Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Ll Traffic Future Chat Log 2008-05-07

Chat log from 5/7/2008 LL Traffic Future Meeting

=== Introduction ===
Jeska Linden: First, I'd like to thank you all for joining us today for a discussion on the future of traffic and other metrics in Second Life.
Tao Takashi: ok, so tell us any problem and we deliver the solution in seconds ;-)
Phli Foxchase accepted your inventory offer.
Jeska Linden: Awesome
Tao Takashi: THE solution I should say
Jeska Linden: We've got about an hour to brainstorm/gather thoughts and both create and answer questions.
Jeska Linden: First, brief introduction!
Jeska Linden: I'm Jeska, I think I've met many of you in the almost four years I've been working at LL
Tammy Nowotny: hello Jeska. (your bear matched my hair)
Jeska Linden: I work on the product management team, which means I help the engineering team and talk a lot
Jeska Linden: ;)
Jeska Linden: I've been working on the Search project for the last year or so and am SUPER happy to introduce Kalpana, one of our newest Lindens
Jeska Linden: She's also on the product team and has been gratious enough to offer her help on search related things as well
Phli Foxchase: Welcome Kalpana !
Kalpana Linden: thanks jeska. for now I am jeska's stalker on the product team :D
Kalpana Linden: thanks Phli.
Jeska Linden: hehe
Jeska Linden: Everyone needs a linden stalker, makes you feel loved :)
Tao Takashi: Welcome Kalpana :)
Tao Takashi: or close to banned...
Jeska Linden: In the last two meetings, we spoken a lot about traffic and better ways to determine how your inworld parcels are doing via new metrics.
Kalpana Linden: thanks tao, good to meet y'all
Jeska Linden: We also spoke a little bit about what type of metric, if any could replace the current "traffic" metric within the Search to help determine relevance
Jeska Linden: Along the way, we also spoke about bots, Popular Places vs. Showcase, and more
Jeska Linden: It's been very helpful!
Jeska Linden: There are three things I'd like to get your thoughts and feedback on today
Jeska Linden: And we're a small enough group that we should be able to do it without any additional moderation, and don't worry I'll push us along if we get caught up in one thing too long.
Jeska Linden: The three things I'd like us to cover include: Showcase in the viewer (briefly), parcel metrics, and the future of traffic.

=== Showcase / Popular Places ===
Jeska Linden: I'm sure you all saw in the initial blog post: http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/28/second-life-showcase-popular-places-and-the-future-of-traffic/
Jeska Linden: We're replacing the Popular Places tab within the Search box with content pulled from the Showcase on the Second Life Web site. Anticipating that this would bring up conversation around ?
traffic/metrics/advertising, we wanted to open the conversation up to the community (hence the group and these meetings).
Tao Takashi: yep
Jeska Linden: First, are there are any questions or concerns about the Showcase/Popular Places switch? (If you haven't read the blog already about that, please go ahead! )
Cocoanut Koala: The Showcase is my primary concern.
Phli Foxchase: how many places will be in showcase ?
Jeska Linden: Phli - there isn't a set number yet
Tao Takashi: I am just wondering (as I saw discussion on that) how the showcase content is created and how you try to minimize the discussions around FICness etc.
Cocoanut Koala: I don't believe for-profit places belong on it, or that it is even necessary
Tammy Nowotny: I have seen it on ther web page and bombed right by it
Cocoanut Koala: I don't feel the Lindens should funnel customers to one business over another
Cocoanut Koala: So I don't think hair and fashion places should be on it at all.
Jeska Linden: It's dependant upon time of our editorial team rather than limited by a number.
Tammy Nowotny: well I am several sides of this... I do both business and nonprofit stuff
Phli Foxchase: do you plan to keep the different categories : music / education / ... ?
Tao Takashi: well, I don't really do business but would like a guide to find good businesses
Jeska Linden: Let me tackle those, then we'll move on
Tammy Nowotny: are these paid placements or puerly editorial?
Jeska Linden: (otherwise we get buried in questions!)
Never Rust: My question is - why add editorial showcases to the search? why not make it a seperate tab?
Jeska Linden: In the current form (which has been live on the website for several months now) - locations are suggested to the editorial team which then goes inworld and makes selections.
Tao Takashi: then again there might be several third parties providing listings, too. maybe they should get incorporated so you have more choices of editors
Jeska Linden: Currently under development is a way for Residents to more easily suggest/nominate locatoins for showcase via a search flag
Jeska Linden: Which, depending on how it is used, opens up many other opprotunities for digg/craigslist style Resident created lists
Tammy Nowotny: and I suppose different type sof residnets have masisvely different ideas about which places are of interest
Never Rust: But it will still remain editorial and not fully democratic.
Jeska Linden: The Popular Places tab, which was based on traffic, highlighted about 20 locations - all which were very similar and showed only a very small slice of the overall Second Life experience.
Tao Takashi: I think if you only have a limited list, it being editorial is good because otherwise you get spam
Jeska Linden: The Showcase attempts to broaden that offering, both in terms of types of experiences highlighted and number of things (right now it's closer to 50 locations)
Daten Thielt: the popular places tab is a load of nonsense unless you go for realistic numbers
Never Rust: But editorial means selection by employees of LL, not by peers and the public in general.
APinkSwan Beauchamp: I think if it's done by the public, it could be gamed.
Jeska Linden: Yes, it will be editorialized to start, as mentioned, with a goal of highlighting interesting locations, but the end goal is to provide a way for Residents to also provide their feedback
Jeska Linden: As PinkSwan mentions, it will need further design to be easy without being gameable
Fleep Tuque: We have whole teams of educators tagging educational locations in SL through the SaLamander Project (http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page), isn't there a way to ?
incorporate existing resident projects rather than having to go through and re-tag/nominate everything?
Never Rust: Why not just let people get their editorial content from various blogs by residents?
Daten Thielt: problem is if its just lindens people bitch about it, if its got residents involved its gona be gamed, no win situation
Jeska Linden: Fleep - I think that it would be great, I'll be sure to take that back to the team
Jeska Linden: I've often wanted a "widget" space on the website to share things like that.
Fleep Tuque: Thank you, we definitely want to help and contribute
Kalpana Linden: Well in teh current proposal, the community nominates, and then linden editors review
Cocoanut Koala: If it is necessary to even HAVE such a tab of recommendations - I believe it should be limited to not profit businesses, rather than give free advertising and promotion to some businesses, at the ?
expense of their comptetitors.
Fleep Tuque: but asking folks to tag things multiple times is likely to diminish the number of folks willing to participate.
Tammy Nowotny hasn't looked at the Popular Places tab in eons
Jeska Linden: Yup, as Kalpana said, it's part of a larger plan, btu we have to go one step at a time.
Jeska Linden: I scrolled up, but did I miss any other questions?
Jeska Linden: (don't want to miss the rest of our topics!)
Cocoanut Koala: ok - let me put some things in the form of a question then, allright?
Fleep Tuque: Me either Tammy, but the thousands of new students educators bring in don't know any better! :)
Jeska Linden: Comments are ok too :)
Never Rust: Why not have the editorial material in its own tab? why combine with search?
Tao Takashi: you can import stuff from worldofsl.com ;-)
Jeska Linden: We're here to share information!
Cocoanut Koala: My questions would be, is such a Spotlight necessary i nthe first place, from the point of view of the Lindens,
Cocoanut Koala: and if it is, can you see your way clear to limiting it to non-profit enterprises? Rather than promoting specific businesses, and funneling customers to, say, one hair shop over another?
Fleep Tuque: nod Tao, that's what I was thinking too, World of SL, SaLamander, Sloog, NPIRL, there are lots of resident run projects to highlight great locations already, they just aren't displayed in central place.
Tao Takashi: Fleep: yep, my initial thought to, crowdsource it out to editorial teams out there. people can then choose which one they like more
Never Rust agrees with fleep and Tao
Jeska Linden: Cocoanut - the answer to that question has been covered a bit, we want to highlight some of what is both possible and happening within Second Life. There are several reasons for this.
Tao Takashi: I also wonder if some mechanism like "people who liked X also liked Y" is possible
Tammy Nowotny: althougha voting mechanism is good too.
Fleep Tuque: That's good idea too, Tao
Jeska Linden: For example, one of the most frequent reasons cited for why people don't stay in Second Life is that they "don't know what to do"
Tao Takashi: and you should maybe be able to vote on those recommendations so you don't get bad ones anymore
Kalpana Linden: Cocoanut: There is utility (especially for new users and existing users looking for new things) to have some sense of quality of places. And we also want to expose the breadth of content in there.
Jeska Linden: This is one attempt to answer that question - It's not the first and I'm sure it won't be our last project aimed at this!
Never Rust: So not knowing what to do means there needs to be more tutorials.
Cocoanut Koala: But - why must it include for-profit businesses?
Tao Takashi: Never: and knowing places where to meet cool people
Tao Takashi: and stuff which matches your interests
Kalpana Linden: Cocoanut: think of it like the top search terms or top websites
Cocoanut Koala: It is not though - it is Linden Picks.
Cocoanut Koala: And even if residents have input, that is just people recommending their friends.
Never Rust: I think the best solution for that would be to show a list of community-made blogs and let residents subscribe to them through the viewer.
Cocoanut Koala: I gthink Linden Picks are fine - but not when it comes to for-profit businesses.
Tammy Nowotny: if they are good picks, people will use the feature, if they are bad picks people won't
Jeska Linden: I'll be sure to take that feedback to the team Cocoanut
Tao Takashi: I also can imagine picks based on what your friends like plus filtered by interests.. this would mean though you need to have some friends which again means there needs a mechanism to import friends ?
more easily (or match them that is)
Jeska Linden: Did anyone else have thoughts about Popular Places or can we move onto the ever exciting topic of metrics!
Cocoanut Koala: I believe those businesses which get featured on the Spotlight will enjoy a hugely disproportionate proportion of sales and customers.
APinkSwan Beauchamp: I am not in favor of community-made blogs completely, as those may also not be indicative of quality, etc.
Tammy Nowotny: if you did eliminate for profits, people wd game the system by partnering with non-profits anyway
Fleep Tuque: (The SaLamander project isn't people promoting their friends, we are developing a list of rubrics and criteria to help evaluate all edu content we find.)
Cocoanut Koala: And finally, I'd like to say - I don't believe the Lindens should have any hand in making one business more profitable than others.
Never Rust: Will showcased places contaminate the search results or be separate?
Jeska Linden: They will have their own tab
Jeska Linden: They will of course also have whatever else they've chosen to list in search
Jeska Linden: But the Showcase Tab will be it's own thing
Jeska Linden: I've got a mocked up picture here somewhere.. just a sec
Fleep Tuque: In one sense, I guess that's what I'd like to see happen with ALL categories for the showcase. Some set of criteria per category, some standards, not just what some small group of people think is "cool" ?
at the moment.
APinkSwan Beauchamp: How often will the places in Showcase change?
Tammy Nowotny: do you already have Lindens looking through the search results to look for gaming, spamming, etc.?
Never Rust: Sounds great. As long as its separate and optional, I think LL can add whatever editorial lists they'd like. :)
Fleep Tuque: That also gives people who are BUILDING and CREATING a sense of what to strive for in terms of quality.
Jeska Linden: I thnk there has been further design work on this - but if you look behind me you can see a mock up
Jeska Linden: the only difference is it should be in its OWN tab, not in "All"
Jeska Linden: silly designers
Jeska Linden: It will be replacing Popular Places :)
Fleep Tuque: Can we take snapshots?
Fleep Tuque: :)
APinkSwan Beauchamp: Will places just get added to it, or will they change?
APinkSwan Beauchamp: or rotate?
Jeska Linden: Tammy - there is a Governance team that looks into reported search listings, but there is anotehr project currently under design that should help with this.
Daten Thielt: so if it replaces popular places the trafic is not used?
Jeska Linden: APink - we will be adding more content to it overtime
Jeska Linden: I'm not sure if places will "drop off" over time or not.
Jeska Linden: I will mark that down as a good open question :)
Cocoanut Koala: My guess is that the hair and fashion places are not going to like this.
Tammy Nowotny: I was wondering because I was reading about Google's rvier process... which involved about 10k testers worldwide
Jeska Linden: I'd like to take a few minutes to get your thoughts and feedback on this and take any suggestions on this change before moving on to the next topic (metrics!).
Tammy Nowotny: Thanks jeska. sounds goofd to me
Jeska Linden has never been so excited about metrics before
Fleep Tuque: If there are set categories, then can't there be set criteria and standards that are public and known?
Never Rust thinks the showcase is a good idea, but it may not be used by residents if people suspect it of being abused by LL. Next topic?
Fleep Tuque: To get in the Arts & Culture Showcase, your build should score high on these 5 dimensions
Fleep Tuque: To get in the Fashion Showcase, your store should score high on these 5 dimensions
Tammy Nowotny: I see one of my faves there... The Free Dove
Fleep Tuque: So people know HOW these determinations are being made? (At least nominally)
Tao Takashi: looks like recreating the beginnings of Yahoo to me ;-)
Jeska Linden: Fleep - as the project grows it may be possible to flush out things like that, at the moment there simply aren't the resources.
Jeska Linden: Again, this is the first step int he project! :)
Jeska Linden: You can read more about it here: http://secondlife.com/showcase/faq.php
Cocoanut Koala: What possible qualities could you be looking at to determine which hair or fashion place you want to promote though?
Jeska Linden: And again, this section has been tested on the website for several months
Fleep Tuque: (Good customer service, high quality products, variety, etc. etc.)
Jeska Linden: We've got about 30 more minutes left, let's keep moving !
Cocoanut Koala: ok fleep

=== Parcel Metric Brainstorming ===
Jeska Linden: Currently the only Linden provided metric for your parcel/estate is traffic. Traffic is calculated using a complex algorithm and is based on the amount of Residents who visited, and the time spent on that ?
parcel out of their total time inworld that day.
Tao Takashi: first rework the buying process so you can add ratings to it and then you can use this as input :)
Fleep Tuque: hehe Tao
Cocoanut Koala: Well, that is basically my entire input. Don't throw profit to businesses you think are best - keep it to non-profit venues and events of interest.
Jeska Linden: Nice :)
Tao Takashi: but that could be gamed of course
Jeska Linden: We're more than aware of the limitations of traffic as a metric - and are in the process of identifying other things we can share with you.
Tao Takashi: any automatic system can be gamed anyway
Never Rust: We need a # of unique visitors per day.
Jeska Linden: Let's spend a few minutes brainstorming what other types of things you'd like to know about people who visit your parcel/region.
Tammy Nowotny: you have a second metric for businesses... cash flow, of course.
Fleep Tuque: The big traffic questions is - BOTS. Can they be identified and removed form the equation?
Jeska Linden: What other metrics do you wish you had about your parcel/estate aside from traffic?
Jeska Linden: Let's keep Bots as another topic for a minute...
Never Rust: ...and the time they spent on the parcel. and the # of times they left/returned per day or week
Tao Takashi: this is now more about what sort of google analytics for your parcel do you want?
Jeska Linden nods
Kalpana Linden: sort of yes
Fleep Tuque: Age of avatar, payment status of avatar, repeat or unique visitor,
Tammy Nowotny: where the real life IP is coming from... similar to Sitemeter or Google Analytics
Jeska Linden: Sorta-kinda :)
Fleep Tuque: traffic patterns and hotspots
Kalpana Linden: though mind you will will start small and as we learn from it, build more
Jeska Linden: We're looking for a wishlist to see what you'd want
Khamon Fate: Is that a serious question Jeska or does it just lead to your next point?
Jeska Linden: Exactly!
Tao Takashi: in this field I would really also encourage a discussion about privacy with the general community
Tammy Nowotny: how they got to the location... TPed in and walked/flew in., etc.
Tammy Nowotny: you can do the IP thing if you ahev steraming audio ytourself, though
Jeska Linden: Khamon - I'm seriously interested in what other metrics you'd like
Fleep Tuque: If not RL IP, at least state and country of origin. :)
Tao Takashi: like as an owner of course I want individual avatar data with IP etc.
Jeska Linden: Without getting bogged down in bots coveration atm
Tao Takashi: as a resident I don't
Never Rust: If we get more metrics about land, how soon until its implemented by LL? I've started to build a business around this and wondering if i should stop.
Tammy Nowotny: yeah, it wd be intrusive to get too detailed with the IP
Khamon Fate: We've been answering that question for two years now every time Meta asked it at her office hours. Do you have that input from her?
Kalpana Linden: We should start with aggregate data
Kalpana Linden: there are many privacy concerns (Especially differennt in different countries)
APinkSwan Beauchamp: SL is all about living a second life....not sure too many people would want to divulge RL info.
Fleep Tuque: Perhaps would like to know things like the avatar cost (how much blingy stuff are they wearing, HUDs, etc.)
Tao Takashi: I just heard something from some sldev meeting with metrics people so I just wanted to propose to you to start a privacy discussion and state some rules for this as well
Tammy Nowotny: I wd like the FMOD streaming audio to record what parcel the audio is going to. tyhat might be difficult and out of jeska's jurisdiction
Jeska Linden: Khamon - Meta is involved in the project of course. Given teh topic, we wanted to open it up to a larger group of people
Tao Takashi: so aggregate data is ok I think
Kalpana Linden: so the current thinking is to get your feedback on what aggregate metrics will be most useful to you
Tammy Nowotny: ?me has big hair.. I suppose one of thse days big hair will the culprit of the week for laf
Fleep Tuque: Nod aggregate data, not associated with individual
Tammy Nowotny: *lag
Fleep Tuque: It MUST be anonymous
Jeska Linden nods
Fleep Tuque: unless people consent
Kalpana Linden: /fleep right
Never Rust: I'd like to know how many people came from a LM vs. flew/walked in.
Fleep Tuque: Ooh good one Never
Tammy Nowotny: person hours, where they came from, whether they clicked on anything
Tao Takashi: yes, if people are ok with it then it's ok. but it would be good to have a way to decide, like whether you allow cookies or not
Fleep Tuque: Direct TP vs entering through sim boundary or parcel boundary
Tao Takashi: how many come back
Kalpana Linden: Right source of origin is a good one.
Tao Takashi: in which intervals maybe
Fleep Tuque: Also aggregate traffic reports for more than one parcel? Or all parcels owned in a region?
Never Rust: The best would be to know how many unique visitors vs # of people who bought an item. "Conversion rate"
Tammy Nowotny: ohh. payment status wd be good to know... maybe even whether the person has pix, profile info and/or group memberships
Fleep Tuque: We have to chunk everything up for the media streams, makes traffic analysis a MAJOR pain
Tammy Nowotny: I wd like tos ee filtering like that for people search
Jeska Linden: So visitors based on time of day might be a good one
Tao Takashi: I think country data in aggregated form would also be good for some applications
Tao Takashi: like do I get the right people to my sim?
Fleep Tuque: nod
Kalpana Linden: nods
Kalpana Linden: /nods
Fleep Tuque: certainly for non profit and education venues, would be good to know if we should be adding additional language support
Fleep Tuque: (signs in spanish or something)
Jeska Linden: Are there any privacy concerns you have about metrics for parcels/regions?
Tao Takashi: which reminds me: please make the language field in the profile a real selection
Tao Takashi: so you can also retrieve this via script and maybe use this in metric
Jeska Linden: tao - you mean searchable?
Tao Takashi: yes
Tao Takashi: defined values
Jeska Linden nods
Tao Takashi: not just a textbox
APinkSwan Beauchamp: I have nothing to to hide, but really do not think too many details are a good thing for LL incorporate.
Tammy Nowotny: yes, I wdn't want landowners to have directa ccess to personal ID info...not that they are likely to have it
Tao Takashi: of course multiselect should be in there :)
APinkSwan Beauchamp: If a parcel owner wants some of the details described, a script can do that.
Fleep Tuque: My only concern is that data should be aggregate and not associated with individual avatars
APinkSwan Beauchamp: or people...:)
Tao Takashi: let me quickly look at google ;-)
Jeska Linden: Fleep - right
Kalpana Linden: Fleep: privacy is a primary concern for us too.
Kalpana Linden: so yes, we do want to only provide aggreagtes first
Tao Takashi: yeah, so stop chat logging then ;-)
Tammy Nowotny: even the exatct IP is easy to recover by the land owner (although most IPs anonymize the Ips)
Fleep Tuque: (Chat loggers should require consent!)
Tao Takashi: I mean the LL integrated one ;-)
Fleep Tuque: :)
Tao Takashi: actually what also would be great to have is some TOS rules for what is allowed to track
Tammy Nowotny: (I think we all were formally asked for our conesent at the start of the session.)
Tao Takashi: you can still track most of what we rule out with scripts
Kalpana Linden: what slices are useful to people: daily, weekly, hourly?
Tao Takashi: and I think there should be a policy of what is ok and what isn't
Fleep Tuque: I meant there should be some kind of rules in the ToS.. yes, that proscribe what can and can't be collected and how.
Tammy Nowotny: hourly, I guess.
Tao Takashi: the more slice options, the better ;-)
Tao Takashi: what are you planning to give out? the raw data of that or some processed data?
Jeska Linden: Is there a preferred method of download format?
Tao Takashi: ok, raw then I guess :)
Fleep Tuque: .csv
Kalpana Linden: both actually
Fleep Tuque: ?
Never Rust: Excel or CSV would be nice
Tao Takashi: CSV should be definitely one option
Fleep Tuque: .csv or .xls would work for most apps
Kalpana Linden: raw if there was detailed information (such as hourly) but we are also thinking of a quick snapshot to be available in your land page
Tao Takashi: csv would be easier for non-windows users
Fleep Tuque: nod Tao
Tao Takashi: or in general processing
Kalpana Linden: will APIs be useful?
Never Rust: how long before this might be implemented by LL?
Tao Takashi: what should an API do? don't we just need GET?
Tao Takashi: or do you mean this by an API?
Tao Takashi: like a Caps based system to retrieve it automatically?
Tao Takashi: this of course would be of great benefit
Jeska Linden: never - we're in the design phase currently
Kalpana Linden: we might have some initial data for you in june if we can come up with some simple but useful subset forst
Kalpana Linden: like a webservices api
Fleep Tuque: APIs could be very useful, I think
Tao Takashi: btw, it might also be good to have this for parcel and region
Tao Takashi: separately if possible
Fleep Tuque: so people can develop their own external reporting and analysis systems
Jeska Linden: Tao - that's the hope
APinkSwan Beauchamp: I am not trying to be a pain here, but I am having trouble getting my head around why LL wants to do this and not leave it in the hands of the residents themselves, with clear rules of course.
Fleep Tuque: Yes, I mentioned that before, 1 media stream per parcel causes parcel chunking all over, I'd love to get a report of all parcels in a region I own
Tao Takashi: so as for data: visitors in slice, first time visitors in slice, time of visit (maybe in slices as 1 min, 10 mins, 30 mins, 1hr etc.) ?
Fleep Tuque: (Lots of people don't have the time, skills, or resources to get all this data on their own)
Kalpana Linden: /fleep yes
Daten Thielt: exactaly we dont have such a system in RL we advertise , word of mouth ect
Never Rust: pinkswan - It's hard for residents to track people coming in and out of their land.
Daten Thielt: ohh wrong subject
Tammy Nowotny: 1 min is good I guess
Daten Thielt: :D ignore me
Tao Takashi: well you might want to know for a week how many people spent longer than 1 hr maybe
Jeska Linden: But on the Web,there are pretty standard metrics that are agreed upon
Jeska Linden: Which is more in line with what we'd like parcel/estate owners to have access too
Kalpana Linden: time spent is on the radar. yes
Jeska Linden: Just the data, which you can then use to figure out whatever you want
Tammy Nowotny: that was part of why the tarffic algorithm was so complex .. to filter short and long-term visitors
Fleep Tuque: Avatar age, payment info, direct TP vs entering through parcel or region boundary, length of stay
Tao Takashi: what about "percent of how much of their daily time was spent on your parcel"? :)
Fleep Tuque: nod that would be a good one
Tao Takashi: and "percent of avatars who never logged in anymore after visiting your sim"? :)
APinkSwan Beauchamp is going to bite her tongue AND zip her lip now...:)
Fleep Tuque: laugh!
Jeska Linden: heh
Tao Takashi: but maybe the other way round: how many avatars went from OI directly to you
Jeska Linden: Ok I think we've got a lot of good suggestions on this one
Jeska Linden: Tao - that's a good one :)
Kalpana Linden: ok. this has been super useful. I have to pop out now (but jeska will be here). great to meet all of you.
Jeska Linden: Thanks Kalpana - see you later! :)
Tammy Nowotny: gerat to meet you too Kalpana
Fleep Tuque: Take care Kalpana, thanks.
Kalpana Linden: thanks to everyone for your input.

=== Future of Traffic ===
Jeska Linden: Ok, we've got about 15 minutes left
Jeska Linden: Let's move onto the last topic
Tao Takashi: dancing?
Jeska Linden: The final piece of this is the one that is the most intangible at the moment...
Jeska Linden: We don't yet have a design nor are we sure what the 'right' number is to help with search relevance.
Never Rust: one last suggestion - average amount of money spent on the parcel would be a good one.
Jeska Linden: We've spoken a bit abuot what metrics will help individual parcel owners determine if their land is successful
Tammy Nowotny: well one ,etric is how amny people actually click on the hit
Tammy Nowotny: *metric
Jeska Linden: I'm curious what metric, if any, is useful to help determine what is relevant in search results.
Jeska Linden: Currently in the "old" search, specifically the Places tab, traffic is used as one of the two sorting mechanisms (the other is alphabetically).
Jeska Linden: My question is what number (or combination of numbers), if any should be used for this purpose.
Jeska Linden: All suggestions welcome.
Jeska Linden: :)
Tao Takashi: you can use rating AND time of stay, that at least should it make harder to game ;-)
Tammy Nowotny: the text pasrsing for search needs work, but I am sure I am not the first to mention that
Fleep Tuque: Hm.
Jeska Linden nods
Tammy Nowotny: alhtough we only have a few Picks on our Porfile, you cd use those to rate places
Tammy Nowotny: (analogous to Google's incoming links)
Never Rust: If you're searching for places - then a voting system would be good. One that cannot be used by bots.
Jeska Linden: Tammy - picks are currently used to help determine relevance with the new search
Fleep Tuque: The best suggestion I saw was aggregate the top profile picks as a sorting mechanism
Jeska Linden: And could continue to
Cocoanut Koala: Do you plan to give your showcased businesses extra relevance in the same way?
Fleep Tuque: Ah ok
Cocoanut Koala: More points in the regular search?
Tammy Nowotny: ah OK
Jeska Linden: Cocoanut - as already mentioned, the two are not connected.
Cocoanut Koala: so - no weighting in the regular search in regards to what businesses get on showcase?
Jeska Linden: Again, they are two compeltely separate things.
Fleep Tuque: If it worked like the web, the number of places with direct links back to a location would count
Cocoanut Koala: so - no?
Fleep Tuque: So how many people have a sign at their plot with a direct TP to the International Space Museum - LOTS.
Tao Takashi: I have the feeling SL does not really work like the web ;-)
Tao Takashi: hence I don't like the term 3d web or so
Fleep Tuque: Right, I know, but I'm trying to think of some analogies
Jeska Linden: Actually - the Google Search Appliances do sort of work that way
Never Rust: You could count the # of teleports to a land - and use that as a proxy for links in
Jeska Linden: All parcels/avatars/groups/events are an individual web page
Fleep Tuque: The places that are really useful, many people recommend through putting kiosks and TPs on their land to help advertise them, that's not tracked at all right now.
Tao Takashi: then you have bots TPing all the time in
Jeska Linden: Which is then crawled by the google appliance
Tao Takashi: so TPing in and staying maybe
Jeska Linden: The links between (along with keyword matching, etc) are what determine relevance
APinkSwan Beauchamp: I do not believe you can add those into the equation Fleep
Cocoanut Koala: so does Showcase, then, have an influence on one's position in the regular search?
Jeska Linden: How could TPing in help?
Jeska Linden: Cocoanut - I have already answered that question 3, no 4 times now. They are NOT connected.
Cocoanut Koala: sorry for not understanding.
Jeska Linden: No worries!
Fleep Tuque: I meant as in scripted objects that supply a direct teleport to a given location
Jeska Linden: I'm curious about how teleports could help, since that's a new suggestion
Fleep Tuque: That's the nearest equivalent of a web link or pingback
Never Rust: I guess TP'ing in is no better than the traffic system that exists.
Tao Takashi: maybe TPing does not help ;-)
Fleep Tuque: I use prims on my land to advertise X place because I think it's great
Tao Takashi: what about length of stay and being active (like saying something)
Daten Thielt: Heres an idea, Every computer has a mac adress, mebe make the client grab a mac adress and convert it into a LLUID that the client sends to the server, if there is more than one of that LLUID ?
connected then its excluded from trafic gaining, . from my experiance a mac adress can only be spoofed by changing hardware?
Never Rust: Except that if you TP from a "high-value" spot, then some of that value could rub off on the spot you TP into.
Tammy Nowotny: we are reinventing the old traffic metric
Jeska Linden: So maybe if there were a way to "link" from your land to another parcel
Jeska Linden: Sort of how Picks works in the current system
Jeska Linden: Could be interesting...
Jeska Linden: Keep 'em coming!
Fleep Tuque: Yes, that's the concept I was thinking of
Tao Takashi: maybe also taking into account how much you are on different land
Never Rust: Yes! links instead of landmarks would be great.
Fleep Tuque: But picks have no COST
Tao Takashi: e.g. bots migth stay on one spot all the time
Fleep Tuque: prims DO cost, so it's a more "real" indication of someone's committment to recommending a place.
Tao Takashi: but I guess then we will have a bot business which distributes among clients
Fleep Tuque: Heck I dunno, I'm just brainstorming. :)
Jeska Linden: This might also work with the landmarks project that is being built currently...
Jeska Linden: I like brainstorming :)
Tammy Nowotny: trying to stop 'bots might also penalzie epople who merely incidentally share an IP address
Tao Takashi: my fear is still that everything can be gamed ;-)
Never Rust: You could create a method so that you can vote for a location but it costs some small amount. That way even if bots are used, it costs the owner money to raise rank.
Fleep Tuque: It just seems that there are existing mechanisms in place that people use to share recommendations, they just aren't captured by the client
Tammy Nowotny: well yes, anything can be gamed
Jeska Linden: That sounds similar to the ratings we used to have, which was pretty gamed
Cocoanut Koala: landmarks project?
Never Rust: What about a voting system with a human-readable verification code?
Fleep Tuque: Yeah that didn't work Never, tried that for sure.
Tammy Nowotny: although we can raise the price and/or reduce the distortion casued by it
Never Rust: How was the previous voting gamed?
Fleep Tuque: Captcha codes were suggested in the Traffic discussions
Jeska Linden: I don't know much about the Landmark project, but it's been discussed on the SL Dev list, it's an open source related project I believe.
Jeska Linden: Let's see if In can find a link...
Tammy Nowotny: we have those voting boxes... not too usefl unless you are on the first page... like the Galaxy where my sister works.
APinkSwan Beauchamp: Honestly, I am a HUGE advocate of advertising, exploring, and word of mouth.
Tammy Nowotny: never heard of the landmark project
Fleep Tuque: Never, should be able to get a ton of info on that on google, people ranted on blogs and forums all the time. :)
Jeska Linden: Ahh, there's the email: https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/sldev/2008-April/009180.html
APinkSwan Beauchamp: The current traffic system is totally gamed and I don't see numbers as being an option any longer.
Jeska Linden: Not sure if you need to be a member of the list or not..
Jeska Linden: Here's another link to the project team: http://www.vectorform.com/secondlife/
Cocoanut Koala: thanks, jeska
Jeska Linden: (sorry for tangent!)
Never Rust: I think the traffic system has some value still. If someone cares enough to pay campers and create bots - that's a form of advertising.
Tao Takashi: I still like the active thing.. this might involve moving, chatting, using voice, clicking something and so on and you can secretly apply what it means today ;-)
APinkSwan Beauchamp: Not really a form of advertising to have 60 alt accounts
Fleep Tuque: Tao, the folks in the traffic channel were just sure that bots could replicate all of that behavior in ways that would make it impossible to distinguish between bots and humans.
APinkSwan Beauchamp: more a form of TOS violation...lol
Daten Thielt: create bots? you download a program from x website and hit run
Tao Takashi: I said it always can be gamed
Tao Takashi: you need to live with it or hire people who check
Fleep Tuque: nod
Tao Takashi: like Google
Fleep Tuque: Bot traps
Fleep Tuque: :)
Jeska Linden: :)

=== Closing ===
Jeska Linden: Ok, we're just about done...
Khamon Fate: Thanks for hosting Jeska
Jeska Linden: Any final thoughts?
Never Rust: I'm still confused why a captcha code could not be used for voting?
APinkSwan Beauchamp: I honestly would like to see a tab for camping, then do away with the traffic numbers completely...:)
Tammy Nowotny: Thanks jeska
Daten Thielt: if ur inactive more than 15 mins bring up an image verification¼¼¼
Jeska Linden: Never - apparently they've broken captcha with bots :(
Fleep Tuque: yes
Tammy Nowotny: that might penalzize people who merekly crashed
Jeska Linden: It's an arms race really
Fleep Tuque: so I hear anyway
Never Rust: well... can't it be made secure by some IT people?
Fleep Tuque: I think the key thing, Jesica
Jeska Linden: Yup
Jeska Linden: Thanks for coming out everyone. This was very helpful!
Tammy Nowotny: many places with dance pads did have a form of that... they wd ping you every so often and kick you off if you didn't respond
Tao Takashi: you can still quietly send captchas to some other service and let humans deciper it and deliver that back
Cocoanut Koala: My final thought is that LL should not be helping to decide what places people will shop at - no reason for it, and
Tammy Nowotny: Thnan YOU Jeska
Tao Takashi: you need a bigger organisation for it though
Tammy Nowotny: *Thanks YOU Jeska
Fleep Tuque: Jeska, rather, is that whatever stats you provide, or places you showcase, that the way those things are determined is _transparent_
Tao Takashi: thanks Jeska!
Cocoanut Koala: it will benefit some businesses at the expense of their competitors.
Cocoanut Koala: Thanks for holding the meeting, Jeska!
APinkSwan Beauchamp: Thank you Jeska.
Never Rust: Thanks jeska
Jeska Linden: I'll be sending the notes from the meeting to the group

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