Ad farms next in Second Life ban list after gambling and banks?
It’s no secret spam is a problem online. Spam in emails, chatrooms, IMs, IRC, blog comments and yes, even virtual worlds. Having already moved gambling and banking to the ban bin, Linden Lab is now eyeing spammy land in Second Life.
Jack Linden said Friday that Linden Lab is looking into the problem of ad farms — small patches of land filled with garish virtual billboards.
This is something many SL land owners have complained about in the past, myself included. A neighbor moves, the land goes to some real estate agent and you have gigantic rotating billboards hanging above your property with large font ads. I decided to login and see what the current surroundings of our VTOR property looked like. How far away were the ugly billboards?
Ads were directly behind the property and floating above, not too bad. But then moving further down the street, just out of distance of the first picture to the right, it’s an alley of box-shaped ads.
I’ve got mixed feelings on how Linden Lab should proceed. As a landowner I don’t like these ads. It’s one thing to pitch a small, discreet sign on the property. It’s quite another to have large rotating boxes intentionally placed above the buildings. Since there are multiple ways residents can learn that land is for sale (from the search, from right clicking on the menu bar and seeing it’s for sale) I wonder how necessary these signs are?
Perhaps a more positive approach than banning or adding a bunch of rules involving spammy advertising — which, the TOS already has rules which target obnoxious use of land space that have been largely ignored — would be to outline land for sale with bright colored, glowing lines that can be easily toggled on/off, with OFF set by default.
Before anybody points this out, there already exists a feature to show property lines (pictured above) that can be displayed by pressing CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + P on the keyboard or going to the View menu and selecting "Property Lines." The problem with this is it isn’t as clear from a sky view easily which land is for sale and which is not.
At the least, Linden Lab should make this much more obvious for those who are flying around looking for land. To make it even more intuitive, when searching for land a popup could inform that by toggling on the setting they could flyover and easily see the land and property. Even better, they could center align the text of the price of the land inside the land lines when the feature is enabled.
In some ways looking at all the barren, snowy land, I’m expecting tumbleweeds to roll by. This is a dark time for Second Life, at the very least in the sim where our land is located. How active is your sim?
Dying before our eyes.
Update 2/14/08 5:08am SL/PST: In the comments below Salazar and Aurora point out the VIEW->Land Owners which does a better job of fully colorizing the land. The problem is this view still falls short in identifying the price of the land, forcing you to right click on the land interested in to see the price. Here is a mock-up of something more helpful: 
February 12th, 2008 • 
TD Goodliffe • 
comment | February 12, 2008 at 10:11 | individual comment-link
There is an easy way to tell which land is for sale; if you go into the View tab at the top of the screen and select Land Owners then the different colors will designate which land is for sale and which is not. Yellow land is for sale, purple land is up for auction, green land belongs to you and red land is not for sale. However, the biggest issue with ad cutters in my opinion is those individuals who buy a parcel of land and cut out a 16 meter plot, sell the remaining land at a low price and then essentially extort money from the individual who bought the land by erecting ads on the 16 meter plot destroying the view and sometimes even the ability of that individual to build intact buildings on the land. While experienced players know to look out for such scams, new ones frequently do not and get drawn in by the inexpensive price of the land. This practice should be stopped as it destroys the experience of owning land for many as well as sours them on Second Life as a whole.
comment | February 12, 2008 at 13:47 | individual comment-link
How do you feel about the “Land Owners” display under the View menu? Land is colored and easy to view from on high. Land you own = bright green, group land you are a member of = light green, land for sale = tan, all other land = red. This is the best way to search for land when one if just walking or flying around.
comment | February 14, 2008 at 05:07 | individual comment-link
Salazar and Aurora - thank you for pointing out the “land owner” view. This view is a little easier to see land for sale, yes, but still requires additional steps to find the sale price of the land. Not as handy as showing the price of the land inside the grid. I added a mockup picture in an update to the post above which better explains what would be more helpful in walk/fly-by mode.