“No Deal With CB,” Sez LL; Purple Land’s “A Bug”
by prokofy on 25/03/07 at 11:53 pm
By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Virtual Estate
Linden Lab did not encourage Coldwell Banker (CB), the real-life real estate company, to come into Second Life, John Zdanowski, LL’s chief financial officer, known inworld as “Zee Linden,” told the Herald this weekend.
Asked if there was any contact, encouragement, or special tier breaks, Zee replied, “Absolutely no contact. Zilch. Nada.” While former LL VP David Fleck spoke at a realtors’ conference last year to promote SL, he apparently didn’t meet with CB’s Avram Goldman, COO & President, listed as a speaker — at least, since Fleck is gone from LL now, that meeting didn’t figure into Zee’s answer to the Herald.
Robin Harper, VP of community affairs, known as “Robin Linden,” reported that the purple land owned by Coldwell Banker’s SL land group, Icehouse Land Holding, was “a bug,” she told the Herald. It’s currently being investigated. The land was bought by the builders on the auction, she said, but the persistent auction ID and purple colour is a glitch. CB may be giving land away for free after staff interview prospective house-buyers, but LL has sold the land in the normal way, she indicated.
Forums commentors in “Resident Answers” speculated that some deal may have been offered the real-estate company. “Coldwell is getting the sims from Linden Labs for significantly less money than any of us could buy them for,” speculated Amity Slade — a claim LL vehemently denies. As for Slade’s other prediction, ” I bet Linden Labs will be lending their full power of authority to assist Coldwell with whatever rules and conditions it asserts,” LL is likely to say they enforce the rules equally for everyone.
Several other posters felt that the uniform-looking prefabbed houses wouldn’t appeal to everybody. “I’ve never been attracted to a parcel with someone else’s house on it. I suspect they will get ditched rather quickly. It sorta sucks the whole “Your World, Your Imagination” out of SL,” commented tristan Eliot.
Coldwell Banker has purchased the sims Ranchero, Crowfoot, Elboya, Gorbash and Scurfield to offer sales and rentals.
Residents have also speculated about the “palm print” system that the CB press releases have discussed — likely an avatar key reader — and what that means in terms of data-scraping. It could also mean the removal of flippers, cutters, and griefers who plague some mainland areas. “What if they’re just selling the parcels to buyers who come in person to their sales office, so they can screen them and only sell one to each person, and not sell to known land dealers?” asked resident poster, Annabelle Vandeverre.
“They might actually have a fighting chance of keeping their suburban utopia for a month or so. Of course in that case the land dealers can send in their alts and still wreak havoc. Does anyone think the folks at Coldwell are smart enough to pull this off?” In fact, with two of the most security-conscious and hardened land barons in Second Life, Ancient Shriner and Chrischun Fassbinder, there’s likely to be little tolerance of other land barons and suspected critics being permitted to purchase the homes — as early visitors to the sim Friday discovered, when they were greeted with rude rebuffs.
Other posters thought CB might make a good contribution to SL. “I’m sort of pulling for them. Not in the sense that I actually care if this works out for Coldwell, but I am considerably heartened to see that increasingly RL companies entering SL are actually engaging with it on its own terms rather than treating SL like a simple billboard for their ads, and this is another example,” Johan Durant.
Billboards are exactly the problem, however, as the Herald reported last week. And residents started up a lively thread responding to former land dealer Raymond Figtree, who opened a thread titled, “Coldwell Banker’s Ugly Secret, about the managers of CB placing ugly ad signs around the mainland, some of which are put to sale for extortionist prices. “[T]he people they put in charge of their ‘let’s do something nice for the newbie’ project are only in SL for personal gain, community be damned,” said Figtree about the annoying signs. “In the press, CB is going on about how they are going to come in and save SL residents from the selfish land barons. Yet the people they have representing them are the most selfish type of land baron. Ones who have proven with every plot they hack up for profit that they have no problem defacing any sim in SL. Including the ‘pristine’ neighborhoods Coldwell Banker is showcasing as the best way for a new owner to get Mainland.” A number of visitors to the CB territory have marvelled that even the prime waterfront is defaced with Shriner’s and Fassbinder’s notorious signs.
The venture is bound to continue to draw attention and strong feelings, pro and con. CB pissed off a lot of land barons by their initial press release, which showed woeful ignorance of SL, and probably a lot of tendentious prepping by Shriver and Fassbinder.
In a press release published on Business Wire, CB said, ““Rather than having to negotiate for top dollar with Second Life ‘land barons,’ users can visit our virtual office and interact with our virtual sales associate to buy homes from Coldwell Bankerat reasonable rates,” Young continued. “Ironically, Colbert Coldwell, and later Benjamin Banker, founded our company after seeing similar practices in 1906 San Francisco. Coldwell Banker was founded just 18 weeks after the earthquake largely because our founders saw the need for ethics and integrity in assisting victims of the devastation who were being preyed upon by unsavory businesspeople. We want to do the same thing in Second Life: give residents the opportunity to participate in fair and reasonable real estate transactions.”
CB’s concept of “reasonable,” however, involves a practice never tried in SL as impractical — leaving a deposit. “Zaphod and I were there just now, talking to one of the people there. Going to be restricted to newbies, they claim to have an extensive database of land holders and alts. Getting land requires a deposit, refundable after 60 days, after which time land can be resold without penalty,” posts Stephen Zenith.
“Gee, a brand new First Land program, corporately owned. It accomplishes exactly the same things that people suggested LL do to stop the First Land program from being abused. What was the time difference between when LL ended the First Land program and when Coldwell bought these sims? And how did they obtain this extensive database of landholders and alts anyway? ,” asks Vandeverre.
“Most people I know in SL disdain all the corporations which are moving in to our once wonderful online world. From my experiences, most people try avidly to avoid dealing with a corporation in world and instead opt to work with the little guys. I mean really, if SL simply becomes ‘American Corporations Online’ who is going to stick around? I came here for the originality of the designers and those who run businesses and to get away from corporate America. Not to deal with a bunch of behemoth corporations who just muck up the place with their cheap crap and drive all the wonderful small, privately owned places out of business,” says resident Pan Fan.
Resident moderator Strife Onizuka closed the two threads critiquing Coldwell Banker, saying there was no longer any “general discussion” thread allowed on the forums.
Nacon
Mar 26th, 2007
yeah… ok, so youre pissed off about Coldwell Banker getting the good deal for their first time into SL.
Linden Labs “may” have helped them… so they can “help” them to pay their rich money into SL. Still doesn’t mean they know shit about people in SL to begin with.
Question is… does it matter at all? How are you complaining any different than other land baron whom nearly got good deal and does a bit of actual success than CB does?
I’m sure the behemoth land barons like Anshe Chung and Adam Zaius (Azure Islands) will have a good chuckle in middle of their sleep, thinking about this retarded complainant going on.
Curious Rousselot
Mar 26th, 2007
I love what Coldwell Banker is trying to do. We are seeing a corporation actually getting involved in SL. They aren’t isolating themselves on an island. They seam to be trying to get into the intent of Second Life. I applaud the effort.
If they stick with it and the people involved actually try to understand the culture in Second Life, we may find that they are a valuable addition to our world.
A little healthy competition to the land barons may be just what we all need. As long as everyone (CB included) has to play by the same rules I see this as a positive addition to our world.
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 26th, 2007
You know what’s funny, these two “representatives” even LOOK weasly. I can’t believe Coldwell Banker has put their entire corporate image in SL into these two bottom-feeders’ hands.
They are arrogant, they mistreat anyone they don’t like, and I gotta tell you – the whole thing stinks of scam, and they won’t answer questions if they don’t feel like it.
Coldwell Banker is entirely too big a business, with entirely too much to lose, than to let themselves be played by these two notorious individuals in SL.
CB needs to rewrite their press release, and get out of this business with these two people – if they at all can.
There are plenty of nice, reputable, and presentable business people in SL to choose from who actually want to HELP others. (Most of those people could also create much more appealing neighborhoods, too.)
coco
whateva
Mar 26th, 2007
Like LL would really admit publicly to giving special deals to CB or any other corporation for that matter.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Mar 26th, 2007
Certainly interesting that the purple borders are a ‘bug’.
Anyone else out there got land with the ‘purple border bug’?
It’s certainly one I have never encountered to date.
If no one else has it, isn’t it a little unlikely that the only sims in SL so affected belong to Coldwell Banker?
Prokofy Neva
Mar 26th, 2007
I love what Coldwell Banker is trying to do. We are seeing a corporation actually getting involved in SL. They aren’t isolating themselves on an island. They seam to be trying to get into the intent of Second Life. I applaud the effort.
I’m all for business coming into SL. I’m all for them coming to the mainland, especially. It’s sad if a big, wealthy corporate entity like Coldwell Banker destroys indigenous business — indigenous in the sense of having gotten here “first” or “earlier” — but that’s a relative turn in a world like SL.
It’s unfortunate, of course, if CB puts smaller rental companies out of business that exist only inworld, but ultimately, that’s what the Lindens want. They didn’t want “your world/your imagination” anymore — at least, not with amateur and ordinary people’s imagination, they want something that gets more attention, press, and money. The old world of pioneers is fading as a concept. Of course, they can’t claim to have a *better* world if all they do is put, as someone said, “American Corporations Online” in 3-D. People will find that offputting.
CB was following the wisdom they had picked up from somewhere that the way to deal with SL was to have sheraps. But they picked really bad sherpas — the worse. And while some would like to concede that this was accidental, I’m not so sure. They haven’t answered any of my mail or made any comments anywhere. They likely dont’ care if these sign-griefers devalue and uglify other people’s sims — that’s just that many more customers for them. I’d hate to think that a fine American business with this long upstanding reputation would trash it all in a minute by hooking up with assholes in SL, but this happens quite a bit. It’s all about the greed.
You’re failing to get it about what’s wrong with this picture: that CB going with an inworld company known for sign-griefing and extortion is the WORST possible way into SL.
Nobody is much objecting to this idea of them “keeping a data base of existing land owners” — whatever THAT is for — or whatever data-scraping they do like the little weenie tekkie asses they are. Of course by having the spinning signs selling “Leet Dictionaries” that nobody needs or buys on every single sim, they get visibility, but more importantly, they get a square to put down scripts and monitor activity, and that’s likely what they are doing, to put themselves at a business advantage.
I was just in Burns tending to my mall and seeing Chrischun’s freebie warehouse that routinely fills up and crashes the sim — it’s little better than a camp chair operation. He can afford to give away freebies, or set 16 m2 to $9345 without much consideration for his reputation because this avatar is not connected to whoever he is in RL, or to some other avatar in SL, and he doesn’t care. I think mainly what these people and CB itself are after are ideological influence and shaping the structure and ideas of the metaverse.
>If they stick with it and the people involved actually try to understand the culture in Second Life, we may find that they are a valuable addition to our world.
They’re off to a bad start, surely. The press release was venomous and unnecessary.
>A little healthy competition to the land barons may be just what we all need. As long as everyone (CB included) has to play by the same rules I see this as a positive addition to our world
But they don’t play by the same rules. Most land barons, myself included if I can even be called a “baron,” wouldn’t dream of taking a 16 m2, and putting an ugly spinning sign on it advertising our rentals or content, and then putting something like “my birthdate on it” the way Bart Heart does or refusing even to swap it (Chrischun claims falsely on his “Prokofy Quest Completely” rant on his profile that he offered this, but of course he did not. When *I* offered to swap him to the road, he refused, because I “didn’t talk to him right”. I never get on my knees for people like that.
Inigo, I’ve only seen one other purple land situation sort of like that, but not quite. There’s a purple land in Wixon, that is showing that it was claimed by someone. It’s empty, and has been for months. I thought it was abandoned before claim or something odd, but I was told by a Linden not to worry about it, that it was a glitch. It’s not even being used for anything that anyone can tell. Those are the only cases I’ve seen.
Onder Skall
Mar 26th, 2007
WAITAMINIT!!!!111oneone11eleven
Are we actually trying to imply here that there exists a technical problem somewhere on the grid? Puh-lease! Second Life is a robust 100% perfect system. They were obviously joking!
(Shiva help you if you aren’t detecting the sarcasm here…)
Gaius Goodliffe
Mar 27th, 2007
“Forums commentors in “Resident Answers” speculated that …
… speculated Amity Slade.
Residents have also speculated …”
WTF?
Oh, right, this is Second Life Herald, where we don’t even *pretend* to be a responsible news service (or responsible anything for that matter).
Prokofy Neva
Mar 28th, 2007
Gaius, um, responsible news services do report on a community’s sentiments, on their feelings about events. It’s done all the time. Open up not only the Daily News, but the New York Times. People speculate; you write about them speculating. And hey, you speculate yourself.
Residents indeed speculated. It’s a report on the forums. People speculate, even websites and forums and new services around SL speculate, but few bother to just go get a statement from the Lindens. I did — even on a weekend, from two that were the highest ranking. The should have put to bed the speculation…of course they didn’t, as it’s SL, with secretive government and privileged classes and such.
I don’t need to defend what we do here but *you* need to stop being an asshole : )
David Cartier
Mar 29th, 2007
I went to the Coldwell Banker offices Tuesday morning and I have to say that they were actually staffed, with people who acted professionally and courteously. That fact alone is important and i’m wondering how long it will last. The people I spoke with claimed to be actual real life licensed employees of Coldwell Banker.
In contrast, just as an example, the Dell sims are never staffed, confusing and when you make an inquiry of the owner you get a delayed rude response to a perfectly sensible question. Great for business and the corporate image…
The Coldwell Banker sims aren’t going to be for everybody, but then, a second life for a lot of people is sadly limited to a blandly safe place to shack up for their games of neutron nooky. They are happy to just have a nice house somewhere.