Automatic Notification System
Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 10:55 pm
Years ago, when I first started selling on the Kitely Market I asked about getting automatic notifications. PayPal and Second Life do this, see http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Direct_ ... ion_System
I also included this feature in my vending machines, they notify my server every time something is sold. (Vending machines in Kitely worlds cannot sell NOCOPY or NOTRANS items but in other grids you can use vending machines in more situations).
Way back when, Ilan told me that automatic notifications from the Kitely Market are possible but not a priority. Now years later he is saying the same thing. I'm going to become a squeaky wheel about this feature. Ilan says this is a feature that very few merchants would use, so I'm going to educate them about why they will want to use this when it becomes available. Then more merchants will want to use this and Ilan's self fulfilling prediction will be wrong.
The way this works is: Every time someone buys one of your items, an "HTTP Request" is sent to you over the Internet. This request has a bunch of information attached to it like what sold, who bought it, how much they payed, etc. To receive these you have to have a script waiting for it on a server somewhere. That is easier than you might think. If you have any simple WEB page, it can probably be set up to catch these notifications. You just need to add another text file script next to all the ones that make up your WEB page. The Second Life link above has examples in several computer languages. The hard part is what do do with the data, the preferred thing would be to save it in a database. So only merchants who have their own WEB pages, who can code scripts to get notifications (or crib one) AND who can write code to build a MySQL database can use this. Perhaps I see Ilan's point. He has given me a link to a site (https://ifttt.com) that can do this with emails, I'll give it a try and report back here what I learn.
But here are some things you can do with this:
I have products that use my server as part their operation. They store or fetch information over the Internet while they work. At the same time the server can check and see who is using them. Check if those people actually bought the item from me. I could have these items offer limited functionality, work for only a limited time, output links to where you can pay for a full version, output messages about copy-botting, refuse to work, or send me information to use in a DMCA take-down request. But if they bought it from the Kitely Market I cannot do this check. Kitely keeps their own database but I have to ask for a CSV file and transfer that data to my database by hand. So there is a delay (often quite long) between when someone buys something and when they show up in my database where I can do an instant check.
Here is an example product that uses this: I make Alpha HUDs for several of the popular mesh bodies (Ruth, Roth, Athena etc). My HUDs work just like the free ones that come with your mesh body, (although I think my user interface is beter), but they can also save transparency sets by name onto my server, load them by name, share them with your friends. However, they only let you save if you bought a copy. I can give these HUDs out for free and they become demo versions that work but don't save until you buy one. I can sell them COPY TRANS and let my customers hand them out to their friends because those also instantly become demo versions. If a copy-botter uses God mode to make themselves the creator of my HUD and tries to sell it as their own, it will only work as a demo version. Even re-writing the script won't help because half of the code (the save and load part) is on the server in the cloud and won't work until the customer is in my database. But for now I can't do all that and sell it in the Kitely Market. However, because these items are COPY MOD, I can and do sell them in vending machines in my Kitely Worlds.
I'm also have a lot of products that don't need the server as part of their operation. But I can add a simple call out to the server even in these products. Then the server could do all the checks listed above. A clever copy-botter could read the code, find this call and remove it. But if copy-botters were clever they would be making items of their own so I think this will happen very rarely. However, if I do this in a product sold on the Kitely Market, it might falsely accuse someone of being a copy-botter. So for now I only use this on products that I sell elsewhere.
I also included this feature in my vending machines, they notify my server every time something is sold. (Vending machines in Kitely worlds cannot sell NOCOPY or NOTRANS items but in other grids you can use vending machines in more situations).
Way back when, Ilan told me that automatic notifications from the Kitely Market are possible but not a priority. Now years later he is saying the same thing. I'm going to become a squeaky wheel about this feature. Ilan says this is a feature that very few merchants would use, so I'm going to educate them about why they will want to use this when it becomes available. Then more merchants will want to use this and Ilan's self fulfilling prediction will be wrong.
The way this works is: Every time someone buys one of your items, an "HTTP Request" is sent to you over the Internet. This request has a bunch of information attached to it like what sold, who bought it, how much they payed, etc. To receive these you have to have a script waiting for it on a server somewhere. That is easier than you might think. If you have any simple WEB page, it can probably be set up to catch these notifications. You just need to add another text file script next to all the ones that make up your WEB page. The Second Life link above has examples in several computer languages. The hard part is what do do with the data, the preferred thing would be to save it in a database. So only merchants who have their own WEB pages, who can code scripts to get notifications (or crib one) AND who can write code to build a MySQL database can use this. Perhaps I see Ilan's point. He has given me a link to a site (https://ifttt.com) that can do this with emails, I'll give it a try and report back here what I learn.
But here are some things you can do with this:
I have products that use my server as part their operation. They store or fetch information over the Internet while they work. At the same time the server can check and see who is using them. Check if those people actually bought the item from me. I could have these items offer limited functionality, work for only a limited time, output links to where you can pay for a full version, output messages about copy-botting, refuse to work, or send me information to use in a DMCA take-down request. But if they bought it from the Kitely Market I cannot do this check. Kitely keeps their own database but I have to ask for a CSV file and transfer that data to my database by hand. So there is a delay (often quite long) between when someone buys something and when they show up in my database where I can do an instant check.
Here is an example product that uses this: I make Alpha HUDs for several of the popular mesh bodies (Ruth, Roth, Athena etc). My HUDs work just like the free ones that come with your mesh body, (although I think my user interface is beter), but they can also save transparency sets by name onto my server, load them by name, share them with your friends. However, they only let you save if you bought a copy. I can give these HUDs out for free and they become demo versions that work but don't save until you buy one. I can sell them COPY TRANS and let my customers hand them out to their friends because those also instantly become demo versions. If a copy-botter uses God mode to make themselves the creator of my HUD and tries to sell it as their own, it will only work as a demo version. Even re-writing the script won't help because half of the code (the save and load part) is on the server in the cloud and won't work until the customer is in my database. But for now I can't do all that and sell it in the Kitely Market. However, because these items are COPY MOD, I can and do sell them in vending machines in my Kitely Worlds.
I'm also have a lot of products that don't need the server as part of their operation. But I can add a simple call out to the server even in these products. Then the server could do all the checks listed above. A clever copy-botter could read the code, find this call and remove it. But if copy-botters were clever they would be making items of their own so I think this will happen very rarely. However, if I do this in a product sold on the Kitely Market, it might falsely accuse someone of being a copy-botter. So for now I only use this on products that I sell elsewhere.