Chic at Ebbe's Place

The long awaited Belleza mesh body for gals was just released.

Since the  Belleza sim has been packed for days with avatars popping in and asking, "is it here yet?" it was probably a wise plan NOT to have the demo available at the new store. And as I type this the sim, previously closed in the night is now full -- most likely with avatars looking for the mesh body and or demo.

I haven't  been in the Belleza group for a long while, using my group slots mostly for work and blogging affiliations. But I do have several friends in the group including some guys. One got a group message in the night with the demo attached. Well, they got an EMAIL saying that there was a demo waiting for them. It wasn't there. The others (maybe five that I wrote to and answered my question) said they knew nothing and that the archives of the group are empty with not even a "no past notices" textblock.

So THAT didn't work.

It is not Belleza's fault. With a group of over 45,000,  the system simply broke; at least that's my guess. The demo given via group was a decent plan and perhaps the best available, but large groups haven't worked in SL in years.

Originally groups were made for land use sharing and perhaps to add a sense of community for like minded folks. Then the size of groups became part of the search engine hierarchy and stores scrambled to get the largest sized groups in their category. There were free gifts, free money, free joining (fees waved)  -- on and on. Eventually some groups got to be huge and along the way stopped working in most any sense of the word.

I suspect the Belleza folks have figured this out by now and hopefully the 45 folks in the new store are at least waiting in line to get the demo. (Yes, that was verified while I was proofreading).  I am guessing many are buying without the demo. It may very well be an Arcade type frenzy.

So while "groups will transfer over to the new grid", it is important that they also actually WORK over on the new grid. That seems to be a glaring statement, but it is sometimes easy to overlook the obvious when you are deeply enmeshed in creating the new and wonderful.