Jan 1st 2009, 08:06 SLIB SLIB, SL International Business
by Tyrian Camilo

New Year, New Tricks!

Happy New Year everyone!

It's been a very harsh year for SLIB, very very harsh indeed!

Let's recap some of the epic moments:
* Banking ban in February 2008:
Our core business was banking, being the second largest virtual microfinance banking organization in Second Life, with no marketing budget or advertising to speak of, with roughly 14,000,000L$ in deposits and 800 depositors.

We were in a very strong position when the ban came, and we immediately paid over 3,000,000L$ in deposits before issuing an halt, very soon afterwards we had covered already over 50% of the deposits.

We were still very much active in other areas of business, and re-organizing whole of SLIB, rename from SL Investor's Bank to SL International Business, new HQ, new business goals. We were raking in big profits.

We could have covered approximately 60% of the deposits within a week of the ban issuing, but afterwards, we would have had no business to speak of to pay the rest out, fireselling would have caused asset depreciation to under half of their real value. Today we stand firmly that we have only roughly 1,800,000L$ total to go in reimbursements, well under 10% of the original deposits.

Today we also stand as the *ONLY* survivor from the aftermath, all our competitors who's core business was banking has already gone under, closed shop etc. Most of them very fast after the news.

* Real Estate floods
Asset value depreciation, huge one i may add, 1½years ago land valued at 13-15L$/sqm when SLIB was formed. In February land was still priced 9.5-10.5L$/sqm. Today land prices are in vicinity of 3.5-4L$/sqm, which is the HIGHEST we've seen in 6months. This caused massive losses very fast.

* Advertising ban
One of our largest businesses being advertising, this was dear news INDEED! Mainostaulu, historically bringing in very steady and strong profits was in a turning point at this time.

Linden Lab told the public there would be few exceptions, the ban came, but the exceptions did not, at which time they told that there would be absolutely no exceptions at this time. It seems this was their plan all along. This also resulted into some threats on business & personal level most notably from Linden governance team, and unjust "verdicts".

* Region pricing decrease, introduction of Open Spaces
Literally overnight losses of atleast 16,000USD, 4,400,000L$! At this moment of time we are cash strapped, hungry to increase profit margins. However to no availability, we barely keep on profitable side of things, and get by slowly.

This makes competition VERY fierce, about as fierce as we seen in the way over saturated market of web hosting.

* Beginnings of economic recession in Real World
This is a turning point, SLIB turns into a slight loss, loss which keeps increasing to date. People are cash strapped, while economy is generally going strong, investors are cash strapped, which makes businesses cash strapped, which in turn means massive employee firings, and people being cash strapped or vary with their investments.

Not all is bad, gas prices are at lowest they've been in a quite a while, and generally people still have money to use in entertainment. Some of our business are making a strong profit still (rentals & garbage collectors). However, all real estate fields seem to suffer from same fate: Mass exodus of customers.

* Open Space price increases
Mass exodus from open spaces, some estate owners still have some openspace renters, and others lost all their openspace renters. This had only marginally positive effect on general estate business.


So, the year was VERY VERY bad for business indeed! It seems Linden Lab generally is the biggest business risk in this virtual world, no matter the business sector you are engaging in. Linden Lab will not stop at anything at all to increase their profits.

So how about future?
Well we have a very simple plan to execute to ensure the future of SLIB:
Kill costs, just whack them off!

This means: All businesses which profit does not exceed the risk factors will be shutdown in order to ensure future business possibilities.

After which, when we find SLIB in a comfortable profit position business development shall continue on high gear. There are several business plans looking for execution: Mainostaulu new offering and some other services.

Biggest assets of SLIB are in software, which we have in a great deal of highly technically advanced nature: Land management bots, Land buying bots, Land scanning bots, Mainland search utility, Advertising network code, Banking software, even a stock exchange+banking+loans platform (similar to what ACE has). So, if you are interested in any of these products please come forward. All our SL bots are multiplatform (Windows, Linux, Mac), and web based utilities are PHP. Simplicity has been the key virtue on most of the coding, and historically we've shown that our banking system is the most secure and reliable there is, easily and by far. (Remember the exploits? How about instability issues with XML-RPC? We had none of those problems!)

We estimate our software portfolio combined value to exceed easily 15,000USD using low market rates for outsourcing.

We hope to see a very bright future ahead of us this coming year!

Best Regards,
Tyrian Camilo