But in the aftermath, it seems that everybody is pissed about them.

Well, not everybody. Noobs are getting their free stuff and look less bad. And that’s it. The other two groups, customers and creators, are fighting the war over the freebies.

I must admit I’m having hard time writing this. I’m trying to put down what’s happening and it simply makes no sense. Designers are giving some of their stuff for free. You enter the shop and there’s a pile of boxes that you simply can take. Usually, there’s a huge sign over the pile saying they are for free. And even more often, the freebies are advertised in the shop’s description. But, creators themselves are saying they are ruining their business: 

It’s unsustainable for business owners if there are thousands of high quality freebies on the grid, as it leads to a culture where a large number of users refuse to buy anything and live off freebies.

If you read comments on that post and many other blogs that deal with the freebies, you’ll see that many creators passionately hate freebies, even if they have them in their own stores. They expect increased sales if they put freebies in the store, but they don’t get as rich as expected. It probably works for some and not for the other, but that’s the trick of marketing in the meatspace too. Some things work for some and fail for the others. But if it doesn’t work for you, just delete those boxes and go with something else. Don’t whine around about customers that picked your promo stuff and haven’t bought anything else. Sure, some creators expect that nobody else give freebies around because that lowers everybody’s sales, especially those whose priced products are inferior to somebody’s freebies. But that’s too childish to discuss about, right?

There is also the other side, the customers, and when you see the logic of some of them, you start understanding some of the designers’ protests like the most recent call for ban of the freebies. While most of us see a freebie as a gift and promo stuff, others see it as something that is mandatory for every creator and expect it when they come to the store. Which is also childish. If somebody spends their time using skills and talent to make something, they have the right to give it or to sell it as they see fit…. and I feel extremely silly having to write obvious things like this. But apparently, it’s not that obvious as it seems. And it doesn’t end in being childish. It goes further to being rude and sending IM’s with insults to the creator because they are not giving anything for free. It’s amazing what some people allow to themselves.

So, it’s not about freebies, it’s about people. While on both sides there are some who are enjoying the free stuff around and benefit from it, there are some whose ideas and manners are more suitable for a cave than for a virtual world. On both sides as well. And there’s not much we can do about it.

But still, there is an appeal that creators, at least temporarily, stop giving free things around. Will that help? No, not at all. First, not everybody will join the action. No matter how hard you try you can’t reach the entire creating community, let alone persuade it to join the action. Second, rude consumers won’t get the message. They are the last to get any message. What to do instead?

Well… maybe spreading the word will have some effect. Remember the panels explaining about stolen skins? Those never solved the problem, but they did a huge job nevertheless. Also, you might want to have a handy notecard as a response to those that send you rude IM’s and request your stuff for free. This won’t solve much as well, but this is not a short-term thing. Culture is never built in a day. 

Check ArminasX' post about pricing products in virtual worlds. He tries to follow some logic and sets five ways to determine the price:

• Give it away!
• Price based on Effort
• Price based on Value
• Price based on Competition
• Price based on Volume

All of them very reasonable ways to go. With the right combination of them, depending on the actual product one might hope that price will be right. But what I said back then, in last September, is still very true: In second life, logic is not rezzed yet. 

More than once I saw people paying several hundreds of lindens for a single piece of an outfit. One would expect some imagination and lot of great texturing for that. But no, there is noting exceptional about it. Except the price, of course. So what's the trick? Usually trick was in the brand, shop and the price itself. 

People love brands. Brands are the best brand our civilization invented. Put a name on something and you've doubled its price. While the trusted name on the graphics card is worth extra money, I cannot see why name makes a group of pixels more worthy. While with scripted things one should search for brands that will promise less lag and no bugs, clothes and other visual stuff is "what you see is what you get". But still, those are exactly where brands are playing the big role. They just make you feel good.

Location and the look of the shop are the other big factor. Place yourself near the popular and fancy place and you can charge more. Actually, you have to. Not only that the nearby merchants will expect you not to ruin their biz but your space will cost more. And customers will expect to pay more as well.

Shopping experience comes in the game here. It is not the same if one is shopping in an ugly mall on the mainland or in a fancy, well-built shop near the trend-setting club. It is not just what is offered, nor even how the environment looks, it's who you can meet there as well. And how do you feel. Shopping is not just getting things for money. It's the game on its own. Very complex one. Female readers know what I am talking about. Most of the males won't get it no matter how much I try to explain it.

The last but not the least is the price itself. Yes, price of something determines the price of it. Forget the recursiveness of this statement, and learn to live with it. It is actually very simple. If you buy 50L$ dress chances are that you will meet another avatar in the same dress. And you don't want that to happen. If you pay 500L$ for it… well, you are much safer from the unwanted encounter. More expensive the thing, bigger  are the chances that you'll look unique. And that counts in the value of something.

Let's help our creators rip us off, what makes you pay more? 

Steal

The most recent development in the virtual worlds space from a brand perspective is the concept of these companies creating their own worlds. Doing this means they’re stealing attention (in the form of registered accounts and time) away from other virtual worlds.

I typed thousands of characters about drawbacks of this approach. First of all, it is expensive. Second, it is making another product which then have to be advertised, marketed etc… for itself. First you have to think about your product, then you also have to think about virtual world that is product's advertisement. Then, it is rarely a world, it is usually another application.

But worst of all, it is mostly speaking to the audience that is already yours. E.g. Barbie World is hardly the world that will convince anybody to get a Barbie doll. Girls that come there, already have their Barbies. Point of the on-line application is to make them buy more equipment for their dolls. And to offer them some on-line fun and social network. If that thing there is to be called fun and social network.

Sure, this way has some advantages. System is built with one purpose in mind so it has desired look, feel and performance. And it can be a nice extension of the product, but it is not advertising. Nor it extends over the border of existing customers. It won't reach much further than you already got.

Borrow

Some companies, mainly American, have taken a different approach for the virtual antics [opposite to the open worlds like SL®] and instead have taken their brands into more controlled environments – they’ve borrowed the land and the attention of the members for tactically short bursts of activity.

These worlds, IMHO, are made as playgrounds with advertising in mind. mainly, they are social networks in three dimensions. And they just wait for somebody to come and stick their bloody billboards all over the place.

Will those campaigns work? Unfortunately, they will. Billboards, stupid commercials, rotating signs and other ways of stupid brainwashing work. Otherwise, we wouldn't be forced to look at them every day, in meatspace or in virtual worlds. And we would live in less polluted worlds.

Beg is the approach characterized in the worlds that are general-purpose, made for everyone and not just predefined audience, usually open to the idea of user-generated content. Like Second Life® is.

The communication approach that this instance is one of kindly asking for the attention of residents and appreciating/realising that the main reason for these residents to be in-world is definitely not to look at real world brands. 

I cannot agree that presence in the "open" worlds is to be called "begging". Not if one is doing that properly. While brands have to put some effort into getting resident's attention, it is hardly begging. Or, at least, it shouldn't be. 'Cause begging doesn't work.

…a more direct approach meant the brands came down from their real-world pedestals and got their hands dirty with the locals.

And that is a good way to go. There were too many mistakes in the marketing approaches in virtual worlds, hopefully we have learned something from them. One thing that became obvious, is that most of the residents are looking for interactivity. After all, that is the essence of virtual environments (and also the contemporary web). I find it very weird that so few companies are still in "the old ways" and neglect this fact. Not only that "the old ways" are ending up as complete disasters, interactive marketing is easier to be done and much cheaper. Marketing in interactive environment is, by large part, done by targeted audience themselves.

Unlike the TV, radio or print campaign that is done, and paid for, completely by the company, in this scenario residents of virtual worlds will do a part of the job for the company. For free! OK, not for free. They expect value in return. They want to be entertained, or to learn something or to have some other benefit, usually other than money. But they will be a part of the campaign. And if target audience is an active part of the campaign, that is priceless. Should I say that message transmitted that way is way much stronger than the message slapped over the billboard?

So, it is not begging. It is offering the hand for the job to be done together. And offering to share the benefit together. Question is, whether marketing experts believe in what they are offering, whether the product and the campaign are beneficial for the audience. Or the audience is seen as mindless cattle who have to swallow the advertisement and head to the mall to spend more money on something they've just learned they cannot live without?

Instead of an “unified metaverse”, they’re using the name ambiguously as a more fancy synonym of “virtual world”. The industry players wish to address a different target — games for teens — and are reluctant in accepting an “unified” environment. Each company wishes to have their own virtual universe and aggressively compete with the others.

Greed leads to stupidity. Companies wants their own isolated grids in the hope they will get the greatest share of the market, or one targeted part of it (like biz, teen, gaming, social…) and dictate rules for profit. But, that was the way that could go two decades ago. Microsoft did it and now lives on inertia. But that is not working anymore. Not only that competition, both in other companies and in free software community, is too strong to allow somebody that position. If we can learn anything from current state of virtual worlds and social networks it's that we cannot divide niches as we could years ago. Biz, games, education, socialization and all the other uses are interweaved for good. Keeping one grid just for one purpose is an idea that already failed. Not because of fashion and trends but because mix of uses is more efficient and gives better and full experience.

Other thing is that companies want to have their owngrids for bothperformance andsecurity reasons.

Of course the alternative is not OpenSim — it simply is not “industry-grade” yet.

Quite contrary. While OpenSim is not up to industry standards it is a good base for it, much more than a fancy and high-features closed system. OpenSim will get its full level as soon as a company or two see what is obvious and pump some money in it. Apache (and many other opensource projects) develops thanks to both community and companies. But companies are blind enough not to see that open metaverse platform is just what they are asking for. If system is open, company can tweak it, upgrade it, protect it or do whatever they need with minimum investments. Surely, with significantly less investments than it is needed to make something from the scratch.

And it is not only about development of the software. There is content to be created. Amounts of content currently available in second life are enormous. Just try to imagine how much money, time and effort is needed to try to compete and to make your new platform interesting enough. Then, there is marketing and making new users to come to the new grid. We all know that making an avatar is not a five minutes job. Not to mention that avatar is not just an username and password, and that most of us gets really attached to our avies. Not only for sentimental reasons, connection to an avatar is a part of the experience. Sometimes that connection is necessary to get done what you came for. How many people will invest a week or two for each new grid they might want to visit. How many people left second life because they had no time to develop an avatar for the first time? Having opportunity to just TP to another grid is essential for promoting and survival of any new grid.

Weirdest of all the corporate ideas Gwyn mentions is the one about controled content:

In any case, the message is clear: the industry is totally abandoning user-generated content, and moving into the realm of controlled environments. They want to make them “kid-safe” and explore the teenager market. Adult content — specially, user-generated adult content — is not part of their “plans for the metaverse”.

Do those people use the Web? Or they do and don't like to have something that open again? It seems that somebody needs a reality check here. Maybe China has some success with filtering and control of the Web, but that will hardly happen in the rest of the world. Only thing one can succeed in with control like that is isolating itself.

I am not sure what to think. Are those people really that crazy to think that one company (even IBM or Sun) can control the whole new world? Or maybe they just see the chance and want to try gambling? Those two sounds quite unlikely. Have market researches and focus groups combined with wet dreams about power overtook the common sense and visions of the whole new realm? Maybe, but one would expect more from people that are into this business for a while. I don't know. You tell me.

• I got some full permissions skins (from Another Shop, which I'll learn later).
• I did what anybody would, I packed them and started giving them for free.
• I thought a bit and shared some of my questions and concerns about second life economy.
• I turned out as a bitch who is ranting against free stuff in second life.

I know I am a bitch sometimes and I love a good rant when it is appropriate, but this a clear case of misunderstanding.

• I have no ethical questions about giving content for free. Problem that made me write that post is about SL economy. If there is something wrong in giving freebies, then it is not giving itself, but economy that is a mother to land barons and step-mother to content creators. If principles of economy behind open source and free software movement are questioned by that, that is ok, but that doesn't mean that I said they are wrong. Far from that.
• My main question was what happens if some types of products are on market (and some of those even free) while other (like land) is with fixed prices.
• I don't think that people are not allowed to do with their creations what their will is. That includes and is not limited to giving it around for free.
• I am not a designer who feels that freebies are dangerous for my biz. (You could get that impression here.) I don't have a biz in second life.
• Yes, I will rethink my writing. It seems that I have to be misunderstood every now and then.
• I am still proud to be a communist script kiddie :p

Thank you for reading this.

Putting quality full-permission skins for free on the grid could (and should) undersell lot of creators. Generally, that should be a good thing. Prices drop, quality raises. Residents should be glad. Bullshit!

In the last fifteen months (am I that old? dammit!) most of the prices were dropping. It is inevitable. There is more and more people coming to second life. That makes more and more content creators, many of them trying to find their place on the market. Usual technique is lowering the prices. More residents also means more customers so it is easier to go for more sales with lower prices.

On the other side, there is just one item that keeps its price stable: land. And may I say, compared to anything else, land is too fucking expensive. And, it is very important, land tier is paid in US$, not in lindens. Even if you are living on an estate and pay your landlord/lady in lindens, they pay US$ to Linden Lab. All of a sudden, we are not talking microcurrency linden peanuts, we are talking hard green cash recognizable in any bank on planet Earth. What does that mean?

That means that content creators are working for third world wages while land barons are doing serious biz here. And, mind you, making skins, hairs, scripts and all the rest of lovely things we use takes a bit more knowledge, skills, creativity and time than buying an island, placing prefab houses and renting all that. All of a sudden there is an ethical problem of giving those skins for free! Dropping prices is not a good idea anymore. Dropping prices is taking money from content creators. And content creators need money. They need to be payed for their work and they need to cover their expenses. They need to pay for the land their shop is on. And that price won't drop with everything else.

I can say that I don't care. I am paying for my 1024sqm anyway. I have my parcel because I wanted to make a place to hang out with friends. I make only things I feel like building at the moment and because I or my friends need them. My human counts on the monthly visit to Lindex. Amount of lindens I buy covers all the expenses of land, uploading, and a bit of shopping and tipping. So, I can give things for free or to sell them any price. If I earn something, that just means more shopping. Consequence?

Amateurs (like me) can break second life creativity. That is, if that wasn't the case already. Just go for "I build for fun and I am glad people are using my stuff so I'll give it away for 1L$" logic. That is happening and that is legitimate. Community-wise that is very nice and positive attitude. But rad to hell is… you know…

It is not surprise that you see some people expect that professional artwork is done for peanuts. Just check Eshi Otawara's experience:

Last week I ran into a guy who owns several sims and is quite ’serious’ about his ‘businesses’ on them. He saw my profile, saw my portfolio, told me I was god-sent because he needs a builder of my skill, showed me some blueprints and asked me for a quote. I gave him my per-hour requirement upon which he asked why do I think I deserve to be paid that amount, considering this is not ‘real life’. My argument was the mere fact that my back hurts the same after sitting and doing 8 hours of graphic design from home or a first life office, thus the wage (though a bit less then my first life wage would be) was very realistic for me.

One can say there is a difference in works of amateurs like me and pro designers. Sure there is, but that guy from the previous quote hardly sees it. And, unfortunately, so many residents are not capable of seeing it. As a result, we have the world of mediocre design where good designers are starving.

No, I am not suggesting those skins should remain out of market. Nor that we need a regulation system that would force prices on things and forbid free stuff. That would be very very wrong and so contrary to the nature of second life. I am just noticing that our economy is ill. If anybody have any idea of making it better or any thoughts about all this, feel free to start typing. 

***EDIT*** Some people obviously interpret this post differently from what I wanted to say. It is good to check some clarifications about this post.

dozens of Resident entrepreneurs to add "CSI" to their location description, so that anyone searching for SL areas related to the show see theirs, too.  (And presumably, teleport to them, mistakenly thinking they're locales part of the "CSI:NY Virtual Experience".) In fact, there's now so much gaming of CSI as a search term, the official CBS-sponsored sites are not even among the top ten search results.

I guess that exploiting the holes in the second life's search tool is one of the most popular in-world games.

And now that "CSI" itself has been gamed, they're in for an even stranger adventure, with more false leads, conflicts, and bizarre encounters. Like an emergent alternate reality game, a fictional story has been inextricably intertwined with an existing world, albeit a virtual one.

As you probably know CBS built 440 islands to welcome the flood of SCI fans that will play detectives in second life (I cannot find the link but that number has fallen drastically last week). OK, CSI players need their own Orientation Island different from the regular LL's. But was it a clever idea to place the whole game on the CSI's islands exclusively? Obviously not.

As we see, the game got from the islands to the rest of the grid. Beside that, those residents are ment to become the part of second life, not to play the CSI game a bit and then forget the second life? Or am I wrong on that? Wasn't it then, a better idea to incorporate the CSI world into the rest of second life from the start? To make smaller number of CSI islands and place the part of the story on the mainland and other islands? To cooperate with the rest of the world?

It would be easy. Just call sim owners and offer them to place all the dead bodies, trails and clues on their property. Like other place their newspaper machines and ATM's all over the grid. Everybody would profit. Land owners would get hell of a traffic, CBS would save on land (US$1,675 multiplied by 440…) and get additional advertising all over the grid and blogosphere, virtual detectives would get more interesting game. 

But no, they wanted to do it all by themselves. We still have much to learn about how this world should be used. 

First thing that comes to mind are all the ugly scams like the one Lillie Yifu writes about:

It has a freebie quality shape, a freebie quality AO, with static poses that are common freebie poses, and a skin which simply does not make it. The picture implies a facial gesture it does not have, and the hair in the picture is also not there.

So I will say it: Kiny-O Yuki package, at 788L is about 100L worth of goods. Terrible. Dog. Rip-off.

Or, maybe even worse, that small shop I stumbled in recently. Mainly sex furniture, and a hot tub. You know hot tubs? Sure you do, they are full permission freebies all over the grid. The guy changed one texture and is selling it for L$500! I wouldn't say a word if he did a complete make-up. But changing one texture with another is hardly worth 500 lindens. Other shop is selling dance animations for L$25. Quite a bargain, but all those anims are in my inventory since I visited my first freebie store. Yes, noobs are always trying to sell freebies, but this shop is 5000sqm. 

And then, there is that famous Dubai tower that was offered on e-bay for 50.000 euros. No, it was not sold. You can get the same building for L$15.000 on SLexchange. Ok, that expensive one goes with high traffic sim, but which parcel in second life is worth L$1.500.000?

Even if we don't count rip-offs and scums, the prices are hard to guess. You can get hundreds of bundled textures on SLexchange for L$10 but also for thousands. Quality? I doubt. Sounds more like "Somebody will buy it to see what's inside." And with one purchase the setting of the price that high made sense.

Second life is driven by the free market. And that is good. But it seems that the market is too free. Try to visit all the shops that sells one type of product inworld. No way. Even if you do it in flatworld, on SLexchange, it will take time. E.g. currently there are 86 pages of skyboxes, from free to L$10000.

And then, how do one set the prices of own products? It is expected to check what competition offers, compare the quality and originality and find your place on the market. But not on this market. This one is too wild. 

avatars enjoy having sex and playing pranks instead of getting warm fuzzy feelings about real life brands.

They are kidding, right? This cannot be. Someone's actually surprised and disappointed that people enjoy sex (even virtual) more than being targets of bad marketing campaigns? And, they are not ashamed to show their stupidity in public?

Some marketers are disappointed that there aren't as many people cruising the site as they'd expected.

I can understand that. But, doesn't that mean that they are boring? Hey, second life is not a TV! You cannot go with stupid advertisement and expect that everybody will come to see it just because you are big corporation. What is the saddest thing about this is that they don't see their own mistake in this. 

Virtual worlds are interactive. That means corporations not only have opportunity to interact with customers, they are obliged to. About month ago there was a report about wine companies having similar problems. Just imagine how beautiful sim can be made about the topic. Little village with the vineyard, where you can talk to the old man who knows all the legends and old stories and who can tell you all the knowledge about wines…. place where you can spot a Bacchus from time to time, place to get some lindens by squeezing the wine the old way, by your feet. And if you search a bit you can be lucky enough to find couple of blue and pink balls in the cellar, after all, all that wine have an effect on you and that lovely avatar you've just met.

In her new post, Gwyneth Llewelyn discuss how it is hard these days to get some lindens in the world which affects the economy of the world.

Obviously a mostly jobless economy, where the overwhelming majority of all residents is unemployed, is impossible to control just with stipends. Artificially creating jobs (and that’s what camping chairs and dancing pads are… but they’re sponsored by business owners, not the “Second Life Government”) is a possible alternative.

I don't see why corporations are not using the opportunity. It is not camping, camping is boring and it really do nothing except raising traffic numbers. Give those people something to do there for the lindens you will give them. Greeters, support and all the people who can talk with potential customers can be interesting and motivating part-time jobs in appealing environment. And they can do a lot for your empty boring sims.

Yes, it may raise your expenses. But, this is not a TV. It is much better than a TV. And, my attention is not cheap. Sorry guys, you'll have to go over your marketing schoolbooks. This way, it sounds like in darkfoxx' comment in SL Herald

"Hey guys can I play with you in your sandbox?"

"No, your toys are lame"

*pout* "well…YOUR SANDBOX SUCKS ANYWAY!!

• Mainland or private estate? One of the important characteristics of land is who runs the servers under it. In the case of mainland, servers are run by Linden Lab. Severs for private estates are owned by Linden Lab, but they are leased to other companies or residents. It is the question under whose government you want your property to be.

Conditions under which you buy and own a parcel on mainland are very clear, and the same for the whole continent. Private estates are much like middle age (not in the scenographic or theme sense). You are the owner of your land, but there is a set of rules that the owner can insist on. E.g. some properties are residential only, which means you cannot run anything commercial there. Also, some sims are themed, so your builds must follow the flavour and/or lifestyle of the whole sim. There can be some rules about behaviour. Ask if you can make parties on your land. Those restrictions are not necessarily bad, some of them can make your second life a whole lot better. Just be sure that the particular property is what you want and need. Get to know your future estate owner, meet your future neigbours, take a walk through the hood. If it looks ok to you, if the conditions are meeting your needs (don't hesitate to ask for any clarification you need) and if people and especially the owner are nice and fair people, then you have probably found the estate of your dreams.

Understand that the estate owner (not you, but the one that runs the sim) can be an idiot who can cause you trouble, cut your prim number (we'll get back to prims later), who can terraform or control the sky, or delete all the things on your property. Chances are that it won't happen, but you should have a reason to trust the owner. The mainland is a different story, you will not have to worry about those things. But, there are lot of other things to worry there. When you go to see your future parcel on the mainland it can look nice with a beautiful view on a lot of other empty parcels around. Have in mind that those parcels will be sold too, and you don't have a clue if one day there will be an ugly casino with all the noise and camping chairs on the plot next to you. On the mainland you have no right to be angry about it. Your neighbours have the freedom of doing whatever they want on their land, just as you have on yours. If the plots are small, there is a huge chance that the hood will look like a yard sale in a week or two.

Have in mind that very soon, Lindens will give some of their rights to the estate owners. What will be considered abuse will depend on the estate owner, not on ToS. Maybe future rules of the sim will collide with your beliefs, maybe you want some extended freedom.

• Price Check the price per sqm. Prices vary, so teleport a lot to see what makes something so expensive or so cheap. Taking some time in this can save you a lot of money.

• Tier Price you paid for your land is not the end of the expenses. If you own more than 512sqm of land, you will have to pay a monthly tier. Be sure to know how much you are expected to pay. If you are on the mainland, you pay your tier to the Lindens. If you are on a private estate, you pay to the estate owner. One more good thing about having land on a private estate is that, in many cases, you don't need to have a premium account to have your parcel. If you are on mainland, you also have to pay your premium subscription.

• Size, shape and prims Obviously, each parcel has its size. Check the shape of it. They are all rectatangular, but both 2×256 and 16×32 are 512sqm. The question is if there is any sense in your trying to build and live in a corridor two meters wide? Does the house of your dreams fit the shape of your land? Also check if you can divide your parcel and if you can join it to the neighbouring one if you decide to get more land.

Prims are maybe even more important than size of the land. Each parcel has the limit of the prim objects it can support. That number affects the number and level of details of objects on it. If you are not building, talk with a friend who does and go to the store of buildings and furniture. See something similar to your likings and see how many prims it will take you.

• Ground configuration and climate Do you want to live in permanent snow? Or on the beach? Grass or stone? Those things can be unimportant if you are going to make a skybox and forget that there is a ground beneath you, but if you want to walk on the ground be sure to check if that is the ground you like to walk on.

It is not only the texture over it – is your future land on a side of a hill or is it flat? Some estate owners don't stop at terraforming, but make brooks and stones and some other nice things. Those things take your prims, but make things look nice. Check if you can change these things (this is a case only with estates, you can change everything on mainland). Nice addons to the land usually raise the price of the property. Maybe it is wiser to buy something for less money than to make the environment yourself or to buy it in a store.
Another point here is whether you want it to be on the edge of the sim. The good side of this is that there are no neighbours on one (or two if you are on a corner) side but maybe you don't like to live near the bottomless pit.

• Neighbourhood Believe me, you don't want anything with camping around you. You also don't want your first neighbour to keep damn greeters who will spam your chat telling you every couple of minutes that somebody who's height is x and whose age is y has entered their club. Maybe you don't want a sex club around you. Think twice if you want to live or do your business in a mature or PG area. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Check the traffic of nearby parcels. If there is a very popular club around, it can get all the traffic of the sim making you unable to teleport to your own property. Have in mind that those things change fast, especially on mainland. One day you are living near a nice and peacefull buddhist monastery, the next there is an architectural crime with 20 avatars dancing and whoooting!
• Server type Not all the servers that run our world are the same. Some computers are older and some are newer and with better performances. As I got it Class V is what you should look for.

Have I missed something? Do you have any more tips and tricks? Share them with us!