Tbux musings

I've had ThereBucks in stock for over five weeks straight now, and no end in sight. Last night I went to bed feeling pretty great that I was only one day behind paying sellers. (Not to be confused with buyers, who get paid in ten minutes or less!) This morning I woke up to $750 more in sales requests. *sigh* Naturally, I've been a bit more focused on There lately because of this, and also on other ThereBucks resellers.

Ye olde tbux site particularly interests me because, besides the fact that I used to be a seller there (and am the only seller ever kicked off the site...a dubious honor bestowed upon me for refusing to stop claiming sales transactions as quickly as possible) and have long used "who is listed as selling and how many sellers and how quickly are they paying" as a barometer for how quickly ThereBucks are moving through the system and how long one might expect to spend trying to sell the ThereBucks one might have in stock.

The difference now is, well, now I can actually share my observations with others (you!) Please don't think I'm bitter towards kittenkat/tbux, it's more like I'm hurt (although at the same time grateful, as I probably wouldn't otherwise have gone off on my own and made all the buying/selling streamlining and automating improvements I have) and of course I can't help but be interested in what's going on there...even if I was tempted to pretend that the site didn't exist, that would be a rather foolish business move. Besides, there are a few tbux members who actually sell ThereBucks TO ME, which naturally makes me curious.

So here are my recent observations...

People who have been selling recently

Mercuria: Of course, you are more likely to see Mercuria selling than anyone else on the site. Who do you think took over most of the ThereBucks sale request claims after I was gone? Plus, although I hear she's not really developing for There any more and has turned her attention almost solely on IMVU, she has a HUGE amount of stuff in auctions. You know, it's really a shame that she stopped designing for There soon after trans mapping arrived...she has soooo much fantastic stuff in the catalog, but most of it is caramel skin specific. Anyway, I have noticed that she is usually listed as selling in 8 hours or 12 hours, so I'm thinking she must have a full time job again, and perhaps a boyfriend. It also seems like she is not actually claiming sales requests any more (as far as I can tell) which would be pretty weird/ironic after all the trouble she went to in order to be able to claim as many as possible in the first place. She also seems to have stopped accepting credit card or unverified PayPal account payments.

Xedos: One of tbux's newer members. It's weird the way kittenkat had asked us what we thought of adding new members the first time she did it, but didn't say anything at all the second time. Well anyway, Xedos always used to sell loads of ThereBucks to the tbux site and now he can sell directly so that's great. But anyway, it LOOKS LIKE he is listing himself as selling for a day or something, then giving up for a bit, then listing again. I mean, I get the impression he isn't selling out, is just tired of waiting for sales. Hmmm...he could always sell them to me...I'm two days behind paying people but that's still quicker than what he's doing now.

Majandi: I notice he is also not accepting credit card or whatever payments. There used to be only one tbux member like that, now there are five!

Banshee_Kate: She was listed as selling but isn't any more. While Xedos may have gotten tired of trying to sell, Banshee_Kate is more likely to have actually sold out. She has always been pretty active in-world and usually sold on her own before she was a tbux member, and she is quite likely to have sold a bunch of ThereBucks to her friends, fans or club members.

Randra_Loqqet: Not listed as selling very often. He hasn't been active on There for a while now but still lists auctions and comes back occasionally to sell what I can only imagine is a large chunk of ThereBucks at a time. On the one hand, he may be in for a rude shock wrt how slowly they sell, otoh I doubt he is counting on the money so won't really care.

Phedre: Well, I don't think Phedre has designed anything for There for quite a while. However, she makes quite a lot of ThereBucks because of her fantastic designs like the dragon hoverboards and, well, like...everything she has ever made. About three years ago someone at There, who doesn't even work there any more, had the brilliant idea that instead of paying her like, $100 an hour to make some cowboy hats and braided hair, they would let her submit them as her own items instead. You know, to save There some money. I'm sure in the last three years she has made and far surpassed how much she would have been paid as a lump sum. That's great for her, but she doesn't list herself as selling very often so when she does...watch out! She's probably trying to sell millions at a time and she's not as laid back as Randra, she'll list herself as selling in an hour or less for extended periods of time. When she lists herself, watch the number of sellers grow as she upsets the balance of things.

People who haven't been around as much

Ashy: Another one who has been gone from There but still lists in auctions. I sold off most of my inventory but you know one thing I kept was a limited edition coffin hoverboard s/he made. Such talent...Ashy, come back! Anyway, when s/he sells credits it is another situation where it doesn't happen very often so it can amount to a large chunk of them when it does.

Kittenkat: She doesn't seem to like to list herself unless no-one else is selling. You know, she has a baby, she does some...I don't know...accounting work or something, she designs websites or something with her husband sometimes and oh how could I forget...she has been pretty involved with IMVU stuff. Like Mercuria, she's making more money with IMVU than with There, I'm sure. Actually, I'm pretty darn sure she's making a lot MORE than Mercuria. So, I'm sure she has a huge ThereBucks balance right now, but you probably won't see her selling until someday when for some crazy reason everyone else is finally sold out, and even then she will have to actually notice everyone is sold out. Or maybe for some reason she will want/need a bunch of cash fast and try to sell.

Alexis_Josephine: Apparently she is back after something like 4 years MIA. It's kind of funny to think that she was a tbux seller all that time even though she wasn't even listing in auctions. Well whatever, it's pretty cool that she's back. Maybe someone should tell her about IMVU....

People who are just totally gone

Wildcat: This dude was one of the first 3d modeling members of There. In fact, he helped me out learning GMax. He had graduated from college and was moping around his parents house for a while working at some boring job. Then one day, he got a boyfriend and I think he may have moved to the big city and no-one ever heard from him again. Dudes...this was a LONG time ago. It's so funny that he's still listed on the site.

Viv: People thought I was the one who ALWAYS claimed the sales requests on tbux but originally it was Viv. Because of her, I was practically glued to my computer 24/7. I set up a laptop on the nightstand by my bed because of her. And...she still got more of the requests than I did! How did she do it? My theory was that she was based (she was in the military) somewhere close to the servers tbux was hosted on, and therefore received alerts slightly sooner than I did. And/or she had some buddies that would claim requests for her if she ever went to sleep or stepped away from the computer. Or maybe she actually WAS a computer. She was the beginning of my quest to find a way to claim sales requests quicker than anyone else could. I didn't complain about her, I just set out to be better than her. Not that it worked...she just disappeared one day. I hope nothing bad happened to her. No-one has heard from her for years now.

Kiana: Not much to say about her except that she hasn't been around for a few years now.

Rejeanne: Also has NO There auctions listed, so we should assume that she's not going to be around selling ThereBucks.

TNT: Okay, where the heck did TNT go? Maybe she just decided that IMVU was more worth her time? I have a hunch that she was one of the people complaining about me claiming all the tbux sales requests (hey, the faster they are claimed, the better for the people selling them, right? Actually, the whole claiming process is so inefficient, but I won't get into that right now/again.) When she was first invited to join the tbux site, we were partnering together on IMVU and talking quite a bit and I asked her, jokingly but keenly interested in the answer, if she was going to be trying to claim sales requests. She said of course she wouldn't, she knew I counted on the income from those. Then one day, she claimed one. Well, her bf who stays up all night did, but she said she was probably going to be claiming sales from then on. If Viv was the one who got me obsessed with claiming transaction quickly, it was TNT who lit a fire under my arse about automating the process. Some people have boyfriends who stay up all night claiming requests, some people use technology for even more reliable results. Hmmm...that sounds a bit naughty. Anyway...I'm a bit surprised she isn't listing in auctions...and I wouldn't be surprised if she shows up again eventually.

Starley: This chick has her finger in a lot of pie. Last I knew, she was pretty involved with Second Life. She's also been involved with IMVU stuff. Not surprising she doesn't have time for There, or even listing her stuff in auctions in There.

I know that's not everyone on tbux, but I don't really have anything to say about the others. They sell, they're active, I haven't seen them on the site selling in the last few weeks. This was really more just my musings about what is going on with ThereBucks and ThereBucks resellers. Not even sure it's of interest to anyone but myself.