Barby CelticWarrior, live in SpotON3D - SUN, SEPT 2 @ 9am MVT/ PDT

Barby has rescheduled her concert in SpotON3D for this Sunday, September 2, at 9am MVT/Pacific time.  Come hear the incredible Barby CelticWarrior  performing live at the Flamingo Beach Rock Stage!

The stage can be found in SpotON3D at http://3Durl.com/map/ veesome/lambda/213/188/28.

If you don't already have your FREE SpotON3D account, get one now by going to http://spoton3d.com and clicking the "JUMP INTO THE 3DWEB 4 FREE" button at the upper right. You can also sign up or log in thru your Facebook™ page at https://apps.facebook.com/webworlds/.


A Great Performer with an Amazing Background
Barby is a seasoned performer who has been pleasing audiences for three years in Second Life as CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster, and now brings her awesome talent to SpotON3D! She plays all your old favorites from America, Eagles, Carole King, Carly Simon, Van Morrison....etc, etc. She knows 2001 tunes, and if she can't do the song you request, she is sure to be able to substitute one you won't be disappointed in. She even learns songs that her fans have requested she learn.

Celtic taught herself to play the guitar in 1971 when she was 13 years old. Her first performance was at an 8th grade talent contest, for which she sang Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee”. She spent her teen years in the middle of her bed with her John Denver song books. When she left home to join the Air Force, she married and quickly started a family which left little time for guitar playing. During the mid 1980’s she found comfort in performing worship music for her mission church in Okinawa, Japan, as well as singing in a contemporary Christian band which toured around the island. She performed in the USOs for American Military servicemen and their families. Celtic has also broadcast live on Japanese radio from the Okinawa Zoo, and Botanical Gardens. She traveled to the Philippines and performed for 5000 people in a dilapidated athletic auditorium, and traveled around the barrios sharing music with the local people. Now Celtic is playing everything from folk to classic rock and easy listening, and rounds it off with traditional Celtic ballads (which she does acapella).


------------------------------

To follow all of our blog postings, please be sure to subscribe by clicking the "Join this site" button, or by submitting an email address in the "Follow by Email" box along the right margin. And if you see something that particularly interests you, be sure to share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media pages using the icons provided.

Also check out our SO3D Like Bytes page on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/TessasLIKEBytes

~*~ Basic Babble ~*~: Surfin..... On OSGrid! WOW!

~*~ Basic Babble ~*~: Surfin.....: Sticking with my little Beach Boys theme : I spend most of my days on the  SpotOn3D Grid  but many nights I go to  OSGrid . Last night...

FINDING MY VOICE

FINDING MY VOICE

The Hypergrid Inspiration
Maria of Hypergrid Business sent me an email and while writing my response I thought this would actually be a good opportunity to speak to folks in a more personal manner - not just as the COO for SpotON3D but also as a life long artist, mother, manager of talented folks and being biz savvy tech gurl. So here it goes. 

The Linda Influence
I have to thank Linda for this. She's been a big inspiration for me for years as I watched her take on some of the most bullying bloggers and forum trolls .. as I've learned they are called. I think she's the bravest women I know. That's why I'm doing this. She's been encouraging me to come outta my cave and let people get to know the person behind the company - the ME better through bloggings like this. 

I've become a bit scared to do this because, in the past,  I've been called out for spelling things wrong and such and ridiculed even after explaining that I am dyslexic, so turned it over to others. I didn't want to get into defending my problems or casting an unfavorable or ignorant light on the community and company, just because I can't always say what I want in the most polished manner. The few times I've tried to say something publicly ... well let's just say it got pretty scary for me with the venom that resulted. And it not only affected me, but hurt another long time friend of mine, Luna Bliss. I didn't ever want to be responsible for that happening again, so I just decided to take a back seat. But I can see Linda's point. And she's right. People will judge me no matter what. If I remain silent then they only hear one side, so I'm trying to be brave like Linda and stick my head out of my cave and pray I can handle the bow and arrows that will surely fly as a result. LOL  So here it goes ... 

WARNING ... THIS IS A LONG BLOG!!! I don't know how to write small. Maybe because I hold it all in for so long? :P


Maria of Hypergrid Business asked me in email, in response to our most recent newsletter: 

"Any reason for the name change? Is there an ownership or management change at the company?" 

My first impulse was to simply say ... 

"No ... but surely there will be as we grow." 

After all, that's just evolution of a business. :) 

But then that seemed a little vague and didn't really explain things the way I prefer to. If you know me you know I am one who strives to be as transparent as possible in my business dealings, so here I am giving it to you straight from the horse's mouth. 

What Changed On Our End
The corruption wasn't just one thing. We had a lot of our services scattered on different servers and it made more sense to combine them to open up another one for more region hosting as we're getting more residents and wanted to make sure we had the servers needed. Then, you add in all the new and old government regulations put upon PayPal now that they are seen as a legal banking institution, and you get them being picky when we ask for special things like helping us fix our mess here.  We're not a nice tidy box business. We color outside the lines and that presents a challenge in running things through services like PayPal.

What Changed On PayPal's End
We'd hoped PayPal could merge all our existing subscriptions over to ease the pain with our users, but alas they said they could not without contacting each and every subscriber for permission. We have no control over our users' subscriptions unless it's a legal thing that we go through PayPal's dispute channels. This was a conscious decision we made so that our members would always have control over their choices to remain a paying resident with us or not. The move to the "new" PayPal, per their suggestion, meant we would have to ask everyone to re-subscribe. The "new" PayPal account is actually my old one from my design firm that's been laying about stagnant, so we figured why not put it into service again and get things up and running again asap. 

Putting Our Members First
The discounts and grandfathered pricing was our way to take a bit of the sting away and thank our users for going to all the trouble to help us get through these changes. 

What has surprised us the most in the last 24 hours is the support we're seeing in this switch over. Some of our members are outright refusing to take advantage of the new prices, insisting on paying the regular price in support of our community and business. I cannot express how honored and appreciative we all are of such loyalty and support. Yes ... giving you a great big hug here MsVelvet! 

The End Results
While all of this is frustrating for us, the reality of PayPal becoming a legit banking entity is all good in the long run; it means better security and more accountability. We just look at this as growing pains for them and us. And heck!  I'll take growing pains over "the sky is falling" type rants any day! LOL 

The Next Challenge 
Having said that, many know we're coming to the most challenging part of any start up, and that's getting the word out to people beyond the existing virtual world user base and expanding our reach to a larger mainstream audience. An audience that will need the skills and talents of our creative community to enjoy and take full advantage of our 3DWeb perspective. The aren't going to be mechanics like us tech-heads and graphic guru's. They will dabble here and there, but mostly they will look for that instant gratification thang. 

To prepare to reach out to this audience has required years of work adding extra ease of use functionality on top of the awesome OpenSim base, stripping away basics that no other grids would even think to live without, such as the standard inworld money systems, and creating a truly new way of creating accounts and access permissions to keep kids safe without dummying down the grownup's experience to an 8th grader's. 

Accomplishing all this has required hard cold cash to the tune of about 10k-15k a month. Now we need to pay for marketing, which can cost up to 3K per month for at least 6 months. That's 12K-18K we need to raise, which can be earned through our new subscriptions that are definitely helping to get us there. We've even been talking about doing a Kickstarter crowd sourcing campaign. And while giving money is great, we'd actually prefer folks pledge to help spreading the word about us through their social media channels, like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIN. That is honestly far more valuable to us than an advertising campaign ... but we'd not turn down donations from those who feel more comfy helping out that way :D 
Type in My3DWebSpace@gmail.com to PayPal if you feel the urge. Just be sure to leave us a note that its for our social media push.

A Word to the Nay Sayers 
I do want to say something to those who think that our monthly membership fees are unfair, or those who would feel the urge to bash us around a bit for even considering doing a Kickstarter campaign. We are only here out of the generosity of our users and supporters.  We have never accepted any outside investor funding, because their focus was on money rather than community. By us asking YOU ... our users, to help fund us, that makes YOU our primary concern and keeps us focused on YOUR NEEDS AND WANTS - not investors or advertisers. That's what our whole platform and business model is based upon. Otherwise, I think we'd run the risk of becoming more corporate than we are really designed to be as a community. 

Why We Court Business, Education and Government Projects
How else are we to make it possible for our creators to earn a living income, but by bringing them in on big budget projects? But, we feel strongly that should not come at the cost of the spirit of creativity we've tried to foster on SpotON3D. Everything we've done has been in support of creators to help them leverage their offerings securely in a new way and be able to turn it into a career that they could really live off of. 

My History as an Artist
Being an artist who has lived off my skills, augmented with "real world" jobs, I know how valuable its is to be able to whole heartily pursue your artistic dreams without that "real" job. I think everyone should have the opportunity to make that a reality and that's been my vision for SpotON3D since day one .... starting 17 years ago in Active Worlds. Yep ... that makes me the old lady of the 3DWeb as I've always called this, and I wear that badge with pride. It takes a great deal of energy, persistence, faith and love to stick with something like this for that long. Just ask anyone who knows me. I am a mothering type, just trying to have a positive impact on the people I am fortunate enough to come in contact with. 

We HAVE Given Back to the Community ... With Paying Jobs & MORE!
Our biggest expenses to date have been our team member contractors. Our actual costs for the technology only add up to about $1K a month. As I said on Vanishes blog, if asking for a premium account and rational but affordable rental sim fees to keep our most talented folks working in this industry is selfish, then so be it. I'm the biggest oinker there is then! :D

Yeah .... I know we'll get same old people saying things like, "Why haven't you been submitting code". We have, but we didn't think we needed to raise banners and shout out about it. Especially since doing so was against the rules due to the difference in the licenses.

OpenSim is a BSD license which gives you to right to do anything you want without restrictions or requirements to submit your changes back.

SL/Linden's Client is GPL, which requires anyone who uses it to submit all their code back to the community. 

The rule was that you could not submit code to OpenSim if you'd viewed the SL client code in the last six months and all our coders who worked on the back end of our flavor of OpenSim also regularly viewed and work with the client code. This mean we were actually blocked from contributing.  I hope that clarifies that and puts that old dead argument to rest! LOL 

Our Vision for This Technology - The 3DWeb
If you're looking for an SL look-a-like, then we're not the place for you. On the other hand, if you're looking for what SL COULD HAVE BEEN, then come on in for a visit. Our team and community have built what is said by most to be the single most stable, secure, responsibly run and innovative grid built upon the OpenSim base code. 

Its NOT About Money or Even the Science For Us
We believe in this technology - not as a science of 1's and 0's, but as a means to literally bring the world together in a way that simply has not been possible before - an extension of the already proven strengths of our current two dimensional web. This MUST go forward and MUST do more than just act as a hook up venue or a glorified chat room. That's good stuff for sure, but definitely marginalizes the capability of this technology if we don't strive to push the functionality to the max and expose it to a broader audience.

Its About Bringing the Metaverse Together
I truly believe that the 3DWeb has the potential to pave the way to a new way of working that respects our earth's resources, allows families to be more connected and responsible, and for businesses to grow a heart and a brain and view their employees in a new light ... and vice versa ... to steer the world's controls back into a more balanced position. And everything we say and do as members of this Metaversian community affects the speed and power of this drive to change. That's why I've been adamant about this not being just about SpotON3D, Second Life, InWorlds, Gay Nation Grid or any other grid out there. We all should be working together to raise awareness of ourselves AS A COMMUNITY AND INDUSTRY ... not just as a single grid or business. Why? Because we all offer something special that meets the needs of a niche audience. One grid's presences does not mean the others have no value or importance. 

Tessa

PS:  
For all the anti-patent folks ... you've had your say on every single blog out there so I feel no need to have it repeated here. If you'd like to paste a link to a previous blog you've expressed your opinions, I'll consider putting that link up, but otherwise I think it would be boring and redundant to have all that repeated here. 

Yes ... we've patented stuff and

Yes ... we understand you think patents are evil devices to block the road map for Opensim and 

Yes ... we know you think we're legalistic, even though we've never threatened anyone legally - no lawsuits, no cease and desist letters, no letters threatening to squish anyone's rights to make their own path to their goals in a new and innovative way.

And NO ... we aren't like the Mob, shaking down users to user our plugin. Its actually free for any member of our community to use: https://spoton3d.com/world/get_your_plugin_here/

AND YES  ...  our old 3DURL system is still open to anyone to use for other grids if you know the hack *winks*, though I can't promise that will always be the case so i'd not recommend anyone use that for a production level tool.

So, now that all that's outta the way, let the blogging begin, but I should tell you that I will reserve the right to no publish repetitive, redundant and non factual rude postings. I do not believe in encouraging blog spamming to support another business either. I don't go on other people's blogs and spam their comments section to generate business buzz for myself, so I not going to allow that here on ours either. Yes ... you know who you are that I am speaking to. :)

Our OOPSsss Means … A BIG $$$ BREAK ON ALL REGIONS

Our OOPSsss Means … YOU GET A BIG $$$ BREAK ON ALL REGIONS  

As many of you know our DNS routing got messed up for a few days last month. One of the side effects has been that our PayPal account system became corrupted as well. Everyone’s payments are being attributed, but they aren’t talking to our database for us to have automated connections with your SpotON3D account information. PayPal has advised us to phase out our old account and ask our users to re-subscribe to a different one. 

This means we need all our subscribers to cancel their old PayPal subscriptions created under the payments@spoton3d.com PowerSynch, LLC and start up a new subscription ANYTIME BEFORE YOUR NEXT SUBSCRIPTION PAYMENT IS DUE. You’ll notice that all our subscriptions and payments system is already pointing to this other PayPal account, my3dwebspace@gmail.com under the temporary company name UnReal Designs, LLC. As soon as we finalize our new EIN tax number and get a clearance from PayPal to recognize it, the company name will be restored on the PayPal backend without requiring you to change anything again. PayPal doesn't let companies or individuals to have two accounts by the same name or identity, thus the need to start up a clean new account.

HERE’S WHERE YOU BENEFIT FROM OUR BOO BOO!
As an incentive and to ensure that your services are not interrupted we are offering an unprecedented grandfathered discounts on all our region prices and premium memberships:

PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP RE-SUBSCRIPTION SPECIAL
JUST $1.99/mth - That’s a 33% discount on our already low verifying Premium Membership of $2.99/mth giving you full access to all our community grids.

GRANDFATHERED REGION ISLAND RE-SUBSCRIPTION SPECIALS 

FULL 3750 Prim Sim JUST $24/MTH - Approx. $3 OFF reg. price of $27 

FULL 5000 Prim Sim JUST $33/MTH - Approx. $4 OFF reg. price of $37 

FULL 7500 Prim Sim JUST $42/MTH - Approx. $5 OFF reg. price of $47 

FULL 15000 Prim Sim JUST $60/MTH - Approx. $7 OFF reg. price of $67 * BEST DEAL

*ISLAND PRICES WITHOUT $1.99 PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP. Add another $1 to get total savings with your discounted Premium Membership.

HOW TO PHASE OUT YOUR OLD PAYPAL/SPOTON3D SUBSCRIPTION: 
(instructions with pictures)
1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Click Profile near the top of the page.
3. Click My Money.
4. Click Update in the My Preapproved Payments section.
5. In the subscription list, find one entitled “PowerSynch, LLC” that shows the $2.99 USD monthly payment or a Region Land subscription and click on the name “PowerSynch, LLC” to bring up the detail screen and click on Subscription Details and CANCEL to terminate your subscription to the old PayPal account.


PLEASE NOTE:  This ONLY affects subscriptions that were set up prior to August 8, 2012.  If you set up your Premium membership or land rental on or after this date, then you do not need to take any action.

To check whether you need to do this, please go into your PayPal account and check your subscriptions. If the Merchant is listed as “PowerSynch, LLC”, then you will need to cancel this subscription and create a new one through out Web site.  


HOW TO RE-SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR PREMIUM AND / OR REGION MEMBERSHIPS

This is the easy part! Just go here:   https://spotonsynergy.com/p/Region%20Rentals

If you’ve not yet RE-SUBSCRIBED to your Premium Membership you’ll be prompted to do this here and sent to PayPal and our new account. Remember that you’ll see a new business identity for it - UnReal Designs, LLC via the email at my3dwebspace@gmail.com as we can not reuse the PowerSynch, LLC name again for the new PayPal account. PayPal doesn't allow businesses to have multiple accounts under the same tax ID number and name.

Once you have completed your Premium Membership RE-SUBSCRIPTION, you’ll be offered a link back to the SpotONSynergy site, landing on our Region Sim pages, reflecting our new limited time Grandfathered pricing. This is where you will RE-SUBSCRIBE to your Regions, if you have one. If you don’t, then feel free to take advantage of this very special pricing opportunity, or simply close the web page and only roll with the premium membership. 

We hope we’ve managed to make this transition as easy as possible, but if you run into any problems, please feel free to email us at support@spoton3d.com, chso much for at us up on our Skype Customer Service Channel or our SpotON3D HELP group inworld or just give us a call at 972-955-6863.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ONLY YOU CAN CANCEL AND RE-SUBSCRIBE!
We have never been able to shut down a user’s subscription to ensure that you have all the access and control you need to manage your accounts with us. This is why it is so important that you read, understand and act within the next 30 DAYS, before our old PayPal account is discontinued. This will make it possible for us to better serve you with withdraws, account balances, refunds and special subscriptions. 

BE SURE YOU CANCEL AND RE-SUBSCRIBE NO LATER THAN THE DAY YOUR PAYMENT IS SCHEDULED, so that you aren’t paying extra.

 


We do apologize for any inconvenience this will cause you and assure you that if it was not absolutely necessary, we would not be asking. We value your continued support and goodwill to our 3DWeb project and hope to see more of you in the upcoming days.

CLICK THE URL BELOW TO RE-SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEW PAYPAL & TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE EXCEPTIONAL GRANDFATHERED PRICES ON OUR PREMIUM SERVICES TODAY!

https://spotonsynergy.com/p/Region%20Rentals

WELCOME TO OUR NEW RESIDENTS

WELCOME TO OUR NEW RESIDENTS:

Jessica Random, a virtual world blogger who is passionate about spreading the word on the good bad and ugly of the opensim community. You can read all about her opinions and thoughts here: .http://blog.jessicarandom.me/  

She’s also a ferocious Sim developer, creating free OAR files for all the OpenSim community, we welcome for anyone to bring to SpotON3D. Just send us an email and your sim name and we’ll load them up for you. If you want to use all of them, remember we have our HotSwap Scenes that let folks swap out whole sim builds on demand. We’ll be encouraging and helping Jessica to list them for free on our spotonsynergy marketplace for free so everyone can tag into that service if they prefer. Thank you for coming in Jessica and we look forwarding to getting to know you better! :)


Linda Kellie, which as most people know is The Goddess of OpenSim Freebies has invaded SpotON3D and it’s a beautiful thang! She’s spread a lot of controversy - hey! she’s even called her sim Dramaland. Tess thought it should be DramaLama, but Linda voted her down :() She’s been making free and for fee based goodies ever since she hit the ground and everyone’s loving them. She’s also been battling it out with the likes of the owner of Kitely, a openly aggravated competitor of SpotON3D who just might have a vested interest in wanting SO3D’s 3DWeb Plugin open sourced *wiggles eyebrows* and Vanish of http://tgib.co.uk/2012/07/06/spoton3d-violates-copyright-of-linda-kellie/#comment-2374 and http://OpenSim-Creations.com that was the very thing that got Tessa and Linda talking and realizing they had too much in common to just say hi and walk away from the conversation.You can read all about her recent adventures here at SpotON3D through her own blog here http://blog.lindakellie.com/  and grab her many freebie offerings here a

We want to thank Linda as a whole community for helping us have a voice and taking the path less traveled by dropping in and getting to know us first hand.  It takes a big heart to step away from the fold and color outside the lines - something Linda is well known for. We are all very very grateful for the opportunity to show who we are as people, creators and community members.

Harriette Jones is another virtual world blogger. :http://harriettesisle.wordpress.com/. She’s recently gotten a region in SpotOn3D called … what else? :D ...“Harriette's Isle”! Its become the breeding ground for cats of all sizes,shapes and colors. Harriette is giving away freebie breedable cats, so you too can become the proverbial Cat Lady! HAHAHAHA!  

You can check out her all her listings here and start your own cat farm here: https://spotonsynergy.com/marketplace/creator/238d711a-27b9-497f-bc95-6f61c27d6f62/Harriette_Jones on our marketplace SpotOn3D Synergy website. Harriette is like many of our residents, a multi-grid Metaversian and we are honored she has  to include SO3D as one of her homes. 

Timothy Hoxley is an old time premium visitor resident of SpotON3D. Being the Owner of SoftPaw Estates Opensim Hosting, ( http://softpawestates.com/ ) he obviously didn’t need our hosting services, but he’s always been a wealth of information for the SpotON3D team on the advancement of Opensim and other comunity initiatives. He is the quintessential “jack of all trades” in Virtual Worlds everywhere and offers cloud and traditional hosting for the casual users. Tim’s experience came from hosting his own grid, CyberWrld, so it's great to have his input and support again. He's got a blog too that you can check out here -http://timothyvyper.blogspot.com/

So that’s the round up of some of our new residents, and with our new RE-SUBSCRIPTION Grandfathered Specials we’re betting there will be a LOT MORE new residents to shout out about. Curious as to why? Check it out below or come on in! We don’t bite! :D

Freebie of the Day: A Mission Style Couch Set.

Stop by the SpotON3D Freebie Store or VeeSome Freebie Store to pick up today's freebie, a Mission Style Couch Set. Find more free stuff at our online Synergy marketplace