Winter Ventura

This thread is for posting information about the various Web-Based Marketplaces that service the Second Life grid. Hopefully this can become a sticky, and can serve as a clearing house for information about the alternatives that are out there. Please do not use this thread for idle discussion. Keep it factual, this isn't the place for slamming people's service offerings.

Couldbe Yue

I found this one on my travels today.. never heard of it until now.
SlOpenMarket

It's been around since march by the look of it and it claims to have paypal but only has a few dozen items listed.

That probably sums it up.

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Satiated Desires: Toys for Grown Ups
~Inworld~ ~Product Catalogue~ ~Xstreet SL~ ~SLShopper~

Tristin M

I think the first one of the markets that goes multiworld is gona be the king of them.. ofcourse only if they do it right.
Thats what I'm really watching because thats gona be fun to see as a busniessman myself it'll just be exciting to watch them take off! (yes I know I'm strange that way)

Nanakisan

Theres the newly minted Metaverse Exchange market place which already has over 2333 items listed and counting. Maybe some further exploration into this site is needed?

Bellissa

Metaverseexchange is already setup for that. Legend City is also catered for apparently.

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[2:28] Nicole Linden: "Attention, people of Second Life. I regret to inform you that in order to make way for the new hyperspace express route, your region has been scheduled for demolition. Have a nice day."

Brann

I'm currently looking into metaLIFE, slapt, and apez

metaLIFE is a very userfriendly place to be where you can actually find staff to talk to on the forums. However, I'm holding off placing more items because I was charged 14% on the one thing I sold and it's still not clear why. There is some discussion about that going on.
Apparently something to do with their inworld vendors and commissions but I don't use any of those.
I also can't seem to display more than one (somewhat distorted) product image for my web based listings although there is an option to upload more.
Images require you to have full perm textures of the item inworld so you are still incurring a 10L charge per item. The explanation for that is sound but may keep people from posting their freebies there.

I didn't get far in apez because their search engine is an utter trainwreck. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I did a search for a desk I got eyeballs.

slapt.me seems well put together and I've not found too many cons yet (just started there though). The site is terribly slow, which is understandable, given the current activities of the sellers, and I can foresee some server trouble for them if they don't sort that out. 5% commission and no fancy footwork as with metaLIFE.

Taylor Lubezki

Slapt has made major improvements over night.. The Dev team worked very hard and made some much needed changes.. you are correct in the current activities were not expected.. Many people are not waiting the 30-90 days.. They are bailing now and slapt didn't anticpate that happening..

But I'm sure you will see major improvements today!

Pips Fetid

Over the past few days I've listed items on slapt.me, meta-life, and metaverse exchange. I've looked at the forums, done a few searches, and just generally poked around.

My primary use of xstreet has been to find things that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to find in-world due to the poor search functions. I get very specific with my searches, and since there's so many listings, I usually come up with something very close to what I'm looking for, if not exactly.

When it comes to searching, these are my thoughts:

meta-life: A regular search with multiple keywords brings up results with either keyword. Adding + anywhere in the keyword list seems to bring up every listing on the site. It may list by best match by default, but it could definitely use some improvement.

metaverse exchange: Again, a search with multiple keywords and no modifiers brings up results with either keyword. Adding the - modifier will exclude items, but +, AND, and surprisingly, quotation marks, make no difference to search results. Plus, there's no way to change how the items are ordered.

slapt.me: A search with multiple keywords assumes the AND, no need to add the modifier. However, adding a - in front of a keyword returns no results whatsoever.

So, as of right now, none of the options are particularly useful when it comes to searching.

I also took a look at listing process.

slapt.me: Listings here require a whole lot of clicking. As someone who has done data entry in the past, that slows me down, big time. Also, as of this posting, the website seems designed for a much larger display than I use (and I'm on a desktop, with what I thought was a decent-sized monitor.) Even with my browser maximized, text and even images were clipped horizontally, making it hard to tell what exactly I was doing.

meta-life: Pretty quick to set up, really. I set up not only my few items, but about 150 for Sylva's Animation Factory. The forms are laid out well, and easy to maneuver. However, having to include primary pictures in the boxes and grab UUIDs from secondary pictures is a pain, especially when the second pictures actually getting added to the listing is sketchy. I had one that worked, and when you clicked on the picture in the listing (that actually showed as square, instead of SL's odd aspect ratio), brought up both that picture and the second, in a slightly larger size. The rest still have the odd rectangular pictures, and refuse to show the second, it seems. Plus, not being able to upload means you're stuck with whatever SL spits out at them, and after reading the forums, they don't seem likely to change this, as the website isn't their main product and uploading to the website instead of requiring in-world textures limits the functionality of their in-world vendors. Understandable, but not really what I'm looking for.

metaverse exchange: This one, I liked. It did take a couple tries to figure it out, but if you hover your mouse over any of the fields or links there is helpful hover text to tell you what they're for and how to use them. I especially like being able to list multiple colors/versions in a single listing. Plus, it won't let you post an item until you've at least filled out a few basic items, so it's harder to accidentally forget to set a category or something. The number of fields is small, making it easier to fill out. My only real complaint is the pop-up to add the price and pictures - it would be a lot easier if it was all on one page, and it refreshes when you add a picture, without saving any values you may have entered, so you have to remember to add the picture first. And they're running an "XStreet Refugee Special" right now, offering one free featured item listing, which didn't factor into why I listed with them, but definitely helps.


Overall, I think I like metaverse exchange the most, despite the search issues. They are focusing on their web platform, which is what I tend to use the most, and they have the added benefit of being multi-world (which I'm not likely to take advantage of any time soon.) The multiple options in a single listing thing is awesome, and has the potential to get rid of a lot of the "clutter" from xstreet, and it's pretty easy to navigate. They just need to fix that search function.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the subject. Hope that helps.

Deckheard Cleanslate

slapt.me is the one for me!

It reminds me very much of how SL Exchange was before LL took it over.

It's a great community and the staff really do listen and really do work hard on implementing what the members ask for.

Plus it's adult orientated from the start so no need to keep forever clicking any adult buttons to see everything.

They're continually adding new features and it's growing rapidly.

My bet is slapt.me will take over where SL Exchange left off!

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Web site. My slapt.me stuff. My XStreet stuff.

Tristin M

Multiworld being worlds not run on sl server code its not going any all that fast ya theres been improvements but its core is still SL based and SL cant handle 80k useres w/o crashing

Nanakisan

this is true but i have recently discovered a new company and software has taken bids to start working with the makers of OpenSim the core system of all outter virtual worlds from SL like Legends City.

currently bubblecloud.org - Wiki is trying to start a new wave in virtulization methods. but thats off topic.

I essentially choose MetaVerse exchange for the kindness of its staff and its many many wonderful members not to mention the lovely options and addons you get. I'm reminded of the old SLX not Xstreet before they revamped their interface to LL standard flash stupidity. But its mostly the fact they have so many feature with a good staff to boot makes me like them. Now all they need to do is set up a Linden/Dollar exchange and they will be popping.

Kabalyero

I have items listed on metaLIFE, apez, slapt, metaverseexchange and vitty but I'm currently using metaLIFE's metaVENDORs for my in-world shop. For gridwide/website purchases they take 10% commission.

metaLIFE don't charge you anything if you sell your items from your own metaVENDORs which is really nice.

Branded vendors can be given to affiliates where they can make money selling your items. No need to find an ATM since you can grab a metaHUD from any metaVENDORs and do your deposits and withdrawals there.

You'll also make money by referring new residents to metaLIFE. You get a commission from purchases made by your referred residents.

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kenwalters

I pulled all my stuff off XStreet, if changes are to be made I like to be talked to not talked at.
I'm on 4 other markets now, and am looking for the next app that links them together plus a few virtual worlds and websites,and can all be visited by 1 avatar from any world. That really would open up vw markets.
Until then I put up with lag, chat group problems, dodgy connections, being thrown out for teleporting, not fishing for days, and not seeing sculpty items rez properly, I think they label that batch of problems as Second Life.