Update on IMVU catalogs

In order to prevent the catalog from being unavailable over the weekend, we are disabling new products and updates from being pushed to the catalog search engine while we resolve the problem. Users will still be able to purchase products and search the catalog as usual, but new products won’t be reflected in the results.

Source: IMVU Forums

Guess I can take my time submitting new products this weekend. Someone will have to let me know if new products are visable in our catalogs if the *search* isn’t used to get there (direct linkage).

Update 11-8-09
What they neglected to tell us is that new items submitted wouldn’t be accessible at all. Usually, I can submit items as “not visible in catalog”, then prepare my sales pages before submitting them to PR. I submitted 13 new hairstyles Friday night, and can’t get at them to add my sales page coding. Nice. One additional sentence in their lil announcement would have made that clear, and I would have waited to submit all together. *frustrated* I picked a really bad time to start making new items again.

IMVU news – Catalog offline for hours

It’s not very often that I have an evening to myself, but tonight I get the house to myself… so I had planned on spending the evening creating some new items to add to my IMVU catalog. I look forward to these times, because to me it means “playtime in PhotoShop”. lol

When I sat down at my computer, graphic tablet pen in hand… I was so very disappointed to see this:

Of course, it was being discussed in the forums. I’m glad too, because DA5 gave us a tip on how to get to your items even if the catty is down:

Everyone can get to their products by using their Dev reports link on their hp’s and then going to your products list. Once there scroll and find the product you are looking for and click on it it will load the pp and from there you can do whatever you need to.

As far as I know, the downtime only lasted a couple of hours here on the East Coast… it’s working for me now, so I will get to enjoy some creating playtime tonight after all, whew!

Now Available… uh… Psych!

In other IMVU news, I received an email notice about an official IMVU Blog post about the added feature that will allow us to assign room moderators in our public rooms. When I went to the online blog so I could send out the page link to my Twitter friends, it just wasn’t there. Still isn’t!

I don’t know how the post got sent out through their RSS feed, without showing on the site (unless the post was hidden or deleted after it was published in error or too soon). I haven’t tried to create a room since getting that notification either, so don’t know if it’s actually in effect yet or not… but I am glad I signed up for email notices of their posts lol. Regardless, I hope this is something they do implement soon if it isn’t live yet, because it would be very helpful to the IMVU users that do host public rooms.

IMVU in the News

IMVU.com proves fiscal stability while creating a gold standard with virtual worlds

IMVU grew its revenue primarily by increasing the sale of virtual currency to its members, who use that currency to purchase virtual goods ranging from clothing for their avatars to furniture for their rooms. IMVU’s catalog of virtual goods is the largest in the world, with more than 3 million items created by IMVU members. The daily production of items sold is valued at about 175,000. It is not to my surprise that IMVU recently announced that the company has doubled its revenue in one year to a $25 million run rate and achieved profitability. At peak hours of game play and social network chats, the company estimates that there are close to 770,000 conversations and story lines being produced by members. Their virtual world and communities gain the marketing tools and technical support needed to support this 3D love fest.

dig that last sentence… anyone wanna comment?

Who’s the biggest 3D Virtual World Now? These numbers seem a lil ’skewed’ to anyone else? I mean, I know I’ve been busy lately, but have I really not noticed an increase in membership to 40 million?

Social Vibe – Stand up for Cancer

As you can probably tell from some of the things displayed in my sidebar, I try to do my best to help Cancer Research charities. Social Vibe is one of the sites I use to encourage you all to do the same, you’ll notice them in my sidebar if you scroll down a little.

It was time for me to pick a new sponsor to make sure we take advantage of the Corporations willing to donate to the cause simply by clicking on that widget. (You have clicked it by now, right? If not, go do it now, I’ll wait right here for ya.)

*waits*

Thanks! I chose the CoffeeMate sponsor because 1.) I love the Hazelnut creamer, it’s one of my addictions, and 2.) The “Dress for Success” theme made me remember something that my last boss in Banking told me as we shopped for “black tie event” outfits together…

Dress well, and they remember the woman. Dress poorly, and they remember the clothes. ~J.S.

Remembering that day put a smile on my face, so I gladly clicked through to make sure CoffeeMate will be donating to the cause on my behalf. I sincerely hope you choose to do the same, thanks! =o)

Online shoe shopping

I Like:

Durant
by Report

I found these tonight while browsing… I’m a shoe-a-holic, I don’t try to deny it. I have a ridiculous amount of shoes considering how often I go out (not often). These are really cool though, because they’d go well with jeans, and wouldn’t take much room in the Road Glide’s side bag. Heh.

I love the platform toe, makes them easier to walk in. I never used to have a problem walking for hours in heels, but lately I need the platform to spend any amount of time in them. Harley mules are my favorites lately.

Who knows, Christmas isn’t far off now.

FYI: Nope, it’s not an affiliate link… just sharing a passion of mine

End of riding season & other observations

I can’t believe Halloween’s almost here already. Christmas decorations in the stores are out already and we haven’t even had the chance to scare our neighbors yet! What’s up with that? I doubt this will be one of those Halloweens where we’ll be able to walk the neighborhood without coats. It’s been in the lower 30’s every evening lately.

I haven’t been riding for a few weeks already. Between having a bad cold/flu for a week, and then the cold temperatures, I just haven’t had the nerve. Some years we ride right into December. I don’t think that’s going to be happening this year. I’ve packed away my riding gear, and have said my goodbyes to the bikes until spring.

I’ve been focusing on my design business, working with clients to build their ‘net presence, and moving new clients to my server. Re-designing existing sites and transferring their content to my CMS combo… keeps a wench very busy. In working with local business owners to build their Internet presence, I’ve learned a lot about the social networking systems popular on the Internet today.

One thing that I find rather disappointing after all my years on the Internet, is the fact that people still take so much at face value on the Internet. Rumors and unsubstantiated claims are spread like wild fire through sites like Twitter and FaceBook. Recent examples you may have heard of include “Balloon Boy” and Kanye West being killed in a car accident. False claims were made in both of those stories, yet they traveled across the internet within minutes.