Rumour has it

We have been slacking at this feature but first life comes first. There have been some tidbits coming out way that we just do not have time to cover it all just yet.

Rumour has it, a narcissistic designer has been playing the "look at me I am drunk" game on all of her friends and they are ready to go aggro. (True)

Rumour has it, Bianca spotted the Loch Ness monsters on her latest holiday to Scotland. (Maybe)

Rumour has it, a furniture designer is angry that people resell her no copy/transferable items when they are through using them. (True)

Rumour has it, a women whose index finger is shorter than their ring finger are at greater risk of osteoarthritis of the knee. (True)

Rumour has it, the Lindens have answered all your prayers and flexi-sculpts are here at last. (False)

Rumour has it, a particular yard sale maven is accusing her own customers of copybotting items. (True)

Rumour has it, a much-loved fashion designer has gone round the bend- she was last seen maxing her credit card at Magnolia Bakery on cupcakes! (False)

Rumour has it, gangs of ARC vigilantes are roaming a popular charity event and assaulting would be fashionista with notecards. (True)

Rumour has it, the highest ARC spotted at the aforementioned event was 647,000. (False, I hope)

Rumour has it, an infamous nutter has finally taken his medication. (False, sadly)

Rumor has it, another infamous nutter has, once more, lost her mind. This time, she's saying that a good old drama blogger is a rabid creature from the research centre, and she's calling for having her euthanized. (False, probably?)

Off topic again: Earlier I told you all about the wonder that is Anonymouse but I have one more to share with you: Online Anonymous Proxy. As with Anonymouse, Online Anonymous Proxy will not work on all blogs but for the most part it gives you a chance at privacy. This is also wonderful for those trying to get around work filters.

Better Way for Businesss

While designers lament their sales, darlings, which are on par for any post holiday season. There are several designer who are making money hand over fist without blinking an eye and without finding shopping groups to blame for their lack of sales.

One designer has items that fly off his shelves. His store is always crawling with people and his business is clearly prospering as we have watched him grow in the past year. It is possible to make money on SL during this trying economic times but you have to work for it. Sales are not just going to fall into your lap. The work does not have to sacrifice integrity as was shown in the last blog.

Here are tips to doing business from observing someone who is successful:

1. Offer incentives that make business sense. A gift certificate that covers part of the cost of an item will get you more sale than giving the items away.

2. Invest in a few tools that bring the traffic regularly to your store.

a. There are over 300 Lucky Chair groups in Second Life making this a vital investment. The original Lucky Chair can be purchased from Shep Korvin for L$399 or L$1250 depending on the options you want.

b. Midnight Mania is the latest craze. You can purchase your own Midnight Mania board from Shep Korvin for L$399 or L$799 depending on the options you want.

c. While you are at Shep Korvin, look at his other tools he has for business. The Lucky Chair and Midnight Madness may be the most popular many of his other options are fun as well.

d. Camping Chairs/Systems keep the customer at your store. A standard camping system can cost L$250 at Nico Designs. A store range camping system at Grab & Go.

e. Invest in a gift card system. The most popular are Grab & Go System which runs between L$3000 to L$6500 and the card system from Escort DeFarge for L$15000.

f. Invest in a Freebie Ring which can be purchased for L$500 at Biz Bits.

g. Invest in group prize chairs that are sold at Biz Bits. These chairs costs L$499L and can restrict use based on profile picks and/or group membership.

h. Invest in a Roulette Board which can be purchased for L$900 at Plod.

3. Instead of organizing your own private hunt, get involved with the hunts that are grid wide. These hunts have the potential to bring you customers who may not have been aware of your brand. Recent examples of this were the Vain Inc Kissed Hunt and the Greatest Love Hunt.

4. Be sure you have a solid, consistent update group. You can create a standard Linden group for the cost of L$100 or invest in a group system. The two popular group systems are Subscribe-o-matic which has a monthly maintenance cost that can run you up to L$5990 and Night Sky Subscriber Kiosk which cost a one time pay out of L$750 to L$2350 depending on the options you want.

5. Join a general fashion announcement group. I would avoid the slowly dying Fashion Consolidated and go for Fashion-R-Us. A designer application costs L$400 which is a L$600 discount over Fashion Consolidated. The benefit of Fashion-R-Us is that they filter out resellers and scams before they are given designer status and not after.

6. Get involved in fairs and expos. The 2009 RFL Clothing Fair is set to beging in a few weeks. If you are a clothing designer and did not get signed up for this event, you are truly missing out on great advertising. There are fairs and expos for almost everything: clothing, shoes, jewelry, hair. Regrettably the skin fair keep getting canceled. Some Divas need to take it down a notch.

7. Send out review packs to bloggers of your new releases or specials. Do not become spammy with review packs. SL Fashion Notices has a list of Press Venues to get your started. Most bloggers prefer folder for the items you are sending. Remember the maximum number of items per folder is 48. If you need to use more than one folder label them according. Along with the items it is generally a good idea to include a notecard with all the information about the review items: location, price, colours, number of pieces, related items, blog location of the store and/or the items, and anything else that is important for the blogger to know about your release.

Sweeties, I am sure there are more tips for finding your success but we will leave you with these ideas to ponder. Never forget, customers hate spam as much as you do so keep your notices relevant and in moderation.

Bribery or Business?

Darlings, who can forget the exclusive that SCD revealed back on November about a blogger asking for payment for blogging. How can we forget the backlash that came from insanity that still continues to this day?

I am here to ask you about related situation. Lately, there has been a certain design house that is dominating the blogosphere. Items from this designer appear on the more popular blogs and fashion feeds at a high rate of up to 3 times daily. Sweeties, I know what you are thinking. This must be a high-quality designer with a flare for the now. There is nothing strange or untoward going on in this situation. Or is there?

How does this designer end up with so much press? Do you want the keys to secrets of her success?

Here are the simple steps used to get yourself blogged just as much as her.

1. Send review packs of items to bloggers on seemingly daily basis so that they get so sick of receiving items they blog you just to stop the onslaught.

2. After confirming that they have in fact published a blog about your creations, send them a "thank you" in for the form of monetary compensation or gift certificates for an all out buying spree at your store. The latter is prefer because then they just might blog more of your items.

3. Never falter in #2. Always reward the bloggers who blog you because they will be more inclined to blog you again and again and again.

This could be where that one blogger who will remain nameless got the idea that she should be paid for blogging. I no longer look at the items from this designer with interest because I feel she has resorted to bribery just to get her face on the feeds.

There is more to her marketing genius.

1. Make sure you have more hunts than the British Association for Shooting and Conservation.

2. Offer a new freebie(but charge L$1) on a daily basis.

3. Make sure that the minute a customer arrives at your store they are spammed with notecards and announcements. Customers love this.

4. Send out at least 1 notice a day but 2 is preferred to your update group with flashy titles that contain an abundance of symbols because it is ever so eye catching. For an added bonus have both the standard SL update group and a group vendor like subscribe-o-matic.

5. Give out daily gifts for anyone who uses your items in their flickr.

6. Retire a design every day and price it at L$1 so all the freebie hunters will come running to your store.

Darlings, I used to enjoy this designer's work. We have even defended her in the past but this paying off bloggers situation has left her tarnished in our eyes.

This blog will be followed shortly by the better way to drive up your traffic without sacrificing your integrity.

Responsiblity Part 2

Sweeties, it has been a year since we looked at Responsibility. It is now refresher time.

Earlier this week a designer sent out a notecard to all of their friends, several of their groups, and others in particular industries with a list of people that were touted as being "copybotters". Along with the notecard was the advice that the recipients should ban those individuals from their lands. A list of names being passed around to landowners and designers urging them to ban people without a single shred of proof that these individuals are guilty of anything is irresponsible. Was this designer alone in this action? No, I have had reports of at least 2 other designers who did the same thing to their own friends and groups. This leaves us wondering how many others did this and we have not heard on it yet.

Are all the people listed innocent? Maybe not but to assume that they are all guilty without physical proof is presumptuous. The notecard was created by a well-respected and often-stolen-from designer but the card in question was full perm. What is to stop the next person from adding names of those they do not agree with or even like to this list as it grows from one person to the next?

How was this blacklist notecard made? What was the criteria to be listed? Could a blog and forum discussion from a few weeks ago have given us clues? Could you unknowingly be listed on there?

Responsibility. Libel is very serious. Passing on this magical blacklist puts you in the seat of responsibility. Burden of proof will now fall to you.

Additional note: For those who asked me, I will not post the list we were given on here because a majority of the names were noteworthy designers or bloggers. If you ask me on SL, I might be persuaded to share with you if your name is on the list I was given. I think that is fair when your name is being wrongfully dredged through the muck.