[Reposting from old forum]
Recent Kitely Upgrade
Ilan discussed the recent upgrades, improvements to the asset system, made to speed world load time, to speed up rezzing and to reduce lag when someone TPs into the world. He asked if anyone had experienced problems. No one had.
Next Update
Ilan said that the next site update will happen in 1 - 2 weeks and be the last before work begins on the marketplace. The update will focus on eliminating various small OpenSim issues that have been reported.
For example, problems caused by Imprudence allowing prim size to be 0 which results in you not being able to further edit the prim, or remove it. The update will check prim sizes, and on restart, set any prims with a size of zero on any axis to be instead 0.001m.
They are also making configurable wind an option rather than the only choice. Random wind will be the default, providing the wind behavior we previously had, unless we choose configurable wind.
They are adding support to recall an object from top collides dialog.
Ilan asked everyone to, as soon as possible, post in the support forums any OpenSim issues they would like to see addressed in this release. Though not every issue will necessarily be addressed, if the issue is small enough to fix before the release, they will try to get it in.
Marketplace Discussion – Handling DEMO versions of products
Ilan proposed to the group a novel way of handling demo versions of products: instead of a separate version of the object, the customer is sent to an empty single-user test world where the customer can try out, but not keep or transfer to anyone else, the actual product. Once the customer leaves the world, the demo item would be removed from their inventory. This would remove the necessity of creating a separate demo version of the product.
The group discussed. Brigid noted that for her it would not work, as her customers use demos of her buildings to rez on their land to see if the building will fit. Other’s noted, that due to copybot concerns, at least some merchants would not be comfortable with allowing the customer to try out the actual product, even in a restricted environment. Merchants often create a distorted version of their product for demo purposes to make copybotting more difficult, such as adding watermark type graphics over skins, clothes, using different textures in buildings, etc.
After more discussion, Ilan proposed a set of choices for the merchant on product testing in the restricted environment: (1) No testing, (2)Testing demo version, and (3) Testing full version. The group thought this was good, giving merchant full flexibility. Ilan also mentioned, later, that customers would be able to enter the test world with multiple demos from multiple merchants. And, also later, Brigid noted that these options sound nice, but for her, she needs to be able to offer demos to customers to be used in their own world. After additional discussion, Ilan said that they would continue this line of thought on the forum after the meeting summary is posted. There was consensus that this method might be easier to implement and is also the “standard” method currently in use.
Ilan asked whether anyone saw a problem with the time inside that dressing room world [the testing world to try out demos] being charged on a time-based billing basis (standard Kitely Minutes). The time would be charged normally, so for example, someone with an unlimited plan would not be charged anything. The group discussed possible options for that, such as allowing the merchant to pay for the customer’s time and limiting the amount of time that the customer could spend trying out a particular demo.
Marketplace Discussion – Offering Services/Advertising
Minethere, who offers raw files and custom terraforming, wishes to be able to advertise these services through the marketplace, perhaps something similar to SL banners. Ilan and Minethere discussed a bit more and Minethere said that she would follow up in the forum.
Questions for the Forum
NOTE: Please provide an explanation for your reasoning when answering these questions.
Q1: Which of these do you prefer?
1) Having an option in the item’s marketplace entry and/or in the market shopping cart to send you demo versions of the selected items (if available).
2) Having single-user “dressing room” worlds accessible from the item’s marketplace entry and/or in the market shopping cart. This world would provide demo versions of the selected items depending on the way the merchant configured each of the items (no demo / demo version / full version).
Q2: Would you use the option to test out items before you buy them if doing so cost you Minutes?
Q3: How do you think other potential buyers will react to the time in “dressing room” worlds costing them Minutes?
Q4: Would you prefer to visit the merchant’s in-world store over using the marketplace and “dressing room” worlds?
Q5: Have you ever advertised inside the Second Life marketplace?
Q6: Would you advertise inside the Kitely Marketplace if pricing was based on an auction system?
Q7: Would you advertise inside the Kitely Marketplace if pricing was based on another type of system, and if so what system(s)?