Past Guests & Transcripts

Friday Night Talkshow (10/03) J&M Creations Transcript

October 3, 2008

Wurlitzer: What is J&M Creations?

Jada: J&M Creations is a creative design house that provides a range of business and consumer solutions, in addition to custom building and scripting services.

Wurlitzer: Whats the history about J&M Creations?

Maged: J&M Creations started as a small gadgets shop on a 512 sqm land in April 07 and with alot of hard work and passion for business it grew to its current size of 1/4 sim hosting 3 big stores for scripted gadgets, cloths and furniture in addition to a busy camping ground.

Wurlitzer: how did you get involved with J&M Creations?

Maged: It started with me helping Jada with a script for her new line of silks back then in early 07. It was my first script in SL, and her first attempt at building and we were both newbies. That product was received quite well, so we created another one and another until we discovered our passion for doing this and it was a debut for J&M Creations.

Wurlitzer: Where is J&M Creations located?

Jada: It is located at the Nebo (130, 64, 22) simulator at the main land.

Wurlitzer: How long did it take to create J&M Creations?

Jada: The inception took 1 month with the creation of our first product in April 07, after that we kept growing over a year and a half at an incredible rate, both in terms of number of products, size of stores, sales, connections, ...etc.

Wurlitzer: Who are the staff involved with J&M Creations, what are their roles?

Maged: Two people are the founders and the main staff so far: I do the scripting work and Jada does the design/building work.

Wurlitzer: What made you decide to market J&M Creations?

Jada: I think both of us had some interpreneurial urges that did not get a chance to materialize in RL so we thought of giving it a chance in SL. Also love of creativity and building a successful thing.

Wurlitzer: What are some of products featured at J&M Creations?

Maged: Out flagship products include the "Robotar", a human looking intelligent robot that is loaded with features making it a perfect host for any venue, the "Master Animated Book", which is a a publishing solution for book authors in SL, also commonly used by photographers and content providers to publish their contents in form of books that can be sold or distributed. We also feature a big range of business and consumer scripted gadgets of all kinds. In addition, we have a very trendy line of fashion that is compared to the big designer names in SL. Last but not least, we have a growing collection of stylish furniture.

Wurlitzer: Whats are the price range for the products that J&M Creations carries?

Jada: Our gadgets range from 200L all the way to 10,000L. Our fashion line go from 50L all the way to 1,000L, and our furniture products range from 100L to 2,000L. We also do custom scripting and building services, which are not really cheap but well worth it for the quality and service you get.

Wurlitzer: What are your favourite ways of promoting J&M Creations?

Jada: We have classifieds on SL Search and an online store at SL Exchange with paid Ads. We also ask our customers/campers to add us to their PIcks. But our greatest asset is our good reputation of focusing on customers and attention to quality, which keeps growing our circle of loyal customers who bring others.

Wurlitzer: What is the Robotar?

Jada: It is an intelligent human-looking friendly programmable robot equipped with features making it a perfect host for any venue.

Wurlitzer: How did J&M Creations get involved with the Robotar?

Maged: The idea came to us from working with ALICE, a famous web based artificial intelligence engine. We thought we must bring this technology to SL. So we started with our first generation or robots that had a furry look, can talk intelligently, greets visitors, makes announcements and entertain visitors. We soon released another version with a human body and added to it more requested features by our customers like paying campers, configurable speech, low prim rezzing and serving objects. Recently, we released our last version which adds a more realistic texturable body, animations, and alot more other features.

Wurlitzer: What is the avatars need for Robotar?

Maged:The robotar consists of 3 items : the base human mannequin, a scripted brain, and a style rezzer that adds one of the robotar's unique styles. We offer a number of styles so one or more can be purchased.

Wurlitzer: What are some features for the Robotar?

Maged: +GREAT LOOKS (SCULPTED MANNEQUIN, AVATAR TEXTURES, STYLE COLLECTION, ANIMATIONS)

+PERFECT HOST (PERSONALIZATION, ANNOUNCING, FRIENDLY GREETING, GREETING ANIMATION, VISITOR REPORTS, PARCEL SECURITY, TAP LISTENING, ITEM DELIVERY, RECEIVING MONEY)

+TRAFFIC AID (INTELLIGENT CHATTING, CHAT PROFILES, SOCIAL CAMPING, CAMPING CONFIG, ANTI-ROBOT CAMPING)

+PROGRAMMABLE ACTIONS: (Call Action, Give Action, Info Action, URL Action, JOIN Action, PLAY Action,SAY Action, REZ Action) templates

+BEST PRACTICES (EASY CONFIGURATION, MULTIPLE OPERATORS, FLEXIBLE SETUP, LAG MANAGEMENT, COPY PERMISSION, FREE UPDATES)

Wurlitzer: What are the requirements involving purchase of the Robotar?

Maged: Just buying the 3 mentioned items. More styles can be bought later. Also owners can add their own styles.

Wurlitzer: How do you assemble Robotar?

Maged: You rez the style rezzer, put the mannequin and the brain in its contents and finally touch thr rezzer. The robotar will rez right on top of it ready for use.

Wurlitzer: Does Robotar have any modifable parameters that needs to be configured?

Maged: + CHARACTER PARAMETERS (channel, gender, bot id, bot name)

+ HOST OPTIONS (operators, tip message, greeting, item, sound, range, email, broadcast, rate)

+ CAMPING OPTIONS (reward, interval, threshold, policy, group, gift, cash, cash limit)

+TEXTURES (head, upper, lower)

+ PROGRAMMABLE MENU ACTIONS: (Call Action, Give Action, Info Action, URL Action, JOIN Action, PLAY Action,SAY Action, REZ Action)

Wurlitzer: How do you operate the Robotar?

Maged: Persistent parameters are configured with notecards in the robotar's contents. There is also a touch menu for quick turning on/off common features by owner. Visitors get a menu with the programmed actions configured by the owner.

The owner's menu has the following actions: No/Announce, No/Greet, No/Move, No/Camp, No/Listen, De/Activate, Visitors, Buttons, Security (Eject, Send Home, Ban/Allow)

Wurlitzer: Describe the Robotars behavior

Maged: The Robotar is only functional when it is active. Deactivating it turns off all of its functionality (except checking visitors, security and action buttons).

- When the Robotar is active, it listens and reponds to chat on its private channel. It displays the message and its reply in open chat with a "typing" sound effect.

- When the Robotar is in announcing mode, it says the broadcast message in the general chat every broadcast interval.

- When the Robotar is in greeting mode, it greets any avatar entering its sensing range by saying the greeting message in chat, playing the greeting sound and giving the greeting item (if any).

- The robotar sends a daily report to the configured email address(es) containing visitor names and daily average number of visitors (taken on the last 7 days).

- The robotar shows the same information when the Visitors button is clicked in the menu.

- When the Robotar is in animating mode, its eyes blink, its body moves to left and right, and it walks to visitors and offers to shake their hands.

- When the Robotar is in listening mode, it listens to all open chat in its hearing distance and relays them to owner (if not inside its sensing radius).

- When the robotar is paid a tip, it says the tip message in the chat coupled with an exploding cashnotes particle effect.

- When visitors drop inventory items (except scripts) on the robotar, it delivers them to the owner immediately.

- When visitors touch the robotar, they get a menu with the programmed action buttons.

- When the Robotar is in camping mode, it displays the reward and interval info in its floating text.

- When the Robotar is in group-only mode, it only chats with campers in the same group. Others are informed of this with a message in the chat.

- Every chat message with the robotar earns the camper one credit. When the number of credits reaches the configured threshold, the camper is considered a candidate for the reward.

- Credit is only earned if the camper is a human (not object) in the same parcel as the Robotar and is not busy or away from keyboard.

- Based on the camping policy, the Robotar gives reward to the camper with the most credit (policy=ONE) or to all candidates (policy=ALL). The reward is either cash or gift depending on its type.

- The winners are announced in the chat. If the reward type is CASH, the payment is also coupled with an exploding-cashnotes particle effect.

- The winners get a question box with a math trivia. Only after successfully answering the trivia, do they receive the reward (anti-bot feature).

- When the maximum camping budget is reached for the day, the camping function is suspended until the next day when it resumes again. The Robotar's message clearly indicates this state.

Wurlitzer: Does Linden Lab approve of having a bot like Robotar in Second Life?

Maged: Yes. All features of the robotar are legit and goes with the code of ethics of SL. It is a tool to help land owners manage their routine host duties and keep visitors entertained and informed.

Wurlitzer: What are your future plans regarding J&M Creations and Robotar?

Jada: We continue to grow the product lines of J&M Creations by listening to our customers and addressing their requirements with innovative solutions. We also continue to entertain custom work that we think is interesting and adds value to our experience. For the robotar in particular, we are planning a "male" version since our current version is female only. Also, we have plans to create some targetted variations of the robotar, like working for example as a strip dancer that entertains guests and strip down for money :)

Wurlitzer: What are some groups that members can join regarding J&M Creations ?

Jada: J&M Creation VIP ( for support, product announcement and updates)

Jada: J&M Creations (for camping, product announcement)

Wurlitzer: How many members would are active in the J&M Creations groups?

Jada: We have 300 active members.

Wurlitzer: Does J&M Creations have any sponsors?

Jada: We currently do not have sponsors, we are self-funding. But we are open to sponsoring opportunities.

Wurlitzer: What are some of your goals for J&M Creations for the future?

Maged: We would like to see our scripted gadgets business become SL # 1 in a year or so. We are currently among the top 10 based on traffic. We also want to grow our fashion and furniture lines aggressively over the coming couple of years. We are also working on another business venture to make SL scripting more accessible to SL users.

Wurlitzer: If you weren’t involved with J&M Creations, what you have been doing?

Jada: We would have probably worked more on enlarging our social network in SL and having fun.

Wurlitzer: What do you like to do in your spare time in SL away from J&M Creations?

Jada: We like to dance, listen to good music, and get to know people in SL.

Wurlitzer: How do you see the future of Second life to be?

Maged: I call Second Life and other virtual workds "Web 3D". I see it as a platform for collaboration socialization and creativity. It is also a serious platform for leashing new ideas and trying out business.

Wurlitzer: Where do you see J&M Creations and Robotar 6months from now?

Jada: I see J&M Creations more successful with new products hitting the market. We want to increase our sales and market share and work on our branding. For the robotar, I would like to see it deployed in more places than ever. The more it is out there, the better its story gets.

Wurlitzer: What would you like Robotar to be known for in Second Life?

Maged: The defacto land hosting solution, a useful and entertaining item that can bring value for owner and visitors.

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