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 : )

… 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).

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…)

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.

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

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.

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.