Shep Korvin - Blog is the new Black

It Must Be Thursday. I Never Could Get the Hang of Thursdays.

Ever since I opened my first business in SL - back in 2005 - I've noticed one thing... From an earnings viewpoint, Thursdays suck.

For some reason, my sales always drop dramatically on a Thursday. Maybe that's because Thursday is the day of the week where you're furthest away from the preceding weekend (but still a full day away from the next one...), and everybodies enthusiasm-batteries just seem to be a little bit too run down. Whatever the cause, it certainly doesn't seem to be the cool day of the week to buy new lingerie. Or a lucky chair.

I wonder if other SL shops suffer a Thursday slow-down too? ... or what about real-life stores? I remember when I was younger, all the rl shops near me used to open late on a Thursday night (they open late *every* night now ... but once, it was only one day a week... and that day was Thursday). I wonder if that was a conscious effort to try to boost an otherwise lackluster midweek trade? (and I further wonder if "Thursday promotions" is a trick worth copying in SL....)

Hmmmmm...

Oh! You're probably wondering why I chose to decorate this posting with a mostly-naked girlie-pic. Well, I'm pleased to report that - after yesterdays NFJBMWQ posting - I received the attached documentary evidence that the question-sender concerned was, in fact, (a) Nubile, and (b) A woman. And two out of three is a pretty good score in my books. And she looks a bit like Alison Goldfrapp too, which is never a bad thing ;)

Identity has been concealed to protect the guilty. (And retain my mostly-PG blog rating). But this is definitely one of the finest demonstrations of LapGirl's Black Onyx undie range that I've seen in a *long* time :)

Maybe Thursday has its perks after all...

(P.S. Bonus geek points if you got the reference in the title of this post!)

N.F.J.B.M.W.Q

Last week, I aired my sick, perverted fantasies about nubile female journalists bombarding me with exciting interviews and deep, thought-provoking questions about the creative process. Incredibly, after posting that item, I did actually get some questions passed to me in-world!! I haven't been able to personally verify either the nubility or the journalistic qualifications of all the parties concerned yet ... but, it's only polite to reply to these things, right? And it could keep me going with inspiration for blog postings for weeks! :)

So, without further ado, here's episode #1 of "Nubile Female Journalists Bombard Me With Questions..."

* * * *

A Nubile Female Journalist writes:

Have you ever designed, built and scripted something, decided you hate it and scrapped it immediately?

Shep Replies:

Yes, many times. In fact, I tend to design, build, and script *many* more inventions than I eventually release.

Generally, my creative process tends to run something like this:

1. Inspiration strikes. Usually - inconveniently - at around 1am in the morning (seriously ... my brain tends to be at its most fertile at *really* inconvenient hours!).

2. I spend a couple of weeks thinking the idea through... how it can be refined? what kind of presentation/theming would work best? who would it appeal to? Plus, for most the Lucky Designs stuff, there's a lot of thinking along the lines of "how could somebody cheat at this game? / how do I counter that?", and "what kind of social interactions is this going to generate? / Do I need to steer those in any particular direction?". In other words, there's a _lot_ of mental work involved before the idea gets anywhere near SL...

3. Somebody brings me back to earth. With a bump. If I still think the idea is workable after it's been rattling around my head for a couple of weeks, I sometimes bounce the concept off a friend for a second opinion. This is the stage that probably kills more of my plans than any other; it's strange how an idea that seemed *perfectly* workable while it was still swimming around in my head can suddenly sound completely insane and crazy when I have to describe it in terms that another human being can understand. Fortunately, I think my friends are getting used to me telling them that I have the "greatest idea evah!" ... and then talking myself out of the whole thing, within the space of about 10 minutes...

3b. The beast that would not die. Some ideas - no matter how crazy they sound to others - refuse to die... and progress to the next stage...

4. Prototype! Prototype! Prototype! SL is *wonderful* in the respect that you can prototype most ideas really quickly. I find that throwing together some kind of "physical" manifestation of your idea - no matter how rough and ready that prototype is - can be a great way to find out if there are any other kinks in the concept. Seeing a concept part-realised is *really* conducive to new thoughts about the invention... and by the time the prototype is up and running, I usually have a pretty good idea of whether the project is worth a commercial release, or if it should be relegated to my personal junkyard of half-baked creations ;)

5. PROFIT!! Assuming the idea got past stages 3 + 4 ... build the product! ... and SELL!!!!

But yeah... it can be very difficult to bail out on a project at stage (4) when you realise it's fundamentally flawed in some way, or just isn't going to be as big a hit as you thought it would be - especially if you've already poured a lot of time and effort into it. I think that being able to recognise the point where you should just walk away from something - and direct your energies to a different project - is an *extremely* difficult (but necessary!) discipline to master.

On the flip-side - despite the frustration that comes from wasted effort - having the confidence to dump your "not quite working" ideas can also be pretty liberating ... and I think that doing so is an absolutely essential practice when you're trying to build a reputation for quality products. I'd never release a product that I didn't have faith in, so I figure there's little point to seeing *any* project through to completion _purely_ for completion's sake. All the time you spent trying to rescue a "failing" project could usually be more profitably spent doing something different - being idea-rich but time-poor seems to be a common problem for content creators in SL... so it's only logical the make the very most of the time you have, right? ;)

The good thing is, most ideas - even the outright "failures"  - usually involve elements that are worth salvaging, and recycling into future projects. In fact, sometimes the "junk" left over from a failed project can inspire an entirely new idea. Keep collecting the junk, and before you know it, you have a whole library of useful routines + objects, just waiting for their moment to shine...

(Mr Sculptie Dragon. On a rare trip out from my inventory, waiting to find his true purpose...)

 

* * * *

Tune in for further episodes of "Nubile Female Journalists Bombard Me With Questions" soon!

(And if you're a Nubile Female Journalist, feel free to bombard me with questions. Or just pictures if you want. I'm not fussy).

How (not to) be a model...

I get a *lot* of notecards & portfolios dropped on me at random, from people hoping for a modeling job at LapGirl Boutique. I'm not actually looking for any new models at the moment (I've already got a _lot_ of people on my books, and don't make enough clothing to keep them busy as it is!), but I do tend to flick through these portfolios anyway, just out of curiosity.

I'm not entirely sure how many "would-be" models might read this blog, but I thought I'd post a few of my thoughts on what makes a good or a bad model application. I get a *lot* of _poor_ portfolios sent to me - lengthy notecards stuffed full of pics which - to be frank - aren't the slightest bit useful in helping me assess the potential of somebody as a model for LapGirl Boutique. I guess this might be, in part, due to the fact that the information about what a designer looks for in a model just isn't "out there". I wouldn't presume to speak on the behalf of *all* content creators, and maybe some of them look for something quite different. However, this is what works for me...

 

Falling at the first fence...

I'll get the really obvious things out of the way first:

• Don't use a generic cover letter, when you're IMing me out of the blue. If your notecard begins "Dear Sir/Madam, I am a big fan of your business, and would love to model your products." - with absolutely no personalisation (or reference to my specific business/specialities), then it smells of large-scale spam to me. I'm probably going to ignore it.
• Spell my name, and the name of my business, correctly! For some reason, people seem to love adding the word "s" to LapGirl. It's a small thing... but getting it wrong doesn't make a great first impression!
• Don't tell me you're a huge fan of my products, unless you really *are* a huge fan of my products. Many content creators retains a *lot* of historic transaction history. We can tell if you've barely bought anything from us before! ;) ...Besides which, if you make it through to an interview, you're going to feel pretty stupid when I ask you to "show me your favourite LapGirl Lingerie outfit..."

 

What I'm looking for in a model:

Basically, by becoming an SL model, you're hiring out your ability to create a pretty and/or visually interesting avatar, and your talent for demonstrating a designer's clothing in the most appealing way.

If you want to do that job for _me_, I'm going to be looking at:

Your shape - do you have nice/attractive proportions?  Do you have a realistic, sexy avatar, that's going to look good on my ads? Curves in the right places? A chest size that isn't going to cause my textures to stretch beyond all recognition?

Your skin - does it compliment the style of my clothes? I tend to prefer models with a "photo" look to their skin, rather than flat textures - it just works best with my artistic style. Do you have a range of skin tones/make-up that can compliment the different colours of items that I make?

Your range of poses - can you stand in a way that shows the clothes at their best? Poses that put arms in front of the body (obscuring the design), or strongly distorts any part of the avatar mesh, aren't so useful. They might make you look cool.... but you're here to show the clothes, not your attitude. Your pose needs to show and sell the clothing. Can you do that? Just with a pose?

Can you accessorise? I make lingerie. I don't make skins, jewelry, boots, hair, high heels, tattoos, or anything else that would flesh out a "complete" outfit ... I rely on my models to be able to pull stuff out of their inventory that "makes" the look. If you have the skill to rapidly flesh out a full outfit given just a few starting items, you're going to be a *very* popular model. Show me that you can wear make-up, hair, and jewelry that _enhances_ your outfit.

(as an aside, when I get IMs from customers saying "I *must* have the boots that the model is wearing in the ad for this outfit, can you tell me who made them?" ....*that's* when I know for sure that the model in question has got this skill nailed!)

How photogenic is your avatar? This is - to be honest - something of an X-Factor; some avatars just seem to have it, and others don't .... but there are lots of subtle little tricks that can really make a difference in SL photos. For example, did you know that your avatar's eyeballs focus on whatever object you hold your mouse cursor over? If you hold your cursor over the person who's taking the snapshot, your avatar will be looking at the camera. If you move your eyeballs elsewhere, the whole mood of the photo can change (for better or worse!) ... mastering little tricks like this can make your avatar photographs seem *much* more expressive... this is pretty advanced stuff, but the degree to which the SL camera "loves you" is never _entirely_ out of your control.

 

Your portfolio...

Your portfolio is your opportunity to sell yourself to me on all of the above points, through the medium of snapshots. Remember that - at times - SL can take a *long* time to rez a picture ... and if you've dropped your portfolio on me without an invitation, I'm probably only going to have the patience to look through 2 or 3 pictures maximum. Sure, if my interest is piqued, I may look through more - but you have to make sure that the pictures I click on first count!

Don't put *any* second-rate pics in your portfolio - a small selection of stunning pics will serve you better than a long, sprawling list of random shots.

If you really think it necessary to include lots of pics in your portfolio, make it clear which two or three are the "must see" shots.

Don't send pictures that have been heavily post-processed outside of SL (soft-focused, sepia-tinted, grey-scaled, or whatever). I want to see your true SL look; the "blank canvas" that *I'll* be working with... not a demonstration of your nominated photographer's mad ph0toshop skillz ;)

The exception to this "no post-processing" rule is any kind of cut-and-paste photo editing that allows me to see several views of you within the same picture. Obviously, this lets me see _more_ of you, with minimum photo rezzing delay... that's a definite winner!

 

What to wear...

The worst portfolio I ever got sent was a set of two dozen shots, all taken in big, elaborate, prim-heavy ballroom dresses. While these photographs were *wonderful* for showing off the dresses concerned, they were absolutely hopeless for model assessment. Why? Well, basically, all I was seeing of the model in all these pictures was a little bit of cleavage, and her neck and face! (which comprised maybe 5% of each photograph). I had absolutely no sense of her underlying body shape (which was all obscured by bulky prim skirts, frills and ruffles)  ... and in virtually every picture, she was wearing the same hair, same skin, same diamond jewelry, and striking the same pose. Why bother?

I'll cut to the chase - from my point of view, the less you're wearing, the better. Put on something skimpy - it means I get a good look at your body shape, and your skin. Yes, I'd also get that if you sent me pictures of you wearing absolutely nothing at all - but, "nudity" is a bit more tricky to accessorise than a swimsuit ... and you need to remember that I'm looking for some indication that you have a flair for outfit accessorisation. My ideal portfolio pic would be a traditional magazine "glamour shot" of somebody in a bikini or lingerie, with appropriate make-up, jewelry, hair and footwear to match. That approach ticks a _lot_ of boxes on my checklist.

(if you're a bit shy about being seen in your virtual smalls... well... you're probably applying to the wrong guy for the wrong modeling job *grin*).

Try to show a range of different skins, hairstyles etc...  Different clothes suit different skins, and I want some indication that you can slip between looks to suit an outfit (and a sense that you *know* which skin suits which costume!). Can you do "tanned sassy beach babe" AND "pale demure english rose"? Show how versatile you are, and demonstrate your ability to adapt your look to suit the outfit.

Throwing in a "specialist" look - say, goth, or neko - also scores points on the versatility front; IMHO, it's good to have models for specific niche interests on your roster, and I would assume other designers think that way too.

If you *really* want to score points when applying to model for me, wear one of my outfits. It may seem like a bit of a no-brainer, but I get surprisingly few model applications that include a picture of the "would-be" model actually wearing something I've made(!). Most of the people who were smart enough to do that, also proved to be the kind of smart people who I like to work with, and got the job :)

 

Final Thoughts...

Earlier on, I used the word "hired" in connection with obtaining a modeling job. That was possibly a bit of a misnomer. In reality, you're probably only going to be "paid" for your work by being given "free" clothing from the designer that you're modeling for... and with the kudos of being the girl up on the posters in their store. That idea might not appeal to everybody - but that's the reality of the modeling situation in SL. This makes it a _very_ wise decision to only apply for a job with designers that you like ;)

You're not going to get rich from SL modelling. Well-dressed, perhaps. But not rich.

And remember, this article is for information only. I'm NOT hiring right now. But other designers are - and hopefully this article will help you with your battle plan when you approach them.

Any other ideas on what makes/breaks a good model? Feel free to comment!

X Marks the Spot... (and Uncle Shep's Marketing 101)

I've had a few enquiries from people wondering if I'm going to put the system that drives my "X marks the spot" promotion on sale through Lucky Designs in the near future. To be honest - although the promotion has worked really well, and brought me a lot of visitors (384 freebies claimed this week!) - it's really such a simple script that my conscience wouldn't let me get away with charging people L$ for it ;)  ...so, for the benefit of anybody who would like to "roll their own" version of this promotion, here's a basic script:

string prize = "Blue Leather Underbust Corset"; string magic_phrase = "I Love LapGirl Lingerie"; string prize_message = "Enjoy your gift!"; default {     state_entry()     {         llListen(0, "","","");     } listen(integer channel, string name, key id, string message)     {         if (llToLower(message) == llToLower(magic_phrase))         {             llGiveInventory(id,prize);             llInstantMessage(id,prize_message);         }     } }

(See! I told you there wasn't much to it!!)

Simply make yourself a nice prim "X" (or whatever), drop it on the ground, insert this script, (and your prize item, obviously), and then tweak the parameters at the top of the script to suit. Note that the prize name is case-sensitive, so be careful when entering it. The "magic phrase" - on the other hand - isn't case-sensitive... but I'd avoid using any punctuation in there if I was you; it'll only confuse people!

Finally, spread the word about the promotion - and your magic phrase - then wait for the stampede ;)

Now, here's the bit that people often overlook: A stampede of people heading into your store is all well and good... but how do you convert that traffic into L$, and an interest in your other products?

Well - for best results - always give away a freebie that's an obvious accessory to something else in your store ... and make sure that the vendor for this "pay-for" item is close to the freebie collection point, so it becomes an easy impulse buy.  ... Emphasise the connection between the items by putting up posters of both things being worn together (or, if you're really keen, hang around the store while the promotion is running, wearing that outfit yourself! ... not that *I* ever do that at LapGirl boutique!!! *cough*).

More strategically, if the thing that you give away for free is perceived by your customers to be more valuable than the thing you're trying to get them to pay for, then you'll find that the prize claimant is *much* more likely to pick up the "pay for" item on impulse than they would be if things were the other way around. Example: Sales of my "Blue Leather Lace-front Panties (rrp L$45)" *soared* when I started "giving away" a free "Blue Leather Underbust Corset (rrp L$75)" via this promotion... there's a psychology of "well, hey, I got the expensive part of this outfit for free, so I might as well just pay those few extra L$ and get the whole ensemble..." . You should never under-estimate the value of selling a *lot* of cheap items, rather than just a few *expensive* items. Lots of "cheap" sales soon add up!

 

^^^^ See! it works!! - This is a chunk from my SL transaction log on Sunday night, taken just after the "Blue Leather Corset" promo went live. Suddenly, there's a *big* interest in Blue Leather panties! ;) (Names obscured here to protect the innocent!)

Obviously, this advice is specific to an example where you're using this scheme to promote a clothing store - though you can probably adapt the general idea to other lines of merchandise.

One important warning here: this psychology BREAKS DOWN if people get the idea that everybody else in-world is going to be given this exact same offer. When a cheap outfit is made available to the entire population, it stops being an "exclusive bargain" or a "clever shopping decision", and starts becoming... well... just a cheap outfit. DON'T put up a big poster at the front of your store, saying "stand near the X, say the magic words, and get a free dress". Instead, use channels that offer some kind of "perceived" exclusivity to get the word out about your promotion - your store update group, your blog, the chair-hopping groups; places like that. The notion of exclusivity sells!

And, as a last resort, even if you don't manage to convert the flow of people into an immediate flow of L$ ... then at the very least, console yourself with this thought: you've put some sample products into people's hands. People will be trying out your product, discovering the quality of your merchandise first-hand, and gaining familiarity with your store. You've had a burst of the green-dot effect. You've reminded people that you exist. All of this is good.

So, there you have it... a free promotion tool, and some free SL marketing advice too! ...Now go make some L$! ;)

(Of course, if you *do* discover that this idea makes you unfeasibly rich, I have a tip-jar set out near the entrance of Lucky Designs...  *grin*)

Answers.

A couple of days ago, VictoriaRose Daniels (my new favourite blog stalker!) left this comment on a post here:

"How does it feel to invent something that A) is this successful, and B) everyone wants to copy?"

Rather than bury a reply amongst the comments, I thought I'd be *incredibly* egotistical (just for a change!), and devote a proper posting to the answer. Because, oddly, they're not questions that I've actually been asked very much (despite my once-optimistic fantasies of being hounded by mobs of sexy female journalists, all crazy to fix up an exclusive interview with "The Lucky Chair guy") - or have ever really had to put together a particularly coherent answer for ...

(not that I'm promising you anything coherent here either, mind...)

So...

A) How does it feel to invent something that is this successful?

(this is the boring answer, skip straight to question B if you want the bitchy stuff).

Needless to say, inventing lucky chairs - and being fortunate enough to have so many people really latch onto them, and turn them into the craze that they eventually became - turned out to be an *extremely* cool experience. Obviously, as a content creator, it's nice to have any of your stuff become popular ... but Lucky Chairs always seemed to be a bit more "special" than the other SL products I've been involved in (even back before they took off in a big way) - they gave me a real sense that I was selling a product that was actually helping people. I'd get all these testimonials from people, saying stuff like "nobody used to visit my shop before I got this thing, now I've made back the purchase price in less than an hour!!" ..and, wow.. what a buzz it was, to think I was helping these people kick-start their businesses in SL. Selling stuff to people is *so* much nicer when you get that kind of feedback, and you know that the whole transaction has been mutually beneficial.

Beyond that, there was also the sense that Lucky Chairs were giving a lot of people something to actually "do" in SL. There were people - and still are people - whose very reason for logging into SL each day was to go and hop their way around the lucky chair circuit for an evening... not *entirely* for the "loot", as such, but also as a social activity - to be part of the chair-hunting scene; share some kind of common endeavour with all the hundreds of other people involved in the "chase" that night.

I mean, that might seem nuts to anybody who didn't get into the scene, or who hasn't been part of what's evolved in the wake of lucky chairs (like the various treasure hunt games that people use to promote stores now), but to a *lot* of people, hunting down the chairs, and hooking up your friends with the right letters, was just as much fun as going out and beating up on an Orc horde was in any other virtual world. Creating a "game" or a "scene", or whatever else you want to call it, which managed to engross several thousand players at a time, for the best part of 2 years... well, who wouldn't feel proud about kicking that off?

Plus, yeah, it's a buzz to just be walking around SL, and see your inventions set out - and being used - all over the place. Especially somewhere where you really didn't expect to find them. Or, if you see SL in a book - or better, SL footage on TV - and your stuff is in view. You really get a sense that you've made your mark on the world ;)

 

B) How does it feel to invent something that everyone wants to copy?

I do a pretty good job of kidding myself that it bothers me less than it does. But honestly... it sucks. It *really* sucks. When the first tide of lucky chair clones hit the grid, it was a pretty stressful time for me.

For one thing, the financial implications were pretty significant. I mean, fortunately, I've never been reliant on SL for my first life income ... but it goes without saying that Lucky Chairs were turning into a _very_ nice earner. When the first (successful) lucky chair clone hit the scene, it basically took away about 20% of my real-life income, within the space of 2 or 3 weeks. Believe me, no matter how much you tell yourself that your Second Life money is "luxury money", and you tell yourself to be prepared for the SL part of your income being snatched away at any time, you're still going to have some sleepless first-life nights when it finally happens.

It's odd really ... there's a kind of cultural gulf between the fashion industry in SL, and the scripting industry in SL. If, say, designer "A" makes a really popular dress in SL ... and then designer "B" makes a reasonably accurate copy of that dress - using their own textures, and prims or whatever, but still - in spirit - the same dress, then it usually ends in riots and blood on the (virtual) streets. Seriously. The fashionista lynch-mob is a force to be reckoned with. You don't mess with them.

On the other hand, in the scripting market, if somebody makes something that is - to all intents and purposes - a functional copy of an existing device, and drops it onto the market at half the price of the existing device, then the reaction from the community is usually something more along these lines:

"Kewl!!! now we can get (whatever) for half the price! Paaaaaarty!"

Weird.

...but the worst thing of all is when somebody makes a pretty close clone of the _shape_ of the Lucky chairs too, or uses the same green-and-red colour scheme. That *really* leaves me feeling exploited. It's like... "yeah, fine, you stole my product idea. Why not come and steal some brand recognition from me while you're at it? It's not like it took me a couple of years slog to build that up or anything...". *sigh*. While I may dislike the way that the "Wonder Chair" ripped off my concept, at least they had the decency to make their own chair design, and to avoid calling it a "Lucky Chair". (though, from a recent search of Lucky Chair products on SLExchange, I note that somebody out there NOW seems to have made a cheaper clone of The Wonder Chair too. Somebody ripping off the rip-offs? There's something strangely poetic about that...)

Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so ad infinitum...

 

* * * * 

OK, I went off on a bit of a rant there, so apologies if you found this post hard going. (I found it rather cathartic myself, *grin*). Or, alternatively, if you found it particularly enlightening, feel free to fire further questions my way, while I'm still in the uncharacteristically bloggy mood.

(Especially if you're one of those nubile SL journalists I was talking about earlier. Go on. Fuel my fantasy...)

"When it looks like something's working, keep doing it :)"

Lucky Designs powers The Cafe Society Valentine Auction

The Cafe Society held their Valentine fundraiser this week, at the Rainbow Ballroom, Masterpiece Island. Lucky Designs provided the auction systems for the event, and dozens of top content creators supplied exclusive prizes.

This was the Cafe Society's first experience with Lucky Designs BidBox systems, and event organizer Luicee Babii reported that the event was a *huge* success, with the BidBox array coping admirably with a frenzy of fast and furious last-minute bidding. The auction raised in excess of L$125,000 for the American Heart Association - more than twice the total raised at the Cafe Society's previous fund raisers!

For more info about the BidBox "Charity Edition", check out this earlier post.

(photo courtesy of Luicee Babii)

Numbers...

Just been adding some stats up. Thought I'd reproduce my findings here, for the curious...

Total number of prizes given out via 3rd generation* Lucky Chairs, grid-wide, since their release in July:

2,066,642 

(or, in other terms, an average of 9,657 "lucky letters" are claimed every day....)

Number of bid box** auctions won (since the system was launched, 1 year ago):

487,082

So.... put together, that's over 2 and a half million user interactions with Lucky Designs Content clocked up since I started measuring usage.... and that's only based on two attractions! (unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to put user metrics into the likes of MobVend and "What's in the Box?" - doh!)

Still, pretty impressive audience figures, IMHO :)

 

*Only 3rd generation chairs are included in this total - earlier chairs didn't include a networked odometer, so I can't track those. The actual number of prizes given out by _all_ lucky chairs in SL will be significantly higher.

**Charity auctions are excluded. The "charity edition" of bidbox doesn't link into the LuckyNet advertising network, so isn't reflected in these stats.

The Golden Rule (and my biggest mistake...)

The Golden Rule for encouraging repeat customers - and growing a successful business in SL - is simple: Find a way to keep reminding people that your business exists. Nothing else is more important than this.

How many times have you visited a store in SL, and thought "hey, this place is pretty cool! ... I *must* come back here again!" ... and then, mere hours later, totally forgotten about it? If you're anything like me, that's probably a daily occurrence. My inventory is *full* of landmarks from places which - despite my best intentions at the time - I've never, ever, been back to.

Establishing some kind of communication channel to your keenest customers - the customers who think you have neat stuff, and who would actually *like* a prompt to come back to visit you from time to time - is absolutely fundamental to becoming a big player in SL. I mean ... yeah ... it's good to get a "NEW RELEASES, W00T!!" message out whenever you have new stuff for sale; but beyond that, the very act of sending out a message to people reminds them that "hey, that cool store still exists... I should really go back and check it out again!". Face it: there's a bazillion other places in SL that people could go - you *need* to keep pinging _your_ place on people's radars ... reminding them that you exist; reminding them that they thought enough of your products to consider visiting you again one day.

So, how do you do that?

Well, the most obvious approach is to set up a group. When I first set up business in SL, I also (naively, as it turns out) set up a group that my customers could join, to be notified of updates, offers etc.

Result? The thing flopped ... nobody joined. Despite my limitless self-conviction that my new clothing brand was *the* greatest thing to ever hit the SL club scene, the reality was I had about 6 products, and was selling out of the basement of some sleazy SL club. There was a much lower limit on the number of groups you could join in those days (15? something like that?...) - and nobody in their right mind was going to "waste" a group slot on a small-time operator like me. Turns out that groups can be a very hard sell, until you've become a reasonably big player on the scene. (unless you're pandering to a niche product - but that's another topic for another day)

Also, it's difficult to persuade somebody to actually go through the hassle of opening the search facility ... finding the group ... clicking the join button. Ideally, you need to dumb the process down - turn it into a one-click "impulse" decision. "Click this poster to join our update list" - that kind of thing. That wasn't really possible in days of yore; LSL has never been able to translate object clicks into group subscriptions (though the open-sourcing of the SL client has brought work-arounds - check out Cassini Creation's subscription bot services you're thinking of going down that path!).

Anyway, with these problem in mind, I set out to build myself an "alternative" to group messages; a device that could collate a mailing list for me, and then send out a notecard (or item... or an IM... or anything else I wanted) to everybody on that list, without taking up one of their precious group slots.

This was pretty much my first "real" scripting project in LSL... and the solution that I fashioned was a bit clunky (You couldn't make http calls from LSL in those days, so the system used e-mail for server communication, and most of the collation was actually done by an out-of-world process).

Yep, it was an ugly solution for sure... but it worked, and it solved my immediate problem. People happily clicked on my magic poster, and my mailing list gradually got larger and larger. Every time I sent out a newsletter, the store would fill up with green dots. Green dots begat more green dots, and my customer base expanded... yay! :)

Unfortunately, in recent times (and when  I say "recent", I'm dodging the truth ... I guess I mean "during most of 2007") I kind of fell out of the habit of sending those newsletters. There's a couple of reasons for this - but, basically, growing the "Lucky Designs" company was getting pretty much 99% of my attention last year, which meant that there was comparatively little time available to work on new products for LapGirl (and there's a limit to how many times you can send out a newsletter without actually having new products to talk about!!).

Lucky Chairs - on the other hand - are a much bigger deal. They're the kind of "killer app" that you *can* persuade people to sign up to a group for ... so from the Lucky Designs perspective, I didn't really have a driving motive to make the mailing list system work. The other (more fundamental) reason for the lapse was the fact that the PC which handled the out-of-world components of my clunky subscription service went up in smoke, and I never did get around to re-installing the software on a different machine. So, for a while, all those LapGirl subscription requests were just building up in a mailbox ... un-serviced...

And you know what? As it turns out, failing to follow my own "Golden Rule" is probably the single dumbest "business thing" that I've ever done in SL. Over the last couple of weeks, I've started a harder push on promoting the LapGirl business again - including reviving the old mailing list ... and wow! - the tills are humming! For the first time in (longer than I can remember) LapGirl is turning over more cash than Lucky Designs. I really don't know why I ever let things slip so much!

Some considerable pain was involved getting the notification system up and running again - (including manually cutting-and-pasting details from about 400 subscriber emails that had been lingering in a neglected mailbox ... My CTRL-C/CTRL-V muscles are still sore!!) ... but everything is ticking over nicely now.  ...That said, there's no denying the fact that - in these days of easy http access - the most sensible decision would probably be to think about retiring the existing system and starting again from scratch.

The more I think about that, the more tempted I am to use Zero Linden's silo back-end as a datastore... Admittedly, that approach would require *much* more hoop-jumping than a MySQL-based solution (I'd need to emulate some SQL-ish index and locking features from first principles, just to make it viable), but would - potentially - make the whole thing a *much* easier sell to third parties (kind of like a "host-it-yourself" alternative to the Subscribe-O-Matic, for the semi-web-savvy user ... "just drop this php onto a web server, and you're good to go!"). God knows I've had plenty of enquiries about buying the system in the past, and I've promised umpteen people that I might make a more polished version of it some time in the future. Maybe it's finally time to come through on that offer? ;)

Watch this space...

Freebies Pt 2...

No ulterior motives this time. Promise!