mentioned on several podcasts where the well-meaning and professional hosts completely butcher the pronounciation of my name. Some even ask the impossible question, "what is the possessive form of ArminasX?" So to clear up the confusion, now I declare the correct pronounciation:

• ArminasX should be pronounced as "Ar-min-AXE"

Just consider the "s" to be silent. Or even better, just call me "Armi".

Should I get a new avatar with a new name? No, it's far too late for that. But I do have some thoughts on the qualities that make a good name. But let's save that for another day.

6 Ways To Run Your Business After You Die!

There’s one aspect of running a business that is often forgotten, and I fear it is totally neglected by almost all Second Life businesses: What happens when you can’t continue?

What do I mean by “can’t continue”? I mean this: you are sick, permanently disconnected, injured, imprisoned, kidnapped, dead or otherwise completely unable to do any work whatsoever on your virtual business.

In RL this is called “Succession Planning”. The idea is that you assume you’re gonna eventually disappear for some reason, and we’d better figure out who’s taking over when you do. Large businesses take great care in laying out detailed succession plans, so that when the execs go down in a fiery airplane crash, everyone knows what to do. Even small businesses take time to consider what needs to happen, if they are well run.

The issues are no different in SL, except in scale.

However, I suspect very few in-world businesses have considered this possibility. And even worse, a virtual environment poses additional difficulties well beyond those encountered in RL business disasters: anonymity.

First, let’s suppose your virtual business has no succession plan. What happens? Let’s examine the likely sequence of events for a typical virtual retail operation:

• You Die (harsh, but it Can Happen!)
  
• Your business continues to operate, since avatars can still visit your parcel and purchase items (hmm… assuming the Grid is operational…)
  
• Linden $ accumulate in your account
  
• Invoices arrive on schedule
  
• Automated payments from your account continue
  
• Fees requiring manual intervention remain unpaid, since you aren’t there, remember?
  
• Fees linked to your Paypal account do get paid, at least for a while
  
• Residents notice your absence and do their best to determine what happened, but unless there is a RL connection somewhere, it is entirely possible no one in SL will know what happened. There is nothing your virtual friends can do
  
• Your RL survivors have no idea or understanding of your virtual existence and do not realize they have a significant asset to deal with. They do not operate your business or even realize it exists
  
• Eventually your invoices do not get paid because your survivors have shut off your Paypal account, either directly or indirectly via credit card cancellation
  
• Your tier is unpaid for a long period, and Linden Lab eventually reclaims your abandoned land. Your carefully constructed objects evaporate and your business effectively ceases to exist
  

A tragedy for certain; not only for the maker, but also for residents because the maker’s wonderful items would no longer be available.

For larger virtual businesses, the amount of cash flow can be significant and the business is a non-trivial asset that just cannot be forgotten. What can be done? Here’s some ideas:

• Decide what you want done. Should your business be sold to the highest bidder? Perhaps you want to give it to a good friend who you think would be able to run it properly. Maybe it should be donated to a worthy cause or organization (who also should know what to do with it)
• Pick someone. Decide exactly who could actually deal with your operation if necessary. Yes, that hunky boyfriend may be your closest friend, but does he have a hot clue about fashion design? If your business is already owned by a partnership, then this step is easy
  
• Make a plan. Your most trusted virtual friends should know what you want them to do in case of disaster. Tell your trusted pals your intentions! And you should carefully define what you mean by disaster: “Gee, you were away for three weeks and I thought you were dead, so I sold your business. Sorry!”
• Leave the Keys. Consider leaving sufficient information with your most trusted pals so they can act on your intentions. It might be as simple as a RL name and phone number so they can contact your survivors and explain to them what needs to be done. It could even be account passwords, but they’d have to be extremely trustworthy to consider that step, especially in a large business
• Advise RL. They may not have any clue about virtual reality, but somebody should at least know there is something to do with your virtual comrades in a disaster. Leave them the account and password information (sealed, if necessary). Tell them the names of avatars to trust, since your virtual friends may be calling on your RL survivors
  
• Get a Coach. If you know a trustworthy SL user in your local area, make arrangements for them to provide assistance to your survivors. Survivors will likely have absolutely no idea where to start, what to do, or even understand what is presented to them. Get them a coach to interpret and guide

Would you bother doing this? I would consider this type of plan necessary only if you have a significant in-world business, either one with lots of revenue or one where many people depend on your operation. Many smaller virtual businesses are barely viable and probably are not worth these steps.

Let’s hope you survive a long time. Note that I don’t say, “let’s hope nothing bad happens”, because something bad Will Indeed Happen Eventually. Plan on it.

Dunbar's Friends

I examined an interesting social theory the other day: Dunbar's Number. The short explanation is that it's 150. Oh, you want more?

The long explanation is that it is:

a theorized cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships

What the heck does that mean? Quite simply, your brain can't keep track of more than 150 individuals in any effective way. It's not a matter of practice or experience. It's biology and neural logistics! Multiple evidence has arisen to confirm this theory, including the typical sizes of villages, military units, etc.

The theory goes on to suggest that you cannot maintain 150 relationships unless you spend almost half your available time engaging with them. In certain social situations, this can be accomplished and is sometimes necessary (e.g. military), but in common experience, we simply don't have the time to perform the necessary engagement to maintain all of the relationships. In other words, practical experience indicates that 150 is not achievable. I've read that a more pragmatic number is around 75 individuals for casual environments like Second Life.

So what does this have to do with the Second Life experience?

The other day I was searching for one of my friends and began scrolling down my Friend List. And it was a very, very long scroll. My gosh, how many friends do I have, anyway? A quick count revealed approximately 134 avatars on my list. Wait a minute! That's way over the practical Dunbar limit!

No wonder I can't keep track of them all. There are some on my list for whom, unfortunately, I no longer recall the circumstances of our relationship. Should I clean up my friends list to trim it down below my biological comprehension limit? Perhaps, but I think I'd rather keep them there just in case, and know that I can't know them. Perhaps someday they could be the next Anshe, M, Crap Mariner or even a Torley! Better keep them on the list ...

How big is your friends list? Do trim or clean it periodically? How far over or under Dunbar's number are you? Drop a comment with your view!

All Reality, All The Time

Something I frequently observe in virtual reality is transformation. Of ideas, personalities, opinions, and minds. Today I’m speaking of how my mind’s conception of reality has been severely distorted by my virtual experience.

Prior to my Second Life experience I viewed reality in the conventional way: things, people, molecules and matter arranged in an intricate manner. But mostly I viewed the world as a place of things. Houses, people, plants, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc.

Then I entered virtual reality. For a very short while I viewed the virtual world as I do the real world: as a place of things. Shortly thereafter I learned how to build virtual objects. After a few weeks of virtual construction (of mostly incredibly bad newbie-oriented flotsam), something weird happened in real life.

I had previously visited the virtual encampment of Canadian telecom carrier Telus. At the time they had (and may still have) a virtual store that appears very similar to their real life stores. The colors, styles and layout were nearly identical, as was no doubt their intention.

The next day in real life I happened to walk by a true, real-life, made-with-Actual-Molecules Telus store. I saw the same colors, structures and layout as existed in virtual reality. I saw that they had rezzed the real life store with a stretched prim cube along the top, and had textured the desks in a slightly transparent green.

Wait a minute...

Prim? Texture? Rezzed!!!

Those are virtual concepts, not for use in real life. Even so, my then-virtual-oriented mind was mentally decomposing the real Telus store as if it were made from virtual prims! This virtual bounce-back effect continued, as it seemed everything I looked at was no longer a “thing”. Instead real life had become “objects” made of Real Prims. I had transformed. My world view had permanently changed as I then saw real life and the virtual world in the same way. I continue to perceive reality in this way.

More recently during a quick trip to humanity’s Capital of Extreme, Las Vegas, Nevada, more transformations occurred. First, I happened to bumble into the lobby of the astounding Bellagio hotel (which, by the way, has a virtual counterpart). Just off the lobby is a giant greenhouse in which amazing displays of horticulture sprout on a regular basis.

I stopped dead in my tracks as my gaze rose up to see Huge Flowers! Flowers so tall they were Not Possible In Real Life! That's NPIRL, a term I've heard elsewhere of late.

Amazing yes, but much more so than most of the Bellagio’s patrons realized. Not only was real life similar to the virtual world in components (prims), but here they were similar in Things. As I walked among the titanic plants, cow-sized butterflies and gaily decorated giant snails large enough to ride upon I felt just as I would floating through a sim with such monstrous flora and fauna. The real world is not only made of prims, but also contains Strange Impossible Things, just like virtual reality!

As if that wasn’t enough, a final incident at the pool sealed my reality confusion. A woman beside me suddenly got up to chase her young boy, as he had galloped off toward the menacing water. As she stood, I saw the boy’s sandal attached by Velcro to the lady’s behind! Evidently the real world also has the “shoes up your ass” bug.

Real World, Virtual World. What’s the difference? It’s All Reality, All The Time.

An ARC From Here to Infinity

I’m obsessed with a number. Not just any number, but those amazing new ARCs. Avatar Rendering Cost!

What, you don’t know what that is?

It’s a new feature in the viewer that hatched a few weeks ago. You can access it via this tortuous and finger-straining mouse path: Advanced Menu ->Rendering->Info Displays->Avatar Rendering Cost. Once you’ve ticked that mysterious option you’ll see strange numbers appear above everyone’s head. Yeah, it’s been well described before. First here, then here and a bunch of other spots too.

It’s great sport to check out the ARCs of a crowd to see who’s got the “heaviest” ARC. Or the lowest. A visitor to Electric Pixels the other night was a mere 33, while some of my friends consistently haul around in excess of Five Thousand ARC (you know who you are!) At the Tonight Live taping last weekend someone in the audience was over Ten Thousand – so unbelievably heavy that my LCD screen actually started warping whenever she was in view.

Nevertheless, my interest in ARC lies elsewhere, specifically regarding the bit about particles found in the Official Blog:

16 points added if prim is a particle emitter. Rationale: Particles create even MORE CPU overhead and consume graphics bus bandwidth.

Hmm. Evidently particle effects take up a unit count of 16.

But do they really?

I don’t think so. In fact, I suspect the 16 is merely a guess. Why? Because all particle effects are not created equal. They vary considerably in their behaviour. Here’s what I mean: I can write a particle script that issues a single particle once every 20 minutes. Your poor viewer will no doubt strain and begin smoking under the tremendous effort required to draw that little puff. If you wait the 20 minutes for it to appear.

On the other hand, I can write a particle script that might emit 1000 particles every 0.01 seconds, and keep each of them visible for a full minute. In other words, after 10 seconds of that, your snappy viewer must draw (1000 / 0.01) * 10 = 1,000,000 particles! Yeowch! Actually, your viewer would stop drawing them after you hit the particle limit as set in your preferences, typically 4096 (although I once met a guy who preferred to set his to 4. Yes, 4. I hope they were the Best Four Particles.)

Ahem, back to the analysis we were developing.

So, a particle effect can develop a workload for your shiny PC of something between say, INFINITY and well, NOTHING! But we gotta count particles as something for the ARC statistic. Let’s see. How about SIXTEEN? Yeah, that’s it!

The Official Mandarins had little choice. They had to plug some number, perhaps based on some statistics or empirical experience. And so sixteen it is.

But you and I know that it is really a guess. So when you are in that sandbox and see a newb setting off a phalanx of sim-cracking blockbuster nukes, mentally add a few more ARC points to ‘em.

Thinking of Gina

My friend Peter Stindberg, translator extraordinary, contacted me last week with an unusual situation. He had been affected by the all-too-often transitory nature of relationships in Second Life; his friend Gina Glimmer was no longer able to continue in our virtual world. 

This happens from time to time, sometimes when the avatar's owner passes on in real life. Often memorials are built, sometimes small and personal, at other times large and public, especially for those who were well known.

Peter has taken a different approach. There's no memorial. Instead he has made all of Gina's artwork (her former SL business) available to everyone at no charge in an effort to remember her. Peter hopes that people "maybe think of her when watching them". The artwork is available in her OnRez gallery or in-world at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Experience%20Italy%20W/179/30/29.

I never had the opportunity of meeting Gina, but after reading Peter's posts and looking at her artwork, I wish I had met her. 

Peter, it's working.

Stindberg Speaks

A very quick post today: I stumbled into a very interesting post by SLEntrepreneur, who interviewed my pal, SL translator extraordinary Peter Stindberg. Peter discusses various aspects of his translation business, which I believe will be of interest to Second Effects readers... at least the business types, anyway.

Elderly Visitors

Last October I wrote about a strange phenomenon occurring at my store, Electric Pixels. I had examined my traffic counter and found that the age of my visitors was gradually increasing over time. At that time I speculated that it was perhaps due to:

• The same set of customers continues to visit, and they simply get older over time? (This can't be true because inspection of the transaction log shows few repeat long-term customers. Yes, there are repeats, but the majority of customers are new to the store.)
• Perhaps as my avatar gets older and more experienced, he makes more sophisticated products that attract a more sophisticated clientele? I'd like to think so!
• As knowledge of these products increases via word-of-mouth, older avatars become aware of Electric Pixels and come by to shop? If so, where did the young ones go? This graph might be indirect evidence of word-of-mouth viral promotion, which is typically not easily measurable.
• Perhaps the more recent arrivals to Second Life simply don't buy as much as those who joined earlier? We know that Linden's policy changes have affected the makeup of the Second Life residents somewhat - maybe this is one of the side effects?

I thought it was time to revisit the data, especially after reading this paradoxical article in New World Notes. Here's the result in 2D graphical form: the customers are continuing to get older. Virtually no newbies come by, as the majority of the customers are now 1+ years old. In SL, I mean!

The NWN article suggests another cause may be at work: there simply aren't as many newbies any more! Also, I suspect another factor may be at play. The new signups may have a disproportionate number of alts created by existing avatars, and they do their shopping with the main avatar that has the fattest wallet.

We all do this, don't we?

They Walk

I've met many people in Second Life, some from far, distant places and some terrifyingly close to home. There are those who speak other languages and those who just don't know how to dress properly. Some are new, some are old. Many are astonishingly nice, and a scant few are raving lunatics. But they are all, every single one of them, real people underneath those pixels. And we must never forget that.

I like to observe people in an attempt to understand them. If I can understand someone better, I can become a better friend, a more effective worker or a more caring partner. Mostly people seem to act like they would in real life, or as they wish they could be via role-playing. Their actions are often predictable, or at least understandable in the same sense as you might expect a real life person to act if you know them somewhat well and understand the context they work within. You might understand if your friend jumped off a virtual building for the thrill of it, but you would not expect them to do things totally out of their normal character.

But once in a while there is an aberration. Something out of the ordinary. Actions out of context. People doing things that don't quite make sense, based on my understanding of their personality.

I observed a friend playing in Second Life. Moving around. Running around. Jumping. And jumping again. And again. Sure, it's fun to do that, but not over and over and over and again. I wondered a long time about that. About why they would do act that way.

And then I learned the terrible truth.

In real life my friend is disabled. In a wheelchair.

And that is why they moved around so much. Doing what many do in Second Life: Being and enjoying what they cannot do in real life. And being treated as an equal, on par with anyone else in the world.

Later, I learned another friend was also disabled. And another.

Many are here.

Now, when I see people doing things “too much” I stop to watch. I don't comment or criticize their actions. Instead I think about them. And smile, for they are free of reality for a time.

Some may say their life is tragic. Perhaps so, perhaps not. To me the real tragedy is elsewhere. The true tragedy is the disabled millions who do not or cannot transform themselves with virtual reality to briefly experience things that cannot be. They may not even realize the virtual possibilities they have lost, and I weep for them.

And what of the disabled among us?

Shed no tears for them, because

They Walk.

Vendor Bending

Let's get this straight right away: I don't like vendors. No, not the fine people that sell things - I am talking about those Vending Machines one often encounters in Second Life. Often used by fine people. Why pick on vendors? Nightbird's comment on this post got me thinking about vendors and I couldn't resist.

Why don't I like them? Let's start with the good things:

Vending Machines are very prim-light. In fact, a good vendor may soak up only a single prim, whereas your for-sale object may yank hundreds of prims from your measly parcel limit. That's right, you can't easily place that 4,444 prim Naval Aircraft Carrier for sale without slightly blowing out your prim limit. You could put it inside a vendor and avoid the pain. Or, just put it in a box instead and avoid the vendor entirely.

Sophisticated vending machines might offer networking capability, where they can simultaneously update and contain consistent sets of objects regardless of the locations where your 720 vendors were dumped on the Grid. In addition, some sophisticated vendors might offer reporting capability so you can track your sales. However, I've found satellite stores and mall locations to be extremely ineffective, so I have no reason to employ vendors in distributed locations.

Payments may be split by a vendor into separate payments by multiple owners, where two or more people are to receive income from sales. However, this is often problematic, since a typical situation involves Maker A placing a vendor on Resident B's property. Who makes sure that the vendor's payment-splitting script actually does a fair split? A? or B? Who made the script? Who owns the script? Who can change the script? My enquiries about this scenario suggest that Resident B should simply rent space to Maker A by the week and avoid the problem entirely. So much for payment splitting.

And I think that's about it for the good things. But what about the bad?

Vendors suffer from rez-disease, that terrible affliction that occurs when you try to painfully page through each offering. The rezzing doesn't start until the new texture is exposed, which means you are constantly standing there waiting for the next pic to appear. "It's a bit blurry yet. I think it's a shirt. Yes! No. What does it say? Oh, it's a Moose. But I wanted a shirt! Argh, press the NEXT button... again!" So you give up and move on to avoid the tedium. After all, there are so many other great places to shop! This often happens because people are generally impatient, particularly when the Lag Demons are loose.

You are frequently required to flip through many pages before you (might) find the item you seek. I've seen vendors with 20+ items in them. Does anyone actually expect you to page through all of them? Again, people are impatient and simply go somewhere else where it's easier to shop. Am I being picky? Perhaps, but I've found that if there is a barrier to sales, even a small one, it will deter some portion of customers from proceeding. To be successful you must remove as many barriers as possible.

The manner in which you flip through buttons is usually inconsistent, since there are many species of vendors to choose from. Indeed, some sellers even create their own vendors with totally unique control mechanisms. This leads to the uncomfortable situation where the buttons are marked and placed differently from vendor to vendor. Sure, the vendor "works", but it's just more difficult for customers to figure out how they work. "Do I press the top button or the left one?" If you don't agree with me, consider the case where you are renting an automobile. Do you immediately drive off after getting in? Or do you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself the with alien controls? (especially if it's a Volkswagen.) Why make it difficult for customers at all?

While I mentioned that some vendors are networked and provide sophisticated functions, many vendors are in fact not networked at all and do not provide any such features.

Finally, in-world search scans objects marked as "For Sale" and "Include in Search". This simply doesn't work with vendors since the for-sale objects are hidden inside and don't get indexed by searchbots whizzing by.

Is there a case for using vendors? Certainly - I believe you must use vendors if you happen to be prim-starved. It may be your only option on a 512sm parcel or a 30 prim mall-stall. But don't ever expect a similar level of sales as you might have had if all objects were out on display for all those reasons above.

Splashy Ideas

Shopping is definitely not one of my fortes. In fact, I foolishly try to build any item I need first. Or at least I contemplate building before finally giving in and undergoing a shopping ordeal. Why is it an ordeal? I am not exactly sure, but usually I end up doing what seems to be an endless search for something that may not even exist. It typically takes a very long time and I often get frustrated when lag slows my store visits even more. Am I being too picky? Probably. Am I impatient? Um, Yes.

Fortunately, my friends keep me honest by directing me to the best shops in Second Life. This week a very dear friend took me to Splash Aquatics, which sells a variety of watery goods. According to their directory, they sell:

• Marine, tropical & freshwater fish
• Fishtanks & bowls
• Aquarium & pond decor
• Fountains
• Natural freshwater pods
• Bridges
• Ocean wildlife
• Aquatic animals & birds
• Scuba diving
• Aqua-scaping

I wasn't looking for fish on that day, but if I did I would certainly come back to this very interesting store.

Readers will recall that I often rant about store structure and organization. But this time I wanted to point out the good things I observed at Splash Aquatics. Not only does Splash Aquatics have a great selection of high-quality items that all follow the same theme and are grouped in very sensible ways, it also has a couple of interesting twists that I believe many shops should consider.

First, there is a very strong element of realism throughout the area. Buildings and landscape appear just as they would in real life. But one of the most interesting realism aspects was the manner in which fish were sold. Pictured above is the "Nursery" where small fry fish apparently are spawned. To the right of the tank are buttons for purchasing said small fish. What struck me was how different this was from a typical store display. Instead of merely having an array of product boxes lined up on a wall, the nursery tank seems to bring the concept to life by showing you precisely how the product can be used. And even better, it is exactly what you would see in a real life aquarium store.

Secondly, Splash Aquatics has a "feature attraction" in addition to the store product displays and stocked shelves: a walk-through fish tank. We've all seen these in real life, where you may walk in dry safety within a glass tunnel at the bottom of a large tank, watching sharks skim just above your head. You can do exactly the same thing at Splash Aquatics; their tank looks very much like real life. Having a feature attraction like the water tunnel is a tremendous idea for any store. It provides visitors with another reason to visit, and possibly show it to their friends who otherwise would have had no reason to visit your store. That's exactly how I discovered Splash Aquatics.

Someday I will build a feature attraction at Electric Pixels. I've already been thinking of some ideas, but I haven't quite got the right one yet. A feature for an aquatics store might be obvious, but for particles? Stay tuned!

And by the way, you can visit Splash Aquatics here, in the unfortunately named sim, "Gooruembalchi".

Staffed!

When "real life" people hear that I own a successful virtual business, they are usually puzzled or amazed. What will they say now when I tell them I have employees?

You might be wondering what staff would do at a particle shop? It's pretty simple, really, they are doing what I often do at the store: talk to visitors and help them. I've found that it is a great way to ensure everyone has a good experience, and it's also the best way to find out what people are looking to buy.

In spite of my efforts to make the store easy to navigate, trigger demonstrations, access informative notecards, some people still have problems finding items in the store. Perhaps they are simply impatient, or maybe they can't read. It's then that they really appreciate a friendly someone to guide them to the correct place.

But this work does take a lot of time, and lately my Second Life existence seems to be getting busier than ever. So, after chatting with friends who make a not-so-great living camping, I realized I could provide a better paying job for them and handle visitors with a lot more care. After buying a timeclock (well, two of them, since the first one didn't do what I needed) and some negotiations, I have staff!

This is definitely an experiment, and experiments are one of the actions I've advised Second Life businesses to do in previous posts: keep trying things. Eliminate that which doesn't work, and do more of that which does work. In this case, I intend to compare results before and after to determine the effect of in-store sales personnel.

The best part so far: staff say, "This is so much more interesting than camping! You get to talk to people who aren't zombies!"

Particle Prejudice

This week I happened to be helping a friend set up a display for a Second Life snapshot contest, including assisting the selection of photos. But we had a disagreement over which pictures were most appropriate. We deferred to the contest rules in an effort to determine which photos were permitted. The rules contained the usual, such as no photoshopping, must be PG material, etc. But hidden inside was one other ominous rule: No Particle Effects, or as the rules stated, “No Poofers”.

There. It happened again.

It's what I call, “Particle Prejudice”. When others declare that particles do not belong in Second Life.

I've had the same thing happen to me many times. A typical scenario involves visiting a new location, and I might discreetly start up an appropriate and minor particle effect just to add to the visual experience. Suddenly the owner or manager charges up to me and says “Turn that OFF Immediately!” and “You are causing LAG on the server!” Since it usually isn't my property, I turn it off. And leave.

There seems to be a peculiar type of paranoia regarding particles. Sure, if you have a really crappy graphics card, your PC might be unable to render all the particles, but that slows no one else down. Some may call this effect “lag”. In fact, most people don't seem to realize that particles usually have very little to do with lag. At my shop, Electric Pixels, there are often several effects running simultaneously. Does this slow things down? Not in the slightest. Server stats remain stable and running quite well. My experiments tell me that the single biggest factor of sim lag is simply the number of people within it. A single particle effect has virtually no effect on the sim whatsoever. Yet, you'd better shut that effect off Right Now otherwise you'll crash the sim!

When used correctly, particles can transform a Second Life scene from a lifeless stack of objects into a living, breathing environment, in much the same way as sounds can. I've found many people really enjoy particles. Some are my customers and they collect effects of all kinds. But others, particularly older avatars who rezzed years ago tend to avoid them, or worse, actively try to get rid of them. Perhaps this is a phenomenon originating years ago when servers were slower and PCs were far less graphically capable than today? Or maybe it's due to the griefers who abuse particles to disrupt public events. They are the bad guys.

And the rest of us? We're not the bad guys! We just love particles and use them appropriately. Don't shut us down, save it for the griefers.

Seven Wishes for 2008

Everyone else makes wishes, and so will I. Why? Because, if you hadn't noticed, Second Life isn't quite perfect. Here, in no particular order, are my wishes for things that I hope will happen to Second Life in 2008, some minor, some major, some impossible:

• Reliability. We all face this one several times a week. The Grid is down. You can't rez objects. Well, maybe if you repeatedly try 79 times it may work. Or 80. Maybe on the 81st? You buy something and you don't get the item delivered. Then you have to call ArminasX to fix it. Sigh.
• Less Lag. There are some days when it's just very difficult to move around, frame rates drop, typing becomes painful torture and just forget about doing any precision work. Meanwhile, an inspection of the Sim's health via the statistics bar reveals that it is "running perfectly". What the heck is wrong? I can only conclude that there are other factors involved causing lag and it really bothers me. And my customers. Because there aren't any when lag is bad.
• More Capacity per sim. You get 30 avatars and things start creaking. Forty and it's just about dead. More, well, that rarely happens. It would be nice to reliably load more than 40 into a sim.
• Easy Interface for Non-Builders. According to many observers, it seems that only about 10% of newbies survive to become active residents. Worse, many of these poor folk don't even make it out of orientation. Why? Because the client interface is far to complex for most people. It's designed for people to create content. That's good if you are builder, familiar with 3D development environments - but most people aren't. We need more residents on a grid that works smoothly. The Second Life client's interface is a big barrier for them.
• Inventory Management. I have around 10,000 items in my inventory. Some of my friends have 20,000+, and I am quite certain others (and you know who you are) have much more than that. And how exactly do we keep track of our inventory and manage its contents? With a dinky inventory window full of anonymous folders. Folders don't work on PCs with 10,000 files, and they don't work for SL inventory either. Isn't there a better way to manage items?
• Less Griping from Media. Every time I see a post about Second Life in a non-SL blog or media outlet, it is invariably neutral or negative. Worse, there will always be a series of comments that dump mercilessly on SL, but clearly have no idea about SL and more than likely have never used it. Can't someone (other than us SL bloggers) write about the amazing and wonderful things taking place in our virtual reality?
• The Linden's value rises by a factor of two-hundred and fifty! Hah - just kidding. It just would be nice one day to see my account have real dollars in it instead of Lindens! On the other hand, would I want pay US$800 for that pair of virtual pants?

Will these come to pass? Who knows? I would be very happy if only one or two really happened. Especially Less Lag. And Reliability. And Capacity. And...

An Introduction to Second Life Ergonomics

Ergonomics? Isn't that about how you place your hands on a keyboard? How you sit in front of your screen? Yes, but that's Human Ergonomics. Today I am talking about Second Life Ergonomics.

What exactly do I mean by "Second Life Ergonomics"? I mean that those little avatars that we control (or is it the other way around?) have needs just as their human owners do. They can't see as well as humans, they have restricted ways of moving around and have utterly terrible dexterity. Some of them are pretty ugly, too!

But seriously, these "physical" characteristics of avatars really do affect how we travel throughout the Second Life grid. Who hasn't been stuck trying to navigate to a precise spot, overshooting, and backing up? And repeating 0ver and over? Crashing into walls? Getting stuck in a rotating door? Falling off the edge of a ramp? Try moving while the grid is bagged out!

Frustrating, these be.

When I first built my Caso Milo store, I wanted to right some of these wrongs so that visitors would not encounter those issues. But immediately I had to realize that:

Real Life buildings are made to accommodate Real Life people with their physical capabilities

Therefore,

Second Life buildings should be made to accommodate Second Life avatars with their virtual capabilities

Often I encounter Second Life builds that replicate real life buildings, or incorporate real life building ideas. While these builds are not wrong, they may introduce problems for avatars who do not have the same physical capabilities as humans. Our quest to be realistic sometimes results in difficulties for visitors.

What are the characteristics of avatars that make them different than humans? Let's make a list:

• Sight is normally set to a specific view - from behind the avatar, not from its eyeballs
• Motion is normally in straight lines, and difficult to perform accurately in a curve
• Teleportation is possible
• Flight is possible, except in sims where flight is disabled. (FYI - there is a secret way around this, revealed to me late last night by Veyron Supercharge at her demonic industrial build site... but that's another story for another day)
• Dexterity sucks. It is very difficult to accurately touch or manipulate small items
• Smell and Taste are absent - thankfully!
  

And let's add one final one:

• Avatars can't always know how something is going to work, since Second Life objects can behave unlike anything in real life. In other words, humans have half a chance at guessing how something works or acts since physics is, well, universal. But Second Life doesn't operate with the same physics. Pink Elephants can fly, Hearts appear on arms or Particle Fog, Doves or even Cheese can flow out of your butt! It's just a bit harder to know what to do.

Knowing that avatars have differences from humans, do you think that buildings should be made differently to accommodate them? I do! I built my shop after considering these differences. You might be interested in knowing how you can build in an ergonomic way... but I will save those tips for another post.

Burning After Alexis

Alexis Lange is not only a friend of mine, but also a Battlestar Galactica pilot based in Eleggua (call sign "Panther".) Last week she came to me looking for a way to make her flyer more realistic, specifically by adding a massive rocket plume.

Easy, I thought. Just build a particle emitter that shoots out the right mix of shapes and colors to visually appear as a plume. Then paste it on the a**-end of the flyer. I quickly constructed a disc-shaped "Afterburner" emitter that could fit well within the thrust tubes of the powerful flyer, shooting out white-yellow flames.

It was going fine until I dropped by the Eleggua airfield (which is itself hundreds of meters in the air) and gave Alexis the Afterburner prototype for testing. The device worked perfectly, and even synchronized with the flyer's start and stop chat commands.

The trouble began when I suggested that Alexia link the Afterburner to the flyer so that she could fly off and not leave the emitter behind on the deck! However, it turns out that the permissions on the flyer were no-Modify, meaning she cannot link any objects to it, including the Afterburner.

I was about to abandon hope of getting this done easily, short of begging the flyer's maker to somehow include the Afterburner, when I had an idea.

Instead of attaching the emitter to the flyer, I realized we could attach it to Alexis! Yes, while she's sitting in the cockpit, the emitter goes off as designed, but the plume still appears as intended. Flames blast out from her spine backwards and appear to come from the flyer's engines. With some simple adjustments, I'll be able to make a rocket plume Alexis can wear in any vehicle.

In fact, I think I'll be making an entire line of wearable aircraft effects including explosions, smoke trails, rat-tat-tat or what ever else seems appropriate or just plain cool. There will be no need to equip every vehicle with effects - just bring them with you instead! Thanks for the inspiration, Alexis!

Two things were very important for me on this adventure:

• There are always more ways to solve a problem than you think at first. Never give up - just keep trying, even ideas that are, well, crazy at first! You may bump into the answer.
• No matter how bad the situation, you can usually find a way to make something good out of it. Learn something, change something, change your self!

And Alexis, one thing to remember about the Afterburner - be very, very careful where you are when you say the word, "start"!

Tips for a Successful Second Life Club

I came across some very interesting Second Life business ideas the other day quite by accident. Readers may recall my rantings on how best to organize your store for traffic management earlier, but these ideas take them a lot farther.

ATown Fall is the owner of multiple successful sims, most of which involve 24x7 DJ clubs - a rarity itself in Second Life. He sets up sims one after the other, hiring staff and gathering residents and merchants to populate them. While he certainly does the basic things, ATown has several very unique Second Life business approaches that I hadn't considered:

• ATown's admission policy echoes real life - you often must pay a cover charge to get in. This makes the events more important, if only because those who are inside really want to be inside because they paid to get in! This raises the profile of the events.
• Because you must pay a cover to enter events, the concept of VIPs becomes real. All too often clubs hand out "VIP" tags to basically anyone, but that makes the concept of VIP meaningless. However, ATown's cover charge is waived for his VIPs, and the tag is no longer meaningless. Y