Kitely Mentors Group Meeting, 24 April 2013: summary

[Marstol Nitely]

Attending the meeting:
Ada Radius
Brigid Yoshikawa
Cider Jack
Dennis Albion
Dot Macchi
Ilan Tochner
Marstol Nitely
Revlon Lunasea
Virtualbelfast Ireland

The Kitely Marketplace is advancing nicely according to Ilan Tochner and he estimates the merchant control panel will be rolled out in a couple of weeks.

Kitely Plaza and the items in it have been moved and are under Ilan’s ownership. Creator information has been maintained so people can see who created the different builds. Unfortunately, some things were messed up during the transfer. Ilan said he fixed most of them, but to keep an eye out for things that should be different. As that is now done, the Kitely Plaza Builders and others with allocated spots can start building in those areas. Those who don’t have a spot, but would like one should contact Ilan. The prim limit for each store is 500. Kitely Plaza builders still have build permissions at Kitely Plaza so they can fix problems, but should not add additional items to anywhere but their stores without checking with Ilan first.

Ilan removed items that were placed in the Service Providers Center. “Those spots are very high profile and will be reserved for featured merchants (which some of you may yet become),” said Ilan. “I hope the people whose ads were removed will understand and accept this change.”
Dennis Albion pointed out that one thing to keep in mind is that although there is an overlap between merchants and service providers, most merchants build their own stuff for sale and service providers usually help folks with their projects. Ilan wanted to know if Dennis had something he could showcase. Dennis created the HUD for Kitely Plaza and for some Kitely residents. Ilan suggested he could add a button to the Plaza HUD to present service providers and a mention of their work, were it could state that the HUD itself was created by Dennis.

The rest of the meeting concerned marketing issues. As mentioned last week, Kitely has the approval of several builders to use their worlds in ads for Kitely which will be placed on SLUniverse. A few banner ads and some specialized landing pages will be needed for the advertisements. The idea is to have graphically appealing images taken from people’s Kitely worlds with a relevant ad line.

Ilan wanted to:
1) Decide what the ads will look like
2) Decide what the landing pages for those ads will look like

There were lots of suggestions. A lot of the initial suggestions concerned ways to promote Kitely’s free starter island.

Virtualbelfast Ireland: "free starter region" in it somewhere

Cider Jack: or just 'free land!'

Ilan wanted to know how to sell people on $35/month for 20 regions.

Ada Radius: $35/month for 20 regions sold me, so I'd go for a link that goes there.

Dennis Albion: the 20 regions is a great deal, especially compared to the competitor that charges $295/mo. for one sim.

Cider Jack: was thinking the prices need to be on a different page.

Marstol Nitely: Most sale pitches don't start with $.

Ada Radius: and Kitely offers more control than SL estate sims.

Brigid Yoshikawa: Why not make a custom page for the landing page for Advert? Easy to track activity then too.

Ilan wanted to know what had brought the people at the meeting to Kitley?

Cider Jack: cheap land, full control, pay per time running, not fixed per month.

Ada Radius: I checked it out because of the Maria Korolov article about the pricing, then the TOS re the rights of builders here pushed me all the way in.

Cider Jack: aye, builders rights is good too

Ada Radius: that too - low lag, security features, free uploads, better importing than Avination.

Cider Jack: ability to upload oar files was big for me.

Revlon Lunasea joined the meeting. Since she was new to Kitely and the Mentor Meetings, people were especially interested in her feedback.

Revlon Lunasea: To start with I brought my surfing tech here and it is installing fast. In a day I was able to get both boards and waves working. Next everyone I have invited was able to get online simple and easy because of the plug in and of course everyone has been really nice.

Ada Radius: customer support, owners who proactively listen to customers before changing things. Pricing, builder rights, customer support, prims, low lag - that's 5 ads right there.

Brigid Yoshikawa: maybe "Need more prims? Need more land?" then Kitely gives you blah for blah a month.

Ada Radius: plus security, but security is hard to sell - those interested in that will go look for it I think.

Ideas moved on to more possible tag lines.

Ada Radius: Do you have enough prims? No? Click here."

Cider Jack: Got Prims?

Virtualbelfast Ireland: "This is your budget on SL" pic of dull build "this is your budget on Kitely" detailed build with loads of nature.

Ada Radius: "If you build it, they will come. Get in on the ground floor at KITELY. Builder friendly."

Dot Macchi: May I suggest there are different groups. For some groups the commercial aspects will be off putting.

Ilan Tochner: The main challenge now is getting SL residents to know of our existence and why it can be good for them to give Kitely a try.

Cider Jack: Kitely on Cloud 9.

Brigid Yoshikawa: I think your average SL user cares about land for their stuff, lots of prims and a good price and low lag - they don't care about cloud storage or details of why it works - just that it does.

Revlon Lunasea: Every SL user is worried about not seeing their friends.

Virtualbelfast Ireland: true Revy and losing their inventory.

Revlon Lunasea: Well that is why the free upload is like HUGE

Dot Macchi: what if you bring out the point that you can keep a small base on SL?

Ilan Tochner: how about "Get a vacation home on Kitely on your own private island with 100,000 prims."

Ilan wanted to know how to get the idea of a lag free, private island, (almost) for free across.

There was a discussion about what defines “free” on Kitely and how people perceive the Kitely cloud concept.

Cider Jack: actually, that might be a good ad line 'the first one is always free'

Revlon Lunasea: I would go for the community angle ... that there are free communities so it does not have to cost you money ... so it is free.

Ilan Tochner: The first one is always free. Kitely worlds, you know you want one... (100,000 prims per sim).

Ada Radius: The first one is free, but you'll want more. A lot more.

Cider Jack: 'kick out the landlord! Own your own home in Kitely'

Ilan said an ad would need to be created for each demographic. Builders, educators, fashionista’s, role players, etc.

Virtualbelfast Ireland: I think that could be good. Top of picture, the different groups… e.g. "builders - 100k prims" "shoppers - fully integrated with marketplace" “role players up to 20 regions"

While talking about advertising possibilities besides SL Universe, Revlon Lunasea mentioned posting to adboards inside of SL. Brigid Yoshikawa said she’d put one up in Caledon for Kitely at her gallery saying something like “where’s Brigid? In KITELY!” Ada mentioned the SL Marketplace sideboards and Dot said RP areas could have TP/landmark givers. Revlon Lunasea said she will put up a banner at Tristia and Surfer’s Point saying that Surfer’s Point has moved to Kitely.

The discussion moved back to ad content. Dot wondered if Kitely’s support service might be a secondary selling point. Revlon said one of the biggest concerns in SL is that LL has abandoned the residents to focus on Dlo. Ilan didn’t think trying to make SL look bad on SL Universe would be helpful to Kitely. “Maybe not support per say but the fact that management is accessible? Wants to hear what you have to say and how your in world experience should be?” asked Ilan.

The discussion turned back to free land and lots of prims and moved toward the idea of a free vacation/summer home with 100,000 prims. Ada pointed out that cheap land would be better than “free” since people actually pay for their time. Cider brought up that the pricing can be very confusing to people. “Simple, but people don’t want to do the math.” Brigid didn’t think leading with $40 a month would be a good idea, but changed her mind after some discussion. Stio suggested “regions range from 0 to to 40 usd a month.” He went on to say “I think the page the ad leads to can have unlimited info but the ad itself needs be punchy and immediate.” He suggested "kitely virtual worlds on demand - prices from zero to 40 usd a month."

Dot wondered about a series of teaser ads with things like “the first one is always free…” Cider Jack suggested “Virtual Island – Virtually Free.” Dot threw out “Virtual Land, Virtually Free.” Brigid Yoshikawa said “Virtual Island - Virtually Free - your own island, 100,000 prims, no lag 0-$40 a month.” Revlon Lunasea said “really how much time do you spend in your Linden Home for 9.95 a month and 117 pirms? You will spend more time in Public Sims here and get 100,000 prims for $5...” Most of the group liked the use of the word “virtual”. It was around this time that Ilan called the meeting at the two hour mark.

NOTE from Ilan: let's continue discussing this in this forum thread.

[Marstol Nitely]

Thank you Marstol for another great summary

[Dot Macchi]

Thanks again, Marstol!

Let's throw Maria's note about the Kitely website into the discussion:

I wouldn’t normally think that it was possible to be too focused. But the Kitely website, with its single-minded effort to rent you regions, does just that.

From the first glance, it’s clear what Kitely’s unique selling proposition is — regions for as little as $1 a month. And Kitely does a great job of putting this unique selling proposition front and center. But there are other reasons to use Kitely besides price.

For example:

• Kitely is very easy to use. This could be illustrated with an image that shows quotes from satisfied customers, or review writers, about how quick it was to set up their first region.
• Kitely was mentioned in a Wired story. For some people, that’s enough to give it a try.
• Kitely is used by some brand name customers, such as educational institutions, design and consulting firms, and artists. But you have to hunt around to find this. Such as the free English lessons, the virtual health training center, a virtual incubator for non-profits, a school for DJs, an HIV/AIDS resource information center, an Aspergers and autism resource center, and too many art exhibits, museums, and historic recreations to list here. I didn’t know about most of these until just now.

Most of the suggestions so far seem to focus on the same proposition as the website. But what if we looked at less usual aspects?

Keep your options open
This could cover several of Kitely's advantages:

• the different plans on offer, and the ease of switching from one to the other without penalty
• the flexibility of being able to expand and contract the amount of land you are using, day by day, even hour by hour
• (last but by no means least) Kitely's compatibility with Second Life and OpenSim
  • a place to create, back up and store content that can be used on many other grids
  • a potential escape route -- akin to the vacation home idea, but quietly acknowledging certain fears about sustainability of builds elsewhere

OpenSim Made Simple
The fact that even non-techies can do it! (Maria's first bullet point) This might be illustrated in a banner ad done as a flow chart, showing the sequence of creating one of the pre-built worlds:

1. pointer arrow hovering over the New World button (if the arrow were black that would subtly encourage Mac users, who have problems with other OpenSim options like SoaS)
2. Universal Campus option, 4 regions, "World Name" being typed
3. pointer arrow hovering over Create button
4. avatar making first landing in world

As Seen In ...
Maria's second bullet point could be covered by a "press quotes" page on the website (so perhaps not relevant to this current discussion). But Kitely has had some seriously good coverage on key blogs. It might be possible to turn this into a banner ad by using short quotes with citations, but you would probably need to get explicit permission from the different authors/blogs (it would also probably look messy). Alternatively, just list the blogs that have covered Kitely, and have the banner ad link to the Kitely press quotes page.

[Constance Peregrine]

sounds like a good meeting-))

I would point out, but not to take away from the desire to get sl type folx into kitely, that some parts of marketing should, imo, focus on opensim pioneers.

It is those who have already [mostly or completely] left sl that are out creating, going to different commercial grids, and selling, who should find kitely to be of interest, and be those who would come and contribute content.

In talking to a small sampling I find many of them find the kitely system confusing. We are used to free uploads, so that selling point is moot, we are used to having many prims, so that, too, is a moot selling point. We are used to OARs and IARs. We are even used to free lands in many cases.

There needs to be a well-defined sandbox always on for people. Often the sandbox is the first stopping place for people bringing in content and I see this on all opensim grids. [as well as they are nice places to gather and talk]

Tho, of course, they can get their free land, this is limited by kitely's system, a sandbox is familiar and has no time limitations.

Tho I do understand that there is a large amount of potential people in sl, the fact is that there are quite a few very talented creators who have not created anything in sl, now, and who are used to large linksets, large and small prims sizes, and a lack of much concern over prims and land.

The focus on sl is off-putting to those people who get their feelings hurt that they are somehow less than sl content creators, which is absurd, but the way things are.

As well, as opensim code diverges more and more from sl you need people who are already scripting for it....opensim is the future of the metaverse and grids such as sl and inwz who do their own thing will find themselves left out, eventually.

Also, there is a very good machinima creator who "might" help do a video, which I think kitely needs to have. If he is approached it might be good to consider he is likely busy on his own projects, but if approached correctly he might find it of sufficient interest to do one for you.

http://www.cyberbohemia.net/

I want to see kitely succeed, but a single marketing effort focusing on sl is not a good idea. To many other opensim grids are trying to do the same thing, and not succeeding, and the effort causes all sorts of strife.

imo, continue to be innovative, forward-thinking, and ahead of the curve, and kitely will succeed where others will fail.

So, 4 points:

1] focus some of the marketing on opensim people
2] somehow make a more simple explanation of how kitely works
3] do a video
4] get a sandbox and tell folx

[Dot Macchi]

Minethere makes some good points here about marketing to OpenSim types.

Here's my take on key points:

• ease of use (many of us have tried various versions of self-hosting)
• flexibility of expansion/contraction
• accessibility (people can come and visit you straight away -- no fiddling with the router settings!)
• minimal lag
• no network bottleneck.

With regard to costs, getting across how time-based billing works is critical. Perhaps a simple spreadsheet template would help where one can enter numbers of visitors and expected time spent inworld and see how the costs change under different conditions. These costs can then be compared with fixed costs of rented servers or other hosting solutions (including bandwidth costs if self-hosted).

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

But Kitely has had some seriously good coverage on key blogs. It might be possible to turn this into a banner ad by using short quotes with citations, but you would probably need to get explicit permission from the different authors/blogs (it would also probably look messy). Alternatively, just list the blogs that have covered Kitely, and have the banner ad link to the Kitely press quotes page.

I made this a few months ago but it wasn't used because the website doesn't point to this deal (and Ilan didn't like the way I textured the images.).

[Constance Peregrine]

Here's my take on key points:

• ease of use (many of us have tried various versions of self-hosting)
• flexibility of expansion/contraction
• accessibility (people can come and visit you straight away -- no fiddling with the router settings!)
• minimal lag
• no network bottleneck.

With regard to costs, getting across how time-based billing works is critical. Perhaps a simple spreadsheet template would help where one can enter numbers of visitors and expected time spent inworld and see how the costs change under different conditions. These costs can then be compared with fixed costs of rented servers or other hosting solutions (including bandwidth costs if self-hosted).

Use of Kitely's cloud-based 24/7 servers is a good idea to make sure and point out.

For example, I use a hosting company for some regions I have...my router is not the right kind for other than my soas, but even if it was, the price to server use access is something I would pay for, and so will others, especially @ kitely's price-point. I could actually get more regions here for less than I currently pay [and may when HG gets going, time will tell]...as well, the mega-regions aspect is good, and easy to do here for those less techy.

In fact, ease of use is a big deal that kitely offers.

Lag in opensim is directly related to the fact that so many regions are hosted on people's own computers, which, of course, have various memory and other issues effecting their instances. As well, if one is tied into something like osg or metropolis then some functions are handled by their servers, which impact your own regions.

Kitely, of course, runs all this on their own connected servers, and with the on-demand concept this allows resources to be better spent in online regions...a very good selling point.

Of course, imo, HG will really open kitely to the greater metaverse, and should be a priority behind the market.

[Marstol Nitely]

Great article by Maria Dot. It was one of Maria's first articles on Kitely that prompted me to join. But aren't we comparing apples to oranges? Her article is about grid websites. If this were a redesign of the Kitely website, Maria's article is the first place I'd turn. I thought we were discussing banner ads. Three of the main rules of banner ads I see repeated again and again are keep it simple, keep text short, and have a call to action (also known as creating a sense of urgency).

If I were to take anything from Maria's article it would be this

I wouldn’t normally think that it was possible to be too focused. But the Kitely website, with its single-minded effort to rent you regions, does just that.

Isn't explaining the plans in great detail, for an advertising campaign, basically repeating that same mistake?

I recently spent nearly an hour on the phone explaining the Kitely pricing plan. I followed up with two emails, links to Kitely and chart showing how much it would cost if you used just minutes vs the plans. They're still thinking about it.

Revlon (a new member from SL) told us what SL people are afraid of leaving - their friends. Opensim people have knocked Kitely frequently for not having any community on various boards. I read again and again from both OS and SL people "I don't care about having land and prims if I'm all alone." That and complaints about there being no content. Which is why we might want to advertise the marketplace that we've been planning for months.

I think the best place to explain the plan and answer people's questions is inside of Kitely. Which is why there needs to be follow-up and some sort of actual personal presence at Kitely Plaza to greet people coming in. Even if we get them to click through, if there isn't anything for them to do or anyone to meet with when they arrive, they'll leave.

[Dot Macchi]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, Marstol. I realise Maria's article was about website design and that we are looking at advertising. The point I was trying to make was that the "Cheap land" message is already pretty clear on the website -- it's also one used by many other OpenSim grids and hosting providers -- and that it might be an idea to look at alternative messages (just as Maria does in her bullet list) that help to distinguish Kitely's provision.

I agree with the need to keep banner ads simple and the text short. The bold headings I put in the first post were meant as suggestions for possible focused textual hooks on a banner ad to draw the reader to find out more by clicking the ad. The points made under the headings were suggested elements for further information on any landing page on the Kitely site.

I also agree with the need to have someone inworld to greet and help newcomers. But that won't necessarily apply to everyone. Some people like to research things on their own first; if they are part of a business or educational establishment, they may need to have information they can link to in any report they make to funding bodies.

Both approaches (in-world personal explanation and website pages) could be useful. It all depends on intended audience.

[Constance Peregrine]

rather than do all the quoting thang...

I would say that people don't really need to pack up and leave sl, certainly not right away, unless they are simply fed up with them [which would be understandable, of course-))].

They could have, for just one example, if they just must, a parcel in sl and regions here.

As well, of course, so could their friends, then their friends, etc...

I have found no single grid gives me all that satisfies me in my virtual life, and tho sl does satisfy many, in many ways, and in many regards, it is also not a be-all end-all. Heck, I still go there sometimes.

So the friends issue, tho more than a simple answer would suffice, can be dealt with. Even making new friends...lol

Inventory is a tricky one...since commercial grids, as a rule, hold that hostage, it is always a problem in that regard, and will always be one until kitely's model for commercial grids takes hold and becomes the norm.

In the meantime, for those who gotta have their sl content in kitely, then the only way is to keep hammering on those who are their fave creators.

Many, you will find, are out in several commercial grids. I could name a few I know of but then I don't wish to get into all the my-fav-is-the-bomb-and-urs-ain't thing.

So you just gotta work on them that you want here, and keep giving them different reasons why it would be good for their pocketbooks, and their time.

Which goes back to banners, website design, advertising...etc.

Personally, I point people to the forums as often as I can so they can read and follow links and ask questions if they wish to.

I would mention Metropolis just added some nice new functionality to their splash page, which is pretty darn cool.

http://metropolis.hypergrid.org/ and look for the gear in the upper right side...