Strange’s Second Life Blog

What was supposed to have been a one year deal with SL Repoorts to do site administration and SEO has turned into only six months. As of July 31, 2008, I am no longer working on the SL Reports site, at all. The only service that continues is the hosting of the site.

The only problem was with the cost of the services I was providing, and that they were no longer able to afford it. Hosting of SL Reports has been paid through to the end of September, and my services will be limited to just that. I have completely removed myself as an administrator on the backend of the site, and am now only listed as “registered”.

I am hoping that they are able to take care of anything that may need to be done on the backend of the site. If there is something that they don’t understand or need to get get and can’t figure out, I hope that they can find somebody that knows their way around. If they want me to get back in and fix something, there will be an additional charge.

Good Luck, guys!!

After almost a month of not updating the SSL Blog, I figured I better post something to verify that I’m still alive. Although I haven’t been in-world, at all, I have been busy working on some things that have to do with SL. Arbitrage Wise and I have worked out a plan for me to stay involved on the SL Reports web site. I’ve been taking care of different things on the backend of the site, as well as working on improving the SEO.

Things with the SEO seem to be coming along pretty good and the site is actually coming up in the SERPs for terms and keyphrases that we’ve decided to target on. Before I started working on it, the site was not coming up in the top 2,000 results for most of the terms that we’re looking at.

I’ve made a couple different changes to the URL structure of the site, and realized a few things, along the way. Once you change the structure of the URLs, don’t ever change them again! Decide on the structure that you want and stick with it. I “knew” this, of course, but didn’t think long enough about it when I first changed things. That resulted in another change, only a week or two after the first. I’m really glad that I didn’t wait longer than that, but I still wish I would have made only one decision, and stuck with it.

As far as “non-SL” stuff, I got a wild hair up my ass, last night, and decided to download World of Warcraft. I’ve never tried it, before, but wanted to see what it was all about. It’s a free 10 day trial, which has you download the full 3.16GB file, before trying. If you decide that you like it, you just purchase the full version and enter the key. I might get bored with it after 10 or 20 minutes, so we’ll see.

There’s something interesting about the download that I realized, last night, though. After I started it, I told my friend, who lives up in Canada, what I was doing. He went over to the site, clicked on the same buttons, filled out the same forms, downloaded what looked like the same file, and got into WoW, all within ten minutes. I’m not sure if they are giving Canadians a smaller version to try, or what’s going on, though. I’m pretty positive that he didn’t download the full 3.16GB file within ten minutes, though. He sent me a screenshot of him in the game, and I sent him a screenshot of the Blizzard Downloader that I had running. He had never even seen the downloader, though.

Anyway, I just wanted to update, here, and let you know that I’m still around.

Linden Lab stated that “Since the collapse of Ginko Financial in August 2007, Linden Lab has received complaints about several in-world “banks” defaulting on their promises.”

Now, I realize that the point has been argued, but in the basic sense, didn’t the fact that Linden Lab banned gaming “instantly and definitively” at the end of July 2007 “cause” the run on Ginko and other banks, in effect, causing them to default, or not be able to pay their depositors?

Since this is only a quick observation, and a post about something that just sort of hit me as “something to think about”, I haven’t really thought much about the cause and effect of these different “events”. I’m still trying to imagine what the effects of the bank banning will be.

I suppose it will depend on how many (if any) SL banks will be allowed to remain after January 22nd. After seeing the “cashout” effect after the gambling ban and the amount of users that “downgraded” from premium accounts, I’m guessing that the same thing will happen, again.

While not a complete “ban” of Second Life banks, many are choosing to see the new policy and describe it this way. The very start of the blog post says:

“As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter.”

The last prepositional phrase of that statement means that if an in-world bank provides proof of a legitimate business in the real world, or is actually a financial institution in RL, they will be allowed to continue operating as a bank in Second Life.

While this may seem like Linden Lab is banning all forms of banking in-world, it is really just banning the ones that are not set up as a legitimate business. If there are any Second Life banks that do not provide the correct information to Linden Lab, they will be banned or LL may “may sanction those who continue to offer these services with suspension, termination of accounts, and loss of land.”

So far, from what I’ve seen, only one bank (the one where I have my money), JT Financial has provided this information to Linden Lab. They operate under the Wise Metaverse brand, and have sent their Limited Liability Company certificate (PDF Link) in, already.

Now, when I first saw the news of this, my initial reaction wasn’t too good. It brought back flashbacks of the gambling ban and the huge loss of many users, falling land value, and the bank run that happened because of it. The thought that Linden Lab would, once again “create” a run on virtual banks was really just unbelievable. Since I’ve stepped back and had a chance to look at the overall picture a little more closely, I can see where they’re coming from, at least.

What still concerns me is the fact that a lot of the 150 comments on the SL blog post seem to be “asking” for things to be banned. Some want camping chairs banned, other want the Linden Exchange abolished (removing the ability to “cash out”).

What a lot of them don’t realize is that Linden Lab started down this slippery slope a while ago. By banning this and that, requiring EU “customers” to pay VAT, and now the “banking ban”, they are continuing down the slope to a desensitized, mirror of political correctness that’s already available in real life. They have no belief in personal responsibility, and will choose to set up cameras on every street corner to “protect” it’s residents, and themselves.

Looking back, a lot of people asked a lot of questions after the gambling ban, last summer. A lot of people made predictions about “what’s next” to be banned. A lot of people were right.

Can we start making more predictions about what will be next, now? In order to operate any business in Second Life, will you soon need to become a “proven” real business in real life? To buy and sell land, will you need a real estate license? We’re getting closer and closer to that point, no matter how you argue it.

I just found out about the in-world banking ban in Second Life. While I haven’t had time to fully wake up and comprehend the effects of this, I just wanted to say that I’ll have a longer post about this, soon. The Second Life banking ban will surely make some waves across the entire grid.

While it’s still to be seen what changes will come to the SL Reports web site, I am frustrated with the fact that I wasn’t seen as a person that could potentially take care of what needs to be done. It looks like the changes will be made without any involvement on my part, by a company in Belgium. A company that has built their whole web site using flash. Anybody that knows a little bit of SEO techniques knows that if you want a web site to actually be indexed by search engines, you use something (anything) other than flash.

Sure, the search engine will see their site, but will not see “any” content on the site, at all. Search engines do not look at keyword and description meta tags and base the decision to list the site on those, alone. Sites that are built using flash, alone, usually aren’t indexed, at all.

I just hope that SL Reports isn’t turned into something that can’t be found anymore. If they needed the site to be optimized to make more money on advertisements, that’s something I understand. To not be considered for the job, when I make more than my fair share from AdSense and TLA, due to my optimization techniques, is just frustrating, though.

Granted, even though I never personally “asked” for the job, I will say good luck.

IntLibber Brautigan seems to have gone and pulled something that even I didn’t think he was capable of. While I’ve come close to writing about him in the past, I had always decided that it would be better to just ignore him. Well, I can’t ignore him any longer. First, I will tell you that I have “never” talked to IntLibber Brautigan in person. I never had a reason to in the past and I really don’t care to in the future.

What brought me to this point is this disclosure from Arbitrage Wise. The fact that he needed to make this information public to avoid being blackmailed by IntLibber Brautigan is a shame. The fact that IntLibber threatened to do what he wants to do is absolutely pitiful.

Here is what was said when IntLibber contacted Arbitrage on December 4th (read the above link for more background):

[10:05] IntLibber Brautigan: You and I need to have a talk about Juice Trading
[12:07] Arbitrage Wise: What did you want to talk about?
[12:08] IntLibber Brautigan: Firstly, I know all about it.
[12:09] IntLibber Brautigan: the US House of Representatives Republican Majority Whip wants a report from us about juice trading to forward to the FBI
[12:09] Arbitrage Wise: k - is that it?
[12:09] IntLibber Brautigan: no
[12:10] IntLibber Brautigan: From here on out you are going to fully support everything the SLEC does, and Bo is going to stop obstructing things
[12:11] IntLibber Brautigan: you will announce that given Skip Oceanlanes’ treatment by WSE, you now concur with the SLEC ruling against WSE
[12:11] IntLibber Brautigan: you will stop bashing BNT, and you and your staff will stop trying to bribe and telling my staff to stop working for me
[12:11] Arbitrage Wise: Thanks - but no thanks….
[12:12] Arbitrage Wise: and lastly, we’ve never bashed nor talked about BNT
[12:12] Arbitrage Wise: I’ll end the conversation there…
[12:12] IntLibber Brautigan: Suit yourself
[12:12] IntLibber Brautigan: Expect a news release through third parties soon
[12:13] IntLibber Brautigan: and an FBI investigation

From the outside, this seems like a very heavy-handed thing for IntLibber to do. The owner of one SL Exchange “threatening” the owner of another SL Exchange and using that threat as blackmail to get something they want. What it really is, is a case of somebody not standing by, or standing for, something that they believe in.

Let’s look at IntLibber Brautigan and his well known RL persona, Mike Lorrey, a little bit.

In game, it may seem like IntLibber Brautigan is a pretty good business man. He seems to have a well run company and seems to always be expanding. Sadly, things are not as well on the inside as they seem on the outside. While he talks about how his companies and ACE is growing, the truth is far from the inflated numbers that are released to the public and his shareholders. In time, the truth will be seen, and IntLibber will do anything he can to keep that truth from “getting out”.

In RL, Mike Lorrey seems to be very active in politics. His SL name stems from “International Libertarian”. It seems that his beliefs in RL and his threat to hand over a “report” to Roy Blunt and the FBI are highly contrasting. Since being a Libertarian means that you believe in reduced regulation of business, why is it that he has been in touch with the US House Republican Majority Whip, and talked about this with him?

It looks like IntLibber’s name doesn’t even mean what he stands for, anymore. He calls himself a Libertarian and then wants businesses to be regulated on how they run themselves?

The fact that he is trying to use these heavy-handed threats of real US government officials and departments to try to “get his way” in SL is simply shameful. The fact that he’s not even standing for what he believes in simply makes him “Ass Hole of the Year”.

On May 8th of this year, IntLibber Brautigan left a comment, on this page. Tell me what he believes in, and how this threat to Arbitrage has earned him the “Ass Hold of the Year” title:

 ”This is a great place to test via market mechanisms the claims of big government vs the day in and day out proof we are seeing in SL by small govt and no govt proponents that overburdening government with strangulating regulations are unnecessary, and a detriment to growth. The SL economy has grown by 400% in the past 6 months I’ve been in SL. In that time, I’ve turned a 200 USD investment into a company now valued on the World Stock Exchange at about 400,000 USD. By the end of summer, we will easily be worth over a million or more.”

“Strangulating regulations” and “a detriment to growth”! Did he change his mind? You’re an ass hole, IntLibber Brautigan, and you’ve just doomed your Ancrapistan Capital Exchange and the SLEC with this stupid move. Not that there was much, but the loss of trust and integrity by this has been done. We’ll keep an eye on you to have the next “Tizzy” fit.