Product images--allow us to upload at least one!
Guys:
So far, I'm hearing a LOT of people say that the only reason they will not come to meta-life is because they have to use in-world UUIDs. many of them don't upload images in world for previews, and don't want to spend 10L for every image to do so. I admit as well that uploading the texture, accessing it among my products as if it were another product, then going in and deleting it, was a huge pain -- so I took to copy/pasting the UUID directly from the client. This is a huge hassle.
If you want to get more vendors, consider allowing the option to upload at least one picture. It would speed up our workflow and save us money. That means a lot more people coming your way.
In the meantime, we'll keep telling people to give you a chance anyway on the hope that you'll implement this change.
-Naoki
I'm just thinking out loud, the UUID thing never bothered me, but if the vendor has to connect to the internet anyway, would it not be possible for it to grab the pics from the web too? Maybe I'm way off I just woke up.
lol Khan
Well technically speaking - SL is connected to the Internet as well, but you can't show your own pictures, because LL only allows pictures that are stored on their servers.And they allow to put one there only for 10L$... 
Technically speaking
Yeah the UUID, but I was thinking could it not grab the pictures from a URL? If they were uploaded to tinypic, flickr, photobucket or whatever?
Can somebody PLEASE tell me how to get a picture to show????
I don't get this, sorry, and I cannot hear so the video doesn't work...
I copy and paste the UUI thing in, but it says no texture shown.
Does it have to be a texture, photos don't work?
Ok, answered my own question.. it cannot be a photo, has to be downloaded and then uploaded again as a texture 
Yes, this is going to be a downer to some... I use texture ads as packaging on most of my items, so I already pay the 10L to upload usually, I just happened to start with an item where I hadn't done that..
I can live with it. Anything is better then XStreetSL. Yes I just cancelled out my account on that XGreedSL moments ago. And am even standing on ZoMA Islands even as we speak. I have to say, Meta-Life looks promising, has the feel of the very old school SLX that I'm used to. I truly appreciate being able to sell my items on a site that isn't controlled by the Lindens..I will definitely be referring alot of people to this site and that's no joke, I have all the stages put into motion right now, it's how upset I am at LL for trashing things we merchants appreciate and I will never look back after today on that pathetic website.
Marrant:
if you're talking about snapshots, then that isn't true. I used a snapshot for a new product I uploaded last night.
I've seen the "texture not found" response for a while after adding a UUID, and it persisted for about 30 minutes, but went away on its own. I don't think your switching to a texture meant that the old one wouldn't have worked; I think you just had the same problem that I had.
-Nao
Naoki, and to all those that see the 'no texture' thing. I think that it is because of the extreme lag issue SL is having grid wide. I had the same issue with it showing up on many textures...but after a couple minutes they were all there...I think SL was just taking its sweet *** time getting the UUID's to the website. So if you have snapshots and/or textures in your metaBOX and upload them... give the site a few minutes, they should pop up. 
Kail,
that's what I figured. Since I had a huge stock to upload, I skipped the ones showing a black "no texture" image and kept going. By the time I was done, it had resolved itself!
I would suggest that those who don't want to debut an item yet in the case of such a problem refrain from pricing it until the image shows up properly for the item's listing under "inactive", then go ahead and price it and put it out. :3
Another thing about item pictures,
once you set up an item, we are grabbing a picture from an available web resource set by the Lindens. it's a poor quality picture, but within one hour after that we will download a high quality of the same picture straight from LL Servers, so the quality of your item pictures will increase about an hour after you set them up!
Hmm, well first of all I do totally disagree that if someone values their product that they have a picture available inworld of it already.. that GREATLY depends on what the item is Thank you for the info though.. I just loaded 160 items into my boxes and came to the site to do the listings only to not see any way to 'upload' them for the site.. and I'm not spending 1600 lindens (minus the few I do already have in world) to upload all those images lol.
After reading your post I now do understand why at least.. unfortunately I cant be a part of it between having to pay the upload fees for things that will never be used anywhere else, and the extra time and hassle for the uuid's. Its not much for a couple items.. but over a few hundred items thats a lot of cost and effort
Thanks again for the info! Good luck!
What about a compromise? Since you're already grabbing the textures and storing a copy on your system, why not require one in-world texture but allow optional outside uploads for web display purposes?
We are building a very services/vendors for our merchants/affiliates! The goal is not to have ALL the items available, but instead the best ones available via metaLIFE network! People who value their items, who make good quality content - usually have their pictures available in-world already! We are not trying to become yet another XStreet copy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail
Please don't make the same mistake as Linden Labs and miss out on the biggest marketing revolution this decade.
You need large number of items, accept small quantity of sales for most items, excellent searching and selection.
If you disagree with the Long Tail, I would like to know about it. It will affect the strategy of all your users.
A big issue with using UUID is that you are using the lossy JPEG compressed textures from Second Life world. See http://meta-life.net/forum/allow-more-three-snapshots-and-use-lossless-compression#comment-1139
Pips,
that is exactly what I suggested to Robbie I refuse to upload 3 textures in-world for use on the web. It's just too costly and the quality would suck anyway.
Yes we will make this compromise and implement picture upload for item in near future
I see such cases :
- If item will have pic_uuid and uploaded pic then uploaded pic is displayed in web and item is visible in vendors.
- If it does not have pic_uuid, but has uploaded pic then item is visible in web but it is not reachable through in-world vendors.
- If item has only pic_uuid, item is visible in same manner like today.
Please allow pic_url as well as upload.
I'm one of the vendors who would love to list on meta-life, but just plain cannot without the ability to upload textures. Of the alternatives to xstreet I've tried, you have hands down the best interface.
But, the texture thing is a deal breaker for me- aside from the lossy jpeg ugliness, you play games with aspect ratios in the web interface, which also looks horrible. I also do some funky things with my in world textures to force SL to be able to use them, and fix on prims. I can't do that here- and, in fact, adding the ability to do so would just add more work and negate one of the huge reasons I like your service, ease of listing. Everything IS available in world, and has textures in world, they just have textures that I can't apply through the UUID system without them all looking like crap.
I'm sorry to hear that you also don't want to have comprehensive catalogs- that's the huge mistake xstreet is making right now, instituting fees to keep things off the service. That is THE reason I'm leaving both as a shopper and a vendor- I'm interested in having a lot I can browse through and look at, not just a tiny sampling because that just plain isn't useful to me. Looking for things in world is a pain in the ass, it's far easier to find things in a web interface, because I don't have to pop around the grid, wait for things to load, etc. etc. You actually have a search system that doesn't suck, and things load much faster on a website than popping all over the grid.
I, and many other people I've talked to who are also looking for xstreet alternatives, have absolutely no interest whatsoever in using any of your other vendor solutions- I actively do NOT want affiliate vendors, and I don't use in world vendors for myself.
Yes, please let me choose my aspect ratio! I have a huge investment in 1:1. I know in-world it's hard to change, but on the site at least let me show my ads in proportion.
What is the aspect ratio? I looked around for the info, but no luck. Result: squashed picture. Not a huge problem but it looks unprofessional.
I think the compromise is great. The most important thing for me is to be able to indicate functionality through screenshots of menus -- people can put my script into anything they like.
I'm willing to live with the $L10 to upload an image. In exchange for zero commissions? A no-brainer! (Though I'd rather have the $L10 go to metaLIFE.) But I agree that it's arduous, and must be off-putting for creators with lots of items.
Upon listing the image will be squashed but metaLIFE will pull it out from LL's server and the image will improve.
At first, image will look like this:
MetaLIFE will pull it out and save it to their own servers and will become like this:
Except...it's not consistently the same ratio everywhere on the site. This is especially noticeable in anything that isn't 1:1 to begin with, as those get to be different ratios different places. And there's no way for meta-life to know that that 1:2 should actually be a 3:4 and I'm fixing it in prims, so, for many things, it's never going to work right, period.
Except...it's not consistently the same ratio everywhere on the site. This is especially noticeable in anything that isn't 1:1 to begin with, as those get to be different ratios different places. And there's no way for meta-life to know that that 1:2 should actually be a 3:4 and I'm fixing it in prims, so, for many things, it's never going to work right, period.
Believe me - we do hear you on this... It's just that - we can't do much AT THE MOMENT, yet this issue will be fixed (sometime within next few months: http://meta-life.net/blog/future-metalife-development)
A quick tutorial on the difference between "textures" and "pictures" and technically how it must work.
Nearly all textures are effectively square. They are usually 256x256 or 512x512 or sometimes 1024x1024. In-world, the might be not appear square because they are fitted to the surface of a prim. Apart from the prim, Second Life has no idea what the intended aspect ratio is. It is common for pixels to not be square! There is no way for metaLIFE to know this either if it uses a UUID to get the texture from the world. (Yes, I know there are also 256x512 textures etc. but not so common.)
Picture formats like JPEG and PNG allow any number of pixels per side, e.g. 1024x768, and is is unusual for pixels to not be square, so the aspect ratio and the size are kind of the same.
metaLIFE have assumed the aspect ratio 4:3 for their vendors, so a square texture is not shown square on the vendor. The vendor does not know the intended aspect ratio. It can't get it from the UUID. The only way to know is for the merchant to say!
metaLIFE vendors must have the UUID to display the picture on the vendor or HUD in Second Life. If metaLIFE allows picture upload, this will not replace providing the UUID — it can only be an extra step for extra quality when viewing on the web.
The only all-in-one solution I can think of is this: 1. merchant uploads picture to metaLIFE in JPEG or PNG. 2. metaLIfe bot uploads picture to SL and charges you L$10. 3. metaLIFE records original picture aspect ratio and uploaded texture UUID. 4. Vendor resizes its display prim to match the original aspect ratio when the item is displayed. Possible! But not nice.
The only all-in-one solution I can think of is this: 1. merchant uploads picture to metaLIFE in JPEG or PNG. 2. metaLIfe bot uploads picture to SL and charges you L$10. 3. metaLIFE records original picture aspect ratio and uploaded texture UUID. 4. Vendor resizes its display prim to match the original aspect ratio when the item is displayed. Possible! But not nice.
Yes Mimika - we considered this option some time ago... It's a tricky one to make, but off course possible. We would do it if LOTS of votes it's way, but I guess in the meantime there are some more important issues to solve...
Btw - great explanation
If they aren't going to do away with the necessity of the same image in UUID and on the web interface, we're back to "meta-life isn't worth my time." Honestly, I'm not keen on attaching it to a UUID at all, because that's not the service I'm looking for. But...even more so, I already have textures with the right aspect ratio that I've adjusted in SL- there is absolutely NO reason whatsoever for me to go through uploading them into SL yet again just for meta-life.
Thousands of Lindens will be thrown away just trying to list in the first place, even if they save me the time by doing it automatically- at which point the question becomes is this service worth _that_ much more than the competition? Especially since all that money isn't actually supporting _this_ service, which is just another "well....ok, so I go through all of that, but will they actually still be around in 6 months?" I'm looking to be listing hundreds of products, that's a huge investment in time, aside from everything else.
It's unfortunate, because meta-life has done a lot right, and better than the alternatives, but the texture thing truly is a deal breaker for me, and Mimika's solution is a step in the right direction, but still not something that appeals.
Hello Allegory.
You don't have to upload anything again for metaLIFE. If you already have textures you can either:
1. Right-click and use "Copy UUID" and use that for your listing.
2. Put then in the metaBOX and select them from the menu when listing (which is just another way of getting the UUID).
The problem you might have is if they are not designed for 4x3 display on the vendor. (I have this problem.) Is the quality not good enough when you tried this?
I have very much sympathy with the cost of re-listing and the investment of time it takes. I only did this because I think metaLIFE is worth a shot because of its unique approach to brands and affiliation (and I gained a good impression of the people in charge of it). I had a similar argument to yours with the makers of slapt.me.
Nobody expected Lindens' policy change, and nobody is ready with appropriate tools.
I know none of this will be implemented immediately, in time to deal with the mass exodus. I've been listing things across multiple services trying to decide what is the best alternative for me (and cursing the death of onrez, because I've still not found one that did as much right as they did- meta-life comes closest, but for this issue- unfortunately, it's a huge issue for me and many others). meta-life has some really big advantages over the others when it comes to listing, which is why I would like to eventually be able to use it as my main listing site. I was pretty much shocked and confused when I found meta-life didn't have a web uploader, to be honest, that seems like an obvious thing to me, and the pulling UUIDs seems like...well, a horrible alternative.
But your solution up there, isn't a solution I can use.
The quality of the images pulled from SL is awful. Also, I don't do 4:3 aspect ratios for my ads, because I haven't been using their vendors, nor do I particularly want to start retrofitting years' worth of products. I do different aspect ratios for different products- some are 1:1, some are 1:2, some are 2:3, some are 1:4, etc., depending upon the item and how the ad came together. I think 4:3 is one aspect ratio I _don't_ use- and if I do, it's in the other direction. I'm not going to remake hundreds of vendor ads with that ratio just to use this system. I do things with offsets and repeats, I do things with prim sizes, I bang on things in SL to make them work the way I want- the web is a different matter and there's no reason I should have to do that, since it natively allows full control to begin with. This means that the existing textures aren't an option under the current system, because they will all be pulled out of true, as well as the awful recompression that makes them look horrid- sorry, but the listing needs to not look bad. And why your solution of having things upload back is another solution I really can't use- if that's what they go with, meta-life will still _not_ be an option for me.
Where is the information on the aspect ratio of your vendor ads? Is it just in the size of the prims of those vendors? Somehow it would be needed by the metaLIFE vendor in order to display your product across the grid. I am wondering how it could be retrieved.
I do agree that the ability to upload (or get from other web source) is necessary.
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Hey Naoki,
We are building a very services/vendors for our merchants/affiliates! The goal is not to have ALL the items available, but instead the best ones available via metaLIFE network! People who value their items, who make good quality content - usually have their pictures available in-world already! We are not trying to become yet another XStreet copy!
You see if people will only upload their picture to the website, then those pictures will NOT be available via any of the in-world tools, vendors, HUD, etc...
We strive for our network (vendors, HUDs, and the website, more to come later) to be TOTALLY consistent, which means if an item is available via metaLIFE - it's available via EVERY one of those tools/means! We value our network of VENDORS just as much as we value our website, therefore don't want to put the website into a better position, where more items are available!
If you will only upload pictures to the web - those items will not be available in-world, there will be no way to show those items(unless we have a BOT that is uploading each of those pictures to the SL, but that will cost us 10L$ for each of those pictures)
Hope this makes sense..
have other ideas, let me know...
Empowering your Second Life: Web Marketplace, Affiliate vendors, Grid Wide Marketplace, etc..
Robbie Kiama,
Founder of metaLIFE