Beep! or how Traffic shouldn't Drive you.

I never understood why it's important to be part of the crowd. I guess we all want belonging and acceptance and this virtual world is definately part of finding that for many of the people who use it, including me at various times in my life. It's helped me through job losss, going blind, diabetes issues.... you name it. Well not it but the friendships I've made there. It's all about telling the stories we can tell there. But that's not really what I'm talking about today.

Go read this post here.

Traffic numbers are a measurement of how popular your land is in Second Life. This is very important to mall owners as an indication of why you should rent there. The problem is that people now have bots that inflate the visitor numbers to that particular area. There are legitimate uses for these bots as this person is pointing out and I'm not really taking issue with the use he's making of them, it makes sense from a business perspective. The problem once again is a social one. There's some inherent need for us to see what's going on, in Second Life it's even got a name, 'Dot Syndrome' is when a bunch of green dots show up on the mini-map, this seems to attract more green dots. Why do we care what's popular or not according to computer numbers? If you find something you like then tell your friends, and visit to see what's new. I personally work very hard on customer service and support so that I gain word of mouth. Please, if you like my designs then spread the word of mouth, and explore, don't just pay attention to traffic or dot syndrome.