Category: Blog Posts

The things people search for…

… and strangely enough ends up at my blog. Sometimes I get surprised, sometimes it makes me smile and sometimes it even makes me angry.

Here’s some word from the today’s searches:

second life closing down, xstreetsl cancel, “nina stepford”, tenshi vielle biggest dramas sl, second life noob

Xstreet is obviously worrying people, noobs are always a funny subjects of course and drama is something that is always present on the internet.

What do you think?

Please comment!

My opionion about the move/merger/closing is divided in two parts. One has to do with the impact it might have or not on business in Second Life. I think that a lot of people’s shopping habits will change when the forum closes down. And the change won’t be for the better. Of course it might just have to opposite effect.

The other part has to do with the effect it will have on me personally. Those of you that has followed my blog knows that I haven’t been very lucky when it comes to SL related communities. At xstreet I was at least tolerated. Some people even seemed to like me. I’m not sure I’m up to trying to do this againg. Being the “new girl” all over again. Trying to learn all those unwritten rules. Working to being able to fit in and being accepted is tough, at least it is for me.

I’ll think this through and of course await what’s come out of it all. RL is demanding a lot from me at the moment and I’m in an emotional rollercoster that has nothing to do with Second Life or any online community. It doesn’t help though that one of my ways to forget about all the RL trouble I’m in is disappearing and that I probably lost a friend because of it. Hopefully I’ll find a way back to it all, but I can’t see how at the moment.

One problem solved…

I finally collected enough courage to call Linden Lab and their billing support. After listening to some soothing music, Linden style, I got to talk to a very nice man that helped me. I had to answer lots of security questions that I passed brilliantly. So now I don’t have to pay anymore tier for virtual land that I don’t own anymore. Great! Next problem! Working on that one actually. Stay tuned :)

Another update!

A while back I posted a help post in the xstreet forum and the response was almost overwhelming. I tried out most of the suggestions and I think I have the result of my efforts now. I posted 2 classifieds with SL and got 3 visits to my store from that. I had them a few weeks and payed 100 lindens for each. So, no more classifieds for me. Then I payed for a start box for an ad system. That didn’t give any visitor at all.

Someone was very generous to let me have a store for free. The result of that. No sales. Another one contacted me telling me about a good place to rent. I tried that and payed the rent for a few week. No sales there either. And no sales at all in my main store.

I rented a small store, very cheap before I asked in the forum and in that I actually sell a some. The profit covers the rent and a little more.

Another thing I tested was to pay extra to have one of my products to show on the first page at xstreet. I think the total views for that was 25 hits and 2 sales. And I didn’t get my money back from that.

I had land in SL that I really couldn’t afford. It’s on the main land so I have to have a premium account to keep it. And since I need to downgrade now it was important to sell the land. No one was interested so I had to lower the price more and more. In the end I managed to sell off half of it, but I almost didn’t get anything for it.

I know that other people can make a profit on the products they make in SL, but I can’t. I was hoping that I could change  that when I asked for help in the xstreet forum but it didn’t. Now the only thing I have left it to lower the cost I have for SL and with that all the fun will go away. It doesn’t help that there are some posters in the xstreet forum that seem to have taken upon themselves to make me sad.

I won’t stop playing in SL, but the fun is gone and I won’t stop reading and posting at the xstreet forum, but the fun is gone from that too. I’ll have a break (yes, again, I know) from both SL and the forum. Trying to charge my batteries and hope I’ll find it fun again to be there, to create things (which was the reason I came there).

I know after all my efforts that my products isn’t what people want, so why bother.

An update

The last few days have been overwhelming, but in a really positive way. I had no idea that people could be so nice. So many people I had never met before was willing to help me. Help with tips, with free land, with discounts etc.

I’m only at the beginning of my road towards a successful business in SL but I’ve started. What I’ve done so far is going through my possibilities about having an in world presence. Since I can’t sell my land without almost giving it away I will try to keep it and see if it’s possible to earn enough to pay the tiers and maybe get some profit tool.

Another thing I’ve started to explore is advertising. I tried out a few inexpensive ads. Maybe it needs more and then I have to find other ways to make my products known than advertising. Ah well, it hasn’t started to pay off yet, but I’m sure it will. I think I have good products that people want.