ETHOS, MARCH ISLANDS - It's hard to believe that it's been nearly an entire year since we opened The MAX™ on Saona Beach, a luxury high-rise tower that has been consistently booked solid to maximum occupancy pretty continuously. In fact, it has really become a community all it's own.

Over the course of the first few months of success on Saona, bit by bit, we bought more and more land around The MAX™ until we owned every square meter of land on the Saona sim. We added a few rental beach houses, expanded the waterfront, introduced some of the grid's first rideable waves that interact with special scripted surf boards, and had some amazing events like some art shows, a few DJ-based parties, and a number of live music shows.

Cyl & JueL jam TOGETHER at The MAX™.One of the highlights was a rare behind-the-scenes "backstage pass" sneak peak featuring the live collaboration between two of the best musicians in SL and two of my absolute favorites: Cylindrian and JueL Resistance.

The two also played (numerous times separately as well as together) at our shopping/entertainment destination THE SHOPS™ on Plush Pi when it was in full swing last year before we said goodbye to our very own Christieanna. Those efforts will re-emerge BIG TIME in a number of live music projects we're working on. We'll keep you posted on that.

Anyway, after we owned all the land on the sim, it was a natural for us to want to own the sim at an estate level. We negotiated a rare acquisition of the sim with virtual land titan and self-made millionaire Anshe Chung as Saona made a transition from being part of the ACS (Anshe Chung Studios) estate portfolio to being part of our own March Islands estate portfolio. At one point, Max March Industries was the largest private land owner on ACS' Dreamland. The only reason that has changed is due to how much we've transitioned to our own estate or to our other strategic partners around the grid.

A sign of the times... Entering Ethos, March Islands.The success on Saona is going stronger than ever. The MAX™ tower and beach homes are highly-regarded as one of the best places in SL to call home and the occupancy and loyalty there really reflects that. We've made some improvements on the sim now that we are complete owners at the estate level. We upgraded servers, and picked up and moved the sim to an entirely new part of the grid surrounded by vast open waters.

Why'd we do that? So we could expand the Saona Success into a bigger master plan that we launched back in March of this year called March Islands. There will be more Saona-related sims. We will be moving some of the things we have scattered around the grid to make part of our sprawling estate, and for the first time we will be offering land ownership to our customers.

That leads me to introduce you to the latest installment in March Islands called Ethos. The Ethos sim is the symbol of a lot of future things to come. Saona is a major epicenter and The MAX™ will be just as important, if not MORE, as we add value to the surrounding area with more views to see from those spectacular high-rise condo homes. More open waterways and luxury homes will surround this crown jewel of the March Islands estate sims. In addition, we will offer openspace sim ownership and rental. Full, half, and quarter openspace sim under this continent estate.

COME SEE US! If you are already a Second Life® resident, come visit us right now by teleporting over. If not, click here right now to join for free.

Max March Industries is pleased to announce its sponsorship and support of the Merovingi Fashion Awards, better known as the MFA.

Celebrating virtual designers and their accomplishments, the MFA seeks to showcase the best works from the designers that are truly at the top of their craft.

It is a great pleasure for us to support this worthy cause, to bring more visibility to the best artisans of Second Life, and to be aligned with Merovingi who we've long respected.

The MFA festivities run from April 20th to the 26th of 2008 and will take place on a number of sims: Osmium, Ruthenium, Rhodium, and Iridium.

There has been quite a stir lately especially among Estate owners about Linden Lab's recent reduction in sim and void sim (openspace) pricing.  Outraged Residents claim this change has dropped the value of their land holdings, will make it harder for them to compete against newcomers to the grid, and some even seem to be demanding some kind of recompense.  In my opinion, such Residents are using the wrong metrics. 

The value of our virtual world is what we make of it and that could not be more true than when a Resident rises to become a Concierge or Estate Resident.  In such a role, we are in-effect VARs (Value Added Resellers) to Linden's product offerings.  What we pay Linden Lab in setup and tier fee is for hosting and administration. But it is up to us as land developers, artists, brand builders, and business people, to give our sims a higher perceived value than a generic blank sim.  The VIP Residents of our Saona and March Island-related sims prefer it above any other place they could call home in SL.  Similarly, our good friend Frolic Mills has created an absolute sensation with his Best of SL Boulevard sim commanding an admirable and well-deserved perceived value.

The way to value this as an Estate owner is not how much you paid for it but rather what your cost of sales is as an expense along with all your other costs involved in delivering a total experience to your audience.  For my taste, I love vendors who lower their prices for me.  The more they help me lower my costs, the more I can either expand my profit margin if I so desire, afford to introduce new content, support the works of others, and/or forward the savings to my end-customer.  Sometimes all of the above. It gives me expanded possibilities for the entry-level of our offerings.  And if Linden Lab decides to lower these prices still further or drop tier fees further, I will be delighted not distressed.

Why?  Because I do not inaccurately label the Estate I own as an asset.  Sure it has certain intangible value but you can not measure it as a fixed asset any more than you can your Flickr account or your MySpace page or the virtual host of your website. It is a liability pure and simple.  A cost of doing business against which it is our task to generate sufficient sales revenue.

Our assets are: our name, our brand, our customer base, our standing in the community, the creativity and artistry of the people who help us create the destinations, events, and experiences that are unique to this platform.  And the lower our costs of goods becomes, the higher that grows in importance and perceived value. 

I'm not without my frustrations.  Why we had a double-take on openspace pricing is anyone's guess. The new land store being delayed THE DAY OF the planned opening to "sometime within the next few weeks" frustrates me in ways I'm disappointed to say I have come to expect from Linden Lab.  There is an abundance of things to complain about.

That said, the land re-pricing was a good move and one worthy of support.  It lowers our costs and stimulates new development.  I will always be 100% in favor of anything aimed at accomplishing that.  In fact, I went on record in the official Linden Blog thanking them for the change when it was originally announced.

To all those Estate owners who feel their land is worthless now, you are likely short changing yourself.  Ask yourself this: What makes your sim different from anyone else's?  If your answer is "nothing," maybe you should never have bought a sim in the first place.  In any case, please explain to me: Under what circumstances would it be a good thing for our shared customer base if our Linden Lab cost of sales were to go up?

SAGITTARIAN SEA - Back in September we told you about our visit to the International Stock Exchange's "Investor Royale."

Among the many things to be impressed by that evening was the impressive venue they chose for the event, the SS Galaxy.

This place made such a huge impression on us and believe me HUGE is the operative word when talking about the SS Galaxy. This amazing build spans 8 stories high and (are you ready for this?) 3 entire sims wide.

Well, we are delighted to announce that, through our partners Cadence Juran and DBDigital Epsilon, our relationship with the SS Galaxy has blossomed almost since the day our avatar's set foot there.

Aerial Views of Merely the Mid-Section of the SS Galaxy.

MaxMarchRadio™ now plays aboard the SS Galaxy in between music-themed events. In addition, the good folks at the SS Galaxy had us produce a radio spot that is running in our radio broadcast throughout the grid and even the Web (thanks to our offworld partner Live365). You can hear that marketing message right now by clicking here.

We truly consider the SS Galaxy one of THE must-see places of Second Life®. Click this SLURL and TELEPORT there now! You'll be glad you did. Oh yeah... Tell them Max March sent you!