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Originally Posted by Anya Ristow  Granted. The list won't be fair. IMO the list is still needed.
My plan was to create a list of "the best" of each category. There's no way LL's showcase can be a decent shopping (or social) guide. It's way too limited. If there were twenty or so categories, each with up to ten or twenty entries, you'd have a useful resource that wouldn't leave out much that is "the best of".
Go ahead and ask, "what's the best place to get hair?", or search for those questions. There's lots of them. You won't get hundreds of results. You might get twenty, and maybe eight will keep coming up. The anwers to these questions will also give you a much better preview of what you'll find than the search results. Visit 'em all, add the good ones to your list, include a note and a landmark. Repeat for all the other categories. Why should everyone who wants hair have to repeat this exercise? |
Well, that one depends on who you ask, too. And I doubt anyone is going to visit them all.
Lot of good thoughts in your post. Let me rattle around with them best as I can.
I can't quite get around the question, "why should everyone who wants hair have to repeat this exercise."
But to try - well, for the same reason everyone in real life who wants to have their hair done relies on things other than the city providing them a list of the best hair salons?
Also, inherent in what you have said, is something of the notion that the controlling entity SHOULD make things easier for people, and, consequently, short-circuit the whole shopping experience: "Go here. There, we've saved you the trouble." I can't quite get around that as a good thing.
I believe the results of doing something like that (ostensibly to provide something useful to someone who doesn't want to put "hair" in search) is more detrimental to residents, overall, than it is helpful.
As for "adding the good ones to your list" - well, that will be awfully subjective, too, don't you think?
I know, of course, that we can find places that many, many people will agree are good. So perhaps they could be on the list? But of course, they can't ALL be. So what then - the ones that are left out will lose business to the ones miraculously annointed?
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You can, indeed, find relevant results searching for "houses". Which of those places is worth a visit? Now try something like "hair". On page two you start to get to places that aren't primarily hair sellers
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Agreed. I think the solution for that, though, would be a better search system. Like a phone book. Something with categories, and you look down the categories.
As for which places are worth a visit, I am firmly of the opinion that that should be a question decided in the marketplace, by the marketplace. By classified ads, by word of mouth, by ads in other venues, and so forth. Not decided for us by the powers-that-be.
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, and by page 5 you still haven't encountered most of the best places. Now try "club". How long will it take you to find the gems?
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I would disagree with that. I think by page five you have encountered many good places. Though perhaps not what person A considers "the best."
Finding the gems. I have a huge disconnect here. First off, if a place IS a gem, then it seems to me they can be more easily found by paying more for a classified ad.
Secondly, who decides what the gems are?
Third, that decision will make the difference between whether you suddenly are making a lot more money, or whether you are losing customers to those LL has decided to send people to.
And a lot of good places and "gems" WILL lose customers to other places.
Overall, once you start picking out a few stores, spotlighting them and promoting them, telling customers to go there, you are killing your own marketplace.
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A computer program can't decide what's "best". A human won't be fair or complete but will do a much better job.
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Well, I don't agree with the notion that anything is "best." "Pretty good," maybe. (Among SCADS of other "pretty goods," which get shafted with this system.)
But someone saying "I think this is pretty good" isn't a good enough reason to send the business to that person's way.
Really, it's quite akin to the U.S. government putting "Go to Hooters!" on every passport, or "Shop at Macy's!" on every tax return.
Such are my thoughts.
*****
As I mentioned earlier, the question is why. Why would LL want to create a situation where a few stores get all the business, and others fold?
I've been busy thinking about that, and trying to work it in with the fact that the whole Showcase thing is kind of in the middle of its development, on hold, while they figure out if and when they may want to charge for it. There is more to this than they have on the table right now.
Which I think may have to do with real-life companies. Right now, we've got H&R Block on there, but as far as I know, there may be no other accounting firms in
SL. (I haven't looked.)
When one does come in, how are they going to like H&R Block getting the free advertising and promotion?
So, how does this idea of "we might charge" come into play, in view of that? (And when that happens, I think they are pretty well going to HAVE to charge, because I don't think a real-life company is going to roll over and accept this . . . lunacy.)
Meanwhile, we have the usual one-hand-washes-another, you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours thing going on with certain entries on the Showcase, combined with some choices that seem totally random and actually way less deserving than other places, in this person A's opinion, anyway.
It's a puzzlement what is motivating LL about this.
coco