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Issue Details (XML | Word | Printable)

Key: WEB-841
Type: Bug Bug
Status: Open Open
Priority: Major Major
Assignee: WorkingOnIt Linden
Reporter: Adz Childs
Votes: 88
Watchers: 16
Operations

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3. Second Life Website - WEB

Refer-A-Friend link no longer exchanges calling cards with new signups. No referral bonuses for accounts created after July 23rd 2008.

Created: 18/Oct/08 10:09 AM   Updated: 19/Aug/09 10:16 AM
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Component/s: New account creation
Affects Version/s: Not Versioned
Fix Version/s: None

Environment: Refer-A-Friend URLs to the Second Life Join Now Page
Issue Links:
Duplicate
 
Relates

Last Triaged: 11/Nov/08 10:51 AM
Linden Lab Issue ID: DEV-23679

Sub-Tasks:   All   Open   
 Sub-Task Progress: 
1.
 User at any level: Reproduce the problem. Use your own referral link to create an alt. Referrer's Calling Card yes or no? Sub-task Reopened Reopened Unassigned  
2.
 Linden Employee: examine new registration system and verify that it honors the u= parameter Sub-task Open Open Unassigned  

 Description  « Hide
FOR 9 SNAPSHOTS that show that Refer-A-Friend does not behave as expected, please see sub-task https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-865 , "User at any level: Reproduce the problem. Use your own referral link to create an alt. Referrer's Calling Card yes or no?"

I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now." It has had over 5,000 unique page views since July. I can't prove it, but I find it hard to believe that zero of those visits resulted in a new Basic signup to SL.

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 (Closed by LL with direction to post to JIRA)

 All   Comments   Change History      Sort Order: Ascending order - Click to sort in descending order
Adz Childs made changes - 18/Oct/08 10:10 AM
Field Original Value New Value
Description I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10 or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link,
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now."

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 		I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now."

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452
Adz Childs made changes - 18/Oct/08 10:28 AM
Link This issue Relates to WEB-274 [ WEB-274 ]
Adz Childs made changes - 18/Oct/08 10:28 AM
Link This issue Relates to WEB-183 [ WEB-183 ]
Adz Childs made changes - 21/Oct/08 08:27 PM
Priority Normal [ 4 ] Major [ 3 ]
Adz Childs made changes - 21/Oct/08 08:28 PM
Description I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now."

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 		I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now."

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 (Closed by LL with direction to post to JIRA)
Adz Childs made changes - 21/Oct/08 08:36 PM
Description I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now."

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 (Closed by LL with direction to post to JIRA) 		I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now." It has had over 5,000 unique page views since July. I can't prove it, but I find it hard to believe that zero of those visits resulted in a new Basic signup to SL.

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 (Closed by LL with direction to post to JIRA)
[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 28/Oct/08 09:09 PM
tap-tap Is this thing on?

[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 31/Oct/08 08:06 AM
This bug coincides with the launching of the new official registration portal, the one that makes you pick a first name before presenting a list of available last names. Please look into whether or not the new registration portal properly handles referral codes. PLEASE?

Adz Childs made changes - 31/Oct/08 03:53 PM
Component/s New account creation [ 10005 ]
Component/s secondlife.com [ 10002 ]
Affects Version/s Not Versioned [ 10003 ]
[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Nicolas Biddle added a comment - 07/Nov/08 05:31 AM
waves
I am Nicolas Biddle. I am named in this JIRA entry. I support it.

You see, before LL launched the improved Registration Portal, I would send new signups a quick IM welcoming them to Second Life and thanking them for using SLNameWatch. Obviously, I can't do that now because I don't receive a calling card. It's simple as that. I have no idea who is clicking my referral links. I have no opportunity to conduct a follow up about upgrading to Premium. Not that it matters – I doubt I would get a bonus, now, anyway. It seems the referral system is broken.

Do you not care about premium subscriptions?

If the Refer-A-Friend program has ended, you need to make an announcement and remove references to it from your web site. Otherwise, its FALSE ADVERTISING – to your own already-paying customers!


[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Data Scribe added a comment - 07/Nov/08 05:40 AM
Hi. I'm Data Scribe

I signed up using a friend's referral link. When I signed in, though, I was totally lost. My friend had told me to look in my inventory for his calling card, so that I could make my first SL friend. But, there was no calling card in my inventory. I tried to use Search to find him, but I forgot how to spell his name. I wandered around orientation island for a while. Then I got bored and left SL forever. How do I cancel my account?

Just kidding... I'm the alt named in this JIRA entry. I'm here to illustrate the point a bit further and to show that two people are adversely affected by this bug – the referrer and the new signup. Needless to say, LL loses premium conversions as well. But I guess they don't mind.


[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Dante Tucker added a comment - 08/Nov/08 09:04 AM
I'm not sure why you are replying with all your alts Adz, number of comments do not make issues more visible.

Anyway, that aside, I support this, and have taken the liberty of reproducing this myself. The referral system does appear to be broken.


[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 08/Nov/08 01:36 PM
Dante, I commented with my alts more to keep the issue entertaining rather than any impression that it would make the issue more visible to LL.

Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to reproduce the issue. I feel better knowing that it is not a stupid mistake on my part. It's not just me. Thank you also for updating the sub-task.

The rest is up to LL engineers.


[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Ann Otoole added a comment - 09/Nov/08 05:51 PM
I remember something being published about new users being directed to the parcel of your choice when they sign up.

Direct SLURL program announcement:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/09/18/getting-a-second-life-just-got-easier-with-direct-slurl/
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 11:40 AM by: Blue

I.e.; Blue Linden is probably the person to corral on this one. I recommend this be raised at the next triage meeting and if Blue Linden holds office hours then someone needs to go raise this jira entry and ask what the deal is.

If we begin using Direct SLURL for new resident sign up referrals do we get a referral bonus or has Linden Lab silently eliminated this program under the guise of a Direct SLURL shiny?
I.e.; Premium account subscriptions seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs as it is with nothing in sight to indicate the Lab cares. Even the LL CEO has stated in an interview with Hamlet Au that premiums are "immaterial". I suspect premiums and technical support will be dropped in the near future.
RefL http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/11/mark-kingdon-on.html
Mark Klingdon (as per Hamlet Au): ""Premium subscriptions are immaterial in our overall business.""

Quoting Direct SLURL blog Announcement:
---------------------
It's with that mission in mind that we are launching Direct SLurl, an improved web address vehicle that enables first-time visitors to arrive directly at a location within Second Life, as their first location, by clicking on a Second Life URL from the Web, email, etc. Previously, all new Residents were directed to Help Island upon registration, where they went through orientation before they began exploring Second Life. In this new model, a first time visitor will be directed to www.slurl.com where, on that page, they click "sign up" and quickly register, download and login to the viewer, and arrive at their originally intended destination. A quick tutorial will open upon their initial arrival.

All existing SLurls will be enabled with the Direct SLurl extension effective Thursday, September 18th, 2008.


Alexa Linden made changes - 11/Nov/08 10:50 AM
Last Triaged 10/Nov/08 10:50 AM
Alexa Linden made changes - 11/Nov/08 10:50 AM
Assignee WorkingOnIt Linden [ WorkingOnIt Linden ]
lindenrobot made changes - 11/Nov/08 10:51 AM
Linden Lab Issue ID DEV-23679
Last Triaged 10/Nov/08 10:50 AM 11/Nov/08 10:51 AM
Sue Linden made changes - 13/Nov/08 11:55 AM
Workflow jira-2007-12-22a [ 60579 ] jira-2008-11-14 [ 79407 ]
Sue Linden made changes - 13/Nov/08 04:20 PM
Workflow jira-2008-11-14 [ 79407 ] jira-2008-11-14a [ 84161 ]
Adz Childs made changes - 05/Dec/08 09:37 AM
Link This issue is related to by WEB-899 [ WEB-899 ]
[ Permlink | « Hide ]
yo brewster added a comment - 07/Dec/08 06:25 PM
I run ProfileSLive.com and we get about 1.5 - 1.7 million page views in a month. A while back I used to receive a referral bonus at least once a week but now the only referral bonus I seem to have received was for an old account a few weeks ago. Based on that, I must agree that the referral program seems to be broken again.

[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 08/Dec/08 06:04 AM - edited
EDIT 2009-01-24: the instructions for how to make the old registration portal appear are no longer valid. The old registration portal never appears anymore. There is only the new registration portal, now. I keep the original text of this comment in place only for your reference.

Just in case others are not familiar with what I mean by the "old registration portal" versus the "new registration portal", here is a demonstration. Unfortunately the redirection to one portal version or the other is controlled on LL's side. There is no way to create a URL that links directly to one version or the other. In general this is bad form for the WWW, but I believe it was set up this way as part of A/B testing many months ago.

1. Log out of secondlife.com (I'm not certain this is necessary, but it's what I do.)
2. Load each of these links. It is convenient to make them open in a new window.
https://secure-web1.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web2.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web3.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web4.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web5.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web6.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web7.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web8.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web9.secondlife.com/join/
https://secure-web10.secondlife.com/join/

At any given time, about 1 out of 5 of these links will be the OLD portal. The rest will display the NEW portal. You can quickly spot the new portal because it has avatar shapes at the top. If you get very unlucky and all of the portals are new, then wait an hour and try again. The redirection scheme shifts periodically and unpredictably. (alternatively, you can try secure-web11 through secure-web32) At the time I write this, secure-web6 and secure-web10 stay at the old portal. The other 8 links auto redirect to https://join.secondlife.com/ , the new portal.

I believe it is the NEW portal which does not honor the u= parameter.


[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 11/Dec/08 11:17 AM
Looking over my calling cards, I have isolated the cut-off date to be July 23, 2008. What did you change on that day? I changed the pJIRA issue title to include this specific date.

Adz Childs made changes - 11/Dec/08 11:17 AM
Summary Refer-A-Friend link no longer exchanges calling cards with new signups. No referral bonuses for accounts created after July 2008. Refer-A-Friend link no longer exchanges calling cards with new signups. No referral bonuses for accounts created after July 23rd 2008.
Adz Childs made changes - 17/Dec/08 03:36 PM
Description I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now." It has had over 5,000 unique page views since July. I can't prove it, but I find it hard to believe that zero of those visits resulted in a new Basic signup to SL.

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 (Closed by LL with direction to post to JIRA) 		FOR 9 SNAPSHOTS that show that Refer-A-Friend does not behave as expected, please see sub-task https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-865 , "User at any level: Reproduce the problem. Use your own referral link to create an alt. Referrer's Calling Card yes or no?"

I own slnamewatch.com.
Before July 2008 I regularly received calling cards representing new users of Second Life who signed up via my referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=b494b5309a2a0ef3a6ea71c8bd7e4bd2 , or my alt's, Nicolas Biddle's, referral link, http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=265d1332e5654100823cef53d7bbcb10
which I display on slnamewatch.com. Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz.

In July suddenly the referral calling cards stopped appearing in Adz' and Nicolas's inventory. I thought maybe my website's visitors had suddenly stopped using my links since SL's registration system had been improved rendering my website less useful. However, after a couple months with no new calling cards at all, I suspected that there might be a glitch. So I created another alt, named Data Scribe, to test the health of SL's referral system. Data Scribe did not receive a calling card of his referrer upon signup! This seems to further explain why my referrals have dried up since July 2008, with the only referral money being from residents who signed up before July 2008 and eventually upgraded. It is as if my referral URL is wrong, but I've checked it again and again. You can see it in place, here. http://slnamewatch.com/botlog/last_avail_log.html under the link named "Linden Lab®'s Official Registration Portal Join Now." It has had over 5,000 unique page views since July. I can't prove it, but I find it hard to believe that zero of those visits resulted in a new Basic signup to SL.

Something in the referral system is broken.
Support Ticket #: 4051-5377452 (Closed by LL with direction to post to JIRA)
[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 23/Jan/09 05:01 PM
Six month mark.

Two clicks from your front page is this page, "Refer A Friend! Refer Your Friends and Earn L$2000 Linden Dollars!"
https://secure-web14.secondlife.com/account/referral.php?lang=en
The pledges made on this page are false.

3 months since reported.



Adz Childs made changes - 24/Jan/09 05:28 PM
Link This issue is related to by WEB-936 [ WEB-936 ]
Adz Childs made changes - 25/Jan/09 03:21 PM
Link This issue Relates to SVC-1843 [ SVC-1843 ]
Adz Childs made changes - 25/Jan/09 03:21 PM
Link This issue Relates to WEB-935 [ WEB-935 ]
[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 29/Mar/09 06:28 PM
8 month mark.
5 months since reported.

"Please note: If someone signs up for Second Life using your code, your name won't be auto-filled on the registration form, but we do keep track behind the scenes. This is prevent folks registering from being confused by the sight of a potentially unfamiliar name."

Can I get a Linden response, please?


[ Permlink | « Hide ]
Adz Childs added a comment - 23/Jul/09 06:13 AM
1 YEAR MARK (9 months since reported)

I have disabled http://slnamewatch.com for three days in protest.

LL, please tell us what is your plan for fixing this.
If you don't intend to fix it, you need to remove the false promise of L$2000 from your oficial website.

Either way, there is the issue of all of the unpaid referral bonuses. If you never plan to pay, I believe we all deserve at least an explanation and an apology. I wonder how many 7.50USD bonuses you were supposed to pay in the last year, but didn't. I bet it adds up to quite a lot. I hesitate to use the word theft, but you are getting away with something for nothing, here.

My website has maintenance costs too, you know.


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Argent Stonecutter added a comment - 24/Jul/09 03:38 AM
Voting for removing the claim that there's a referral bonus if there's not going to be one.

If there's still a referral bonus but it's not automatic, then I will suggest people who use slnamewatch put "Adz Childs" in as their reference when I mention it on the forums.


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Valiant Westland added a comment - 25/Jul/09 08:52 AM
A properly constructed Affiliate / Refer-a-friend program can be one of the most powerful viral marketing tools a company can use to build web traffic and grow its customer base. I own a number of web properties that generate significant revenues, through a carefully chosen set of affiliate programs.

A program like this must be tied to a subscription or up-front revenue model to work. It's not a good fit for the current "Free access" model, Linden Lab seems content to offer and is used by the majority of users. The Lab also seems content with the current rate of word-of-mouth-driven adoption. It obviously suits their growth goals and requires no further stimulation.

For the Lab, not sharing revenue they don't have to makes perfect "bottom-line" sense. Unfortunately, in the long term, not offering ways for people to share in their success and share the excitement of that success with others will backfire. I believe the future of e-business and social networking will increasingly be one where customers are rewarded for helping build and grow brands. Companies that fail to acknowledge and reward the people who help them be successful will not survive this growing wave of grass-roots marketing and referral-driven sales for long.


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Argent Stonecutter added a comment - 25/Jul/09 10:44 AM
@Valiant: If this works like the original referral system, the referral bonus is based on accounts that go premium, which is both a subscription and up-front revenue model. If you read the actual text of the Jira, it says "Many of these new SL residents upgraded to premium, resulting in referral bonuses to Nicolas or Adz."

In any case, the bigger issue here is that they are still advertising the program.


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Adz Childs added a comment - 28/Jul/09 05:58 AM
Argent,
You have it exactly right.
The bigger issue here is that they are still advertising the program.

Cross-posted from my blog:
I understand, mistakes happen. New features introduce new bugs. Some business decisions that make good sense at one point in time outlive their usefulness. I get it. But, what is promised on the Second Life official web site for the last year does not match reality, to put it in the most generous terms possible. It is way past time to confront reality.


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yo brewster added a comment - 28/Jul/09 07:19 PM
At this point, this can honestly be considered a scam.

Tammy Nowotny made changes - 19/Aug/09 09:01 AM
Link This issue is original of duplicate WEB-1265 [ WEB-1265 ]
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Tammy Nowotny added a comment - 19/Aug/09 10:16 AM
There is still a button on the avatar account information page on the web site: this button recently survived a minor redesign of the page.

I think it might be useful to find out when the program is expected to be continued and/or why it was discontinued in the first place. It was a good program and the cost per referral was not high compared to the value of a new premium membership (and we were being paid in L$ anyway which strictly speaking are not real money.)
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