Making Money In Second Life (R)

I've been watching the job ads for about a month now. I'm not actually looking "for"; I'm looking "at". A friend asked me what new folks did for money these days, and the answer escaped me. OK, truthfully - I had no answer; I hadn't a clue. But as all good journalist when faced with a question, I wanted to know.

Saying that it is dire out there would be true. Saying that it can sometimes be dangerous would also be correct. Many job agencies (actually most in my visits) have plenty of boards on which to post jobs -- for a fee of course -- but few if any jobs available. I did find one agency with job boards filled. There were many, and yes they did repeat the same jobs, but at least there was something to click on. Notecards however brought the sad news that these were all club jobs paying a percentage of tips. There was a long list of rules and regs for many of them and no reason to believe you would actually make any money. We've all most likely been to clubs with only the employees in evidence. This is pretty much like hiring campers, who if they actually get tips, pay you a percentage. I'm not saying all clubs are like that. I am sure there are some viable ones around, but I'm guessing the percentage is pretty small -- unless of course there is more than dancing involved.

There are jobs for resellers (investment needed) and jobs for sales people (pay only on completion of sales). There are volunteer jobs. There are "jobs" where you need to join pay groups in order to be considered. There are jobs where you have to purchase goods at the store in order to "model" for a tiny fee.

And it could be that the employment ads are simply come-ons to get people to the shops, stores, clubs etc. Some of those same ads have been running for a month -- many actually.

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I went out on a mission this morning. I got dressed up in newbie gear with my very first Calla hair, some simple clothes, no shoes and no AO. I wanted to look new even if my profile showed I was not. The photo at the beginning of this post was taken at the top paid classified under employment. You don't need a link. You don't want to go there :D.

What I found was mostly non-English speaking avatars of less than a year old; a few were a month old. There were really no jobs except walking around with a "click me for a linden" tag that got you a whole linden IF someone clicked you and IF they went to the website and IF they clicked the button on said website. Old fashioned camping was much better.

So the question still is, what are new folks doing for money?

There is still a little bit of picks camping. Add a place to the tab showing your favorite places, go back from once a day to once a month to get paid. Some of these work well. Many have disappeared and most need payment info on file if not used.

There are still a few money trees around for under 30 day folks, but many of the advertised trees are actually survey come-ons. Every once and awhile I come across an old camping machine that actually is still operational (or appears to be). The pay is infinitesimal, but an hour would buy a few dollarbies. If you come into the world with nothing and you have no credit card, it is indeed tough out there.

I'm glad I arrived awhile ago when you could hang out at Calla and maybe win a $50 trivia question while camping for hair (WOOT!), pick up a few bucks at trees that actually gave lindens, apples and bananas -- oh my -- and find a camping spot that paid 3 for 10. Those really were the days!