Marketing Land

I have been the owner of a private island for a number of months and as is typical of most island owners, I am selling my mainland holdings now since I have moved most of my business operations to my island.

When I bought land in SL, it was easy - just searched around and bought what I thought was nice. Things got more complicated as I gained a better understanding of SL since I now have very precise requirements in terms of location, size, and of course price. While buying has become gradually more complicated, it pales in comparison to selling.

Selling land is much more complicated since the land market is, and has been for a long time, saturated. Someone looking for land has a huge choice - which is a great thing for buyers and not-so-great for those selling land. I went through a range of marketing efforts, including making my current customers aware of the land, posting ads on various plots I own in high traffic areas (I do get referrals from those - more about this later), and forum posts.

The interesting thing is that most buyers have precise requirements too. When I started to sell land, I wanted to grab the attention of someone that might not have considered buying land - this was a mistake. If someone is not in the land market, they are not likely to suddenly enter the market as a result of seeing a nice plot of land. Someone that is already in the market already has an idea of what they are looking for - the seller's job is to use his or her own opportunity sell to make potentially interested people aware of a possible buying opportunity.

So, I trashed my old marketing strategy and ended up selling most of my land rather quickly.

My base plan is pretty straight forward: size plots for sale so that they fit into a reasonable tier level, and then price based on the going rates in the area, the average selling price of all land in SL, and the selling price of land of the same size (regardless of location) as shown in the Land For Sale listing.

Based on this simple strategy I sold 2/3 of my land within a week. The remaining 1/3 has been on the market for a couple of weeks now and is due for a change in strategy.

The strategy for last 1/3 is going to be based only on two factors: size and price. I have come to the conclusion that this last 1/3 is really not worth holding on to for much longer since I no longer use it. I made a reasonable profit (10%) on the first 2/3 so I am willing to go as low as my purchase price to get the land sold.

Lesson learned: there is a lot of information out there - even when it does not seem apparent that there is any information in the first place. Your customers are talking - it is not only just a matter of listening to what they are saying but also what they are doing.

1 Prim Sliding Door

I was browsing around and found something else instead - a sliding door made with only one prim!

A sliding door is interesting since, well, it slides...most that I have seen are made of two prims: one for the frame and a single actual sliding door. The sliding effect of these two-prim sliding doors is close to how a typical evevator door works - slides to one side.

This one prim door was neat since it looks like there are two doors that open from the center and move to the sides of the frame.

Inspired to see how this works, I started to experiment. I figured out how to make the door after a few tries (hint: combination of hollow and taper) and needed a script to open and close it. About 5 minutes later - I got it working :)

I think there comes a point where SL clicks and things suddenly become a lot easier. Not easy...easier :) There is always something to learn - that is the challenge and fun of it. I am making things now that I used to buy . . . very cool.

Introducing: Lillia Lehane

Lillia and I met during my early days in SL. We met only once and stayed in contact, occasionally, through IMs.

Well, we re-connected one day and got along well not only at a personal level, but also the creative level. Lillia is a very talleneted builder and artist - so we have a great match!

As much as we enjoy eachother's company, I often need to go and help new renters, take care of security and various other things that a typical landlord does.

Lillia offered to help me. I jumped at the chance.... and with that, I'd like to introduce to you Lillia Lehane, Property Manager (Digital Nirvana and SkyMark Properties).

Lillia has lots of experience and is a very thoughtful person. If you see her around, stop and say Hello :)

Light with Touch On/Off and changeable color via chat commands

Ok...I am a professional programmer (well..software architect) in real life sooo....I can script in SL too. I have been doing a fair bit of work on various projects and posted this script on the SL Scripting Library for anyone to use.

I am often asked about light scripts - lighting a prim is easy, the contols around it can be tricky.

This script has some nice control features and is low lag too.

Features:

*Anyone can touch to turn On/Off
*Listens to owner and allows the color of the light to be changed on channel /5555
*Low lag - listens to owner on touch only and cancels the listen after 30 seconds
* Detaled comments to help new scripters

The commands to change the colors are:
/5555 white
/5555 red
/5555 green
/5555 blue

Say the commands after turning the light on or off.

Enjoy...the script follows:

// Sample touch lighting LSL script with color change capability - 07/07/2006 - 2fast4u Nabob
//
// * Permission granted to modify and create derivative works.
// * If you sell this script, include attribution to 2fast4u Nabob, the author of
// this script in your product's documentation and primary script.
//
// Provided "as is"
//
// Features:
//
// *Touch On/Off
// *Listens to owner and allows the color of the light to be changed
// *Low lag - listens to owner on touch only and cancels the listen after 30 seconds
//
// Instructions:
//
// 1.Place this script into a prim that you want to light-up when touched
// 2. Thank 2fast4u Nabob for helping you :)
//

// channel_num is the channel that the light listens on. Type /5555 ... to talk to the light
integer channel_num=5555;
// colorWords lists the colors that the light supports - add here and in colorVectors
list colorWords=["white" , "red" , "green" , "blue"];
// colorVectors represent the color values that the light supports
list colorVectors = [<1.0> , <1.0> , <0.0> , <0.0>];

// Don't edit anything below this line

integer isOn = FALSE;
vector light_color;

integer listenHandle = 0;

// This makes it easier to change the light's parameters in one place
setLightParameters()
{
llSetPrimitiveParams ([PRIM_POINT_LIGHT , isOn , light_color , 1.0 , 10.0 , 0.75]);
}

default
{
on_rez(integer start_param)
{
llResetScript(); //Reset in case owner changed
}

state_entry()
{
light_color = llList2Vector(colorVectors , 0); //Set the initial color to white
}
touch_start(integer num_detected)
{
// If not already listening , start listening to the owner
if(listenHandle == 0)
{
listenHandle = llListen(channel_num , "" , llGetOwner() , "");
llSetTimerEvent(30.0);
}
// Toggle the light on/off
isOn = !isOn;
// Set the light's parameters
setLightParameters();
}

timer()
{
// If the script is listening , stop listening and stop the timer to reduce lag
if(listenHandle != 0)
{
llListenRemove(listenHandle);
llSetTimerEvent(0.0);
}
}

listen(integer channel , string name , key id , string message)
{
// The following IF statement is for the paranoid :) Not really necessary to check the
// id against the owner , but no harm in doing it anyway
if(channel != channel_num id != llGetOwner())
return;
// Look for what the user says in the list....
integer listLocation;
listLocation = llListFindList(colorWords , [message]);
// Did not find what the user said in the list? Stop here
if(listLocation == -1)
return;
// found what the user said in the list , set the corresponding vector
light_color = llList2Vector(colorVectors , listLocation);
// set the light's parameters - does not change On/Off setting
setLightParameters();
}
}

Reckoned Second?!

Welcome to my SecondLife...so why Reckoned Second?

Reckoned means, among other things, take account of and have faith or confidence in. So...my SecondLife blog is an account of confidence :).

My SecondLife (2L) name is 2fast4u Nabob - it has a bit of a story behind it. When I signed up, I saw the last name Nabob and immediately thought of a brand of coffee called Nabob ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabob_(coffee ) and thought about what happens to most people when they have too much coffee -- they become fast... too fast actually :)

I liked the name 2fast but wanted to be a bit more different and it became 2fast4u although most people I know call me 2fast.

I did not take 2L seriously in the beginning. So at the time, I thought my name was not that important. Things changed after about a month and it turns out that my name as become both meaningful and important -- and I'll tell you why in this blog.

At this point I do a lot of things in SL: I started building, then moved on to renting apartments for newbies (at L$50 per week), designing and selling low prim furniture, renting condos in the sky, and more recently started creating my own men's clothes, hair, shapes and skin. I am also starting to make prefab houses and other buildings.

More in the next post :)