US Treasury initial ruling on virtual currencies

[Ada Radius]

Hi Ada,

You'll be able to define the desired payment option (PayPal and/or KC) per product variation. This means you'll be able to create two similar variations inside the same product listing and set a price for one in USD while setting a different price in KC for the other.

You'll be able to connect one PayPal account per user account so you'll want to take that into consideration when you plan your product variations and their prices.

We accept KC for covering your Kitely services bill. If the purpose of selling show tickets is to cover world hosting expenses then you can sell tickets via KC or use the time-based-billing system to charge show viewers KC for the minutes they spend inside the show world. Tips collected in KC can serve the same purpose. In other words, KC won't be useful for making real-world profits from those ticket sales and tips but they can reduce your real-world Kitely expenses.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

plus tip jars that added another 50% or so to revenue.

Exactly. Tip jars are a major part of the income of many people in Second Life. I can certainly pay performers via paypal when I book them for a show, but the reason the performer charges a reasonable up-front fee is because he makes more in tips during the show.

Tips collected in KC can serve the same purpose. In other words, KC won't be useful for making real-world profits from those ticket sales and tips but they can reduce your real-world Kitely expenses.

No, tips have to be able to create real-world profits for DJs, Hosts and Performers. I can get real-life performers to come in for a show. They won't ever have any 'real-world Kitely expenses' so KCs are useless to them. So the tip jars must create a real income for these people. Also, I have not discovered a way to allow people entry after they have paid a fee to paypal (as in selling a ticket).

So tip jars in-world that take real money seamlessly and a way to offer access to a world through a seamless paypal fee are needed features that will create a great business model that would benefit those that provide in-world services in Kitely.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Blady,

You can define an inworld group and limit access to the world to people in that group (or in the groups of your performers, etc.). You can then send group invites to people who buy your tickets (this part can be scripted). Once the performance is over and everyone "went home" change the world access to only allow people who belong to the next show viewer's group.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

I think we need to find a way to accept the paypal payment for tickets right on our world pages and then give that person free access for 4 hours (or how ever we specify).

What this can mean for venue owners that host live performances:

Say we charge $5 USD to attend a Live performance in our world. And the world can handle 70 guests without performance issues. That would create an income of $350. The venue can split that with the performer and each would walk away with $175 USD. Then the in-world tip jars could increase the income by at least another $100 USD that can also be split.

Then Kitely will be known for a place that performers, DJs, service providers and venues can really make a living in.

[Constance Peregrine]

I think we need to find a way to accept the paypal payment for tickets right on our world pages and then give that person free access for 4 hours (or how ever we specify).

What this can mean for venue owners that host live performances:

Say we charge $5 USD to attend a Live performance in our world. And the world can handle 70 guests without performance issues. That would create an income of $350. The venue can split that with the performer and each would walk away with $175 USD. Then the in-world tip jars could increase the income by at least another $100 USD that can also be split.

Then Kitely will be known for a place that performers, DJs, service providers and venues can really make a living in.

interesting idea-))

I know at least two live performers I could likely get to try Kitely out if enuf interest was obtained.

They are doing pretty good in Metropolis.

However, I would rather wait on such things until HG is activated as I am a BIG fan of opening grids to hypergating.

In the meantime I will watch this idea and see if and how it is implemented.

[Ada Radius]

For Avatar Repertory Theater, our sim venues have always been donated, usually by an arts supporter. Tips and tickets sales are combined and used to pay the set builders, avatar designers, musicians, actors, ushers etc. If we couldn't count on tips then we'd raise ticket prices, so I'm not too bothered by not being able to use tip jars. If we had to cover sim costs, then we could use whatever KC revenue came in for that, but since we're non-profit, we'd cover sim costs with donations ahead of production anyway.

After trying other ways, for the last couple of big shows we sold our tickets via SL Marketplace, which worked out really well - as we could set the number of tickets available and track it easily, so everyone could check on what was not sold yet - so Paypal for that would work fine. The ticket is a prim object for audience to hold that's part of the show, such as an olive branch for Oedipus Rex, or a big comical ticket for Through the Looking-Glass. We always have an audience manager to check tickets, boot out anyone who doesn't have one, or sell them a ticket if there are unused seats. She and some of the actors act as ushers and make sure noobies can find their seats and figure out how to hear the streaming preshow and live Talk actors during the play. I like the idea of using World access to charge for access instead - Ilan and Oren have already set up that capability - but it's in KC only, which limits its usefulness at this point. But these are things that can be worked out.

We also, for other programs in the nonprofit, use Paypal donation buttons at our websites. Maybe that could be a workaround for DJ and musician tips for club venues? Sell other stuff at the same time, like recordings and teeshirts and such.