22 February, 2010

I'd read your future but it's written in the past

Delora Havenbrook wrote two columns on poor taste in SL--the first part she wrote back in mid-January, and the second part came along about a week later, but they're still worthwhile to read. What she objects to back then we're still objecting to now, and we objected to a year ago. Please, makers of things, STOP DOING THESE THINGS.

[23:36] Lalinda Lovell: did anyone else get the revenge gears porn spam???
[23:36] Emilly Orr: She's lost her mind, she has.
[23:36] Lalinda Lovell: how gross
[23:36] Lalinda Lovell: i thought she was dying
[23:36] Gypsy Laufer: yes i didnt appreciate it either


So, here's the story, in brief. This morning, people who were still subscribed to She Wants Revenge, got this from Revenge Gears' subscribe-o-matic:

I' m a brazilian girl, 25 years old with a lill fat curvy luscious body.
You will not regret the time you spend with me I am sure of that, my feedbacks are all 100% positive lol ;)
I also love roleplays,they can be so hot sometimes...naughty
Marcy Mars,Revenge Gears,She Wants Revenge,Second Life

FEEES ON WEBCAM & VOICE ( paypal possible too )

NO REFUND/PREVIEWS 1000 L$ ( or just watch my pics in in my profile picks )

3500 X 5 min
6000 X 10 min
8000 X 15 min
10000 X 20 min
13000 X 30 min
You ll have me talking to you with my sexy brazilian hot accent
showing you my luscious body and getting naughty for you, masturbating with my fingers and cumming for you screaming your name :)

3500 X 10 min (only tits)

EXTRAS ( to be added to above services )

KINKY THINGS ask away and i will tell you the price depends on the level of kinkyness P

OTHER SERVICES
ONLY VOICE SEX
3500 x 15 min
5500 x 30 min
7500 x 45 min
8500 x 60 min

watching you on msn or skype 4000 x 15 min
6000 x 30 min

CYBER TYPING IN PRIVATE
1500 x 15 min
2000 x 30 min
500 x 45 min
3000 x 60 min

Normal Webcam ( No Stripping ) ( No Sex ) ( No Voice )
We can chat about anything you like or you just want to get to know me better, its up to you ;)
L$ 6,000 for up to 15 minutes

PICS
1000 each

xoxo, i need you.


Other than the color, and some spacing issues, the resizing of the "sample" picture (which is also the pic on her current bio in-world), this is exactly what she sent out. To every member of her clothing store's subscribe-o group.

Translated out (and as of current February 2010 SL currency values), some equivalent numbers for comparison:

L$1000 = $3.97 (average fast food meal)
L$2000 = $7.73 (average paperback book)
L$3000 = $11.59 (CD with tax)
L$4000 = $15.45 (one movie ticket with popcorn, or large drink)
L$5000 = $19.41 (average hardbound book, or meal for two at a mid-range restaurant--no drinks, no appetizers, no dessert)
L$6000 = $23.17 (lift ticket at average ski resort)
L$7000 = $27.03 (two movie tickets, with one medium popcorn or one large drink to share)
L$8000 = $30.89 (one mid-range concert ticket)
L$10,000 = $38.62 (average iPod Shuffle, if you check around for online deals)
L$13,000 = $50.20 (one 'play pass' to Six Flags Magic Mountain, exclusive of surcharges and taxes)

Now, as I've stated before, I have no problem with escorting. I have no problem with chat escorts taking a second seat to voice escorts or camgirl options; the higher prices have always gone to the women who can take it farther. And that's fine with me.

Where I have a problem is that she sent out this little missive to her entire group. The people who signed up for latex. The ones who signed up for leather. The ones who signed up for her evening gowns. The ones that signed up for cute little party dresses. The ones who signed up for the freebies and the jeans and the t-shirts, and suddenly, all of these people--mostly women, anyway--got this "ad" for her voice and hot-chat services.

Oh, yeah, she's going to get people flocking to her door with those tactics.

[Late edit: I decided Miss Poindexter was right, I should at least compare SL prices for these services to RL prices directly. So a cursory search for equivalent services turned up Pinklive, an attractive, slender blonde, whose listed prices are:

15 minutes = $25.00 (listed as being this month's "special rate")
20 minutes = $60.00
25 minutes = $75.00
30 minutes = $90.00

She also does 'couple shows', as listed below:

15 minutes = $50.00 (listed as being this month's "special rate")
20 minutes = $80.00
25 minutes = $90.00
30 minutes = $100.00

She mentions that her couple show partner "has a 9 inch dick and is 6.4 tall and slim." Okay then.

Using those rates for comparison, even at Gears' highest rate, she's still coming in at less than a third of these prices--and checking around, this is about average for live cam girls, maybe even a little low. But here's what confuses me, yet again--you can do this with a website, people do, there are even sites that walk you through how to set up a webcam and link payments to PayPal accounts. So why is she bothering going through Second Life, when she could just log in to a website, advertise in a couple places, and have, one presumes, more customers that way?

The situation remains puzzling.]

6 comments:

Sphynx Soleil said...

Having done a wrong-drag-n-drop, it's possible she meant to send a different notecard, and is now dying of embarassment. :)

...OTOH, I don't know what's involved with using the subscribe-o-matics anyway, so I could be way off base...

Samantha Poindexter said...

I would note in passing that a better basis of comparison would be the price of the same services outside of SL. The L$13,000 / 30 minute rate comes out to $1.67 a minute, which is cheap for webcam sex. (It's even on the low end of the scale for phone sex.)

More to the point, I'm inclined to agree with Miss Soleil; this was likely a horrible mistake. At least I hope so; if this was intentional, then I agree with your assessment.

Emilly Orr said...

Sphynx,

It's possible? Save to get things to go out to a subscribe-o-matic machine (at least in mine, anyways), I have to do some fairly specific things:

* Drag the notecard, landmark or object I want to send out.
* Type in the message I want to send with it.
* The machine asks me if I really want to send whatever it is; I say yes.

THEN it goes and sends things off to the people subscribed. Along the process, there's a TON of verification in the way. It *could* have been a mis-send, but in that case, who got the store's advert?

Emilly Orr said...

Miss Poindexter,

I would have, save for one fact that has become glaringly obvious: people don't equate thing for thing properly on SL in the first place.

What I call the "thousand dollar standard" was something a friend of mine adopted, several years back in SL. Her byline for a while was, "Only a thousand Linden, honey, price of a Happy Meal...and I guarantee I'll make you more happy."

People have this twitch where SL money is concerned, even I do, knowing what everything converts back to. My "too high to afford" still stops at L$3000, nearly four years later. Yet I can step into a grocery store and buy twelve dollars' worth of groceries, no problem. Several of my supplements hover around the ten-dollar range, and I don't twitch. There's an album I plan to get that's ten; I've been perusing going back to premium, and that's ten per month unless I buy quarterly or yearly.

None of those do I twig at; yet L$3000 in world is way too expensive. It's very curious.

Rhianon Jameson said...

The things I learn on this blog! And cheap at the price! :)

Emilly Orr said...

Really. I yet again mourn that, at my highest, including SL equipment, I never charged more than L$2000 an hour. :)

I really, really wanted to end the first list with the $50 rate equalling a day pass at Disneyland.

But that's now $110.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...