This isn't meant to be a self promotion [well, it kinda is, but it's more so we can all point and laugh at with me].

About a month ago, I received invitation to be apart of a promotion bundle. I was really excited because I've been asked to be in them before and things simply didn't pan out for one reason or another [usually because the group just wasn't organized or knowledgeable enough about promo bundles]. So when Groovyloopylou asked, I said "Yes! Absolutely."

I've made hints here and there to people that I was going to be in a promo bundle. I even mentioned that my Sweet Candy Girl Set had a lot to do with it. I made that set because I knew I was in a bundle that had something to do with a "Sweet Factory". I never actually saw the pieces anyone else made. Color schemes weren't really discussed with me. I was told "Make this chair look like a sweetie" and so I did. I'm quite proud of the chair actually as it's the first piece of furniture I've done since I was a noob. I was told the chair was perfect and that it looked good. I did everything I needed to do, turned it in and gave permission for its use in a bundle. And then I waited.

Today, Nola messages me and let's me know all about Big Willy's Sexy Sweet Factory and I groaned. "Oh no... is that my bundle?" I open the page with angst and I immediately laughed until I couldn't breathe. I didn't know it was an AP bundle and I didn't really know it was that kind of bundle. Nothing wrong with it. In fact, It's a fantastic bundle that I am proud to be apart of. It's a great team of nice people and I hope to work with them again in the future.

You don't really get a good look at my chair in the marketing [although someone was kind enough to snag my Sweet Resolution Skin from my catalog and my Pink iDolly Eyes from my other catalog for one of the avatars]. In fact, you only see this very tiny glimpse of my poor, lonely chair.

It's probably because my chair doesn't really match. It's probably because my poor chair sucks. haha Whatever the reason, I'm kind of glad it's so hidden. It's a little embarrassing. Still proud of it!

Surprisingly, the bundle is selling well [I think? I mean, how would I know?] despite my sad chair. You should really check it out [hopefully to buy it and not just because you want to point and laugh at my chair].

Special thanks to my fellow bundle creators: Chickieepooh2u, Darkideas, Sean, Kimi, Elysiane, SiNafay, MarkyDM, Spirit, Alliekitten, Tidy

Today until 11:59pm PST, you can create your very own widget badge for 25% off! That means for regular members, it only costs 75,000 credits and 67,500 credits if you have a VIP membership.

As taken from the Sales Page and then edited by me:

The price of badges is relatively high to help make badges special, collectible, and valuable. When you get a badge, you know it was created by someone who really loves IMVU, and who wanted you to have something special to show off in your profile [or because they caved into peer pressure and wanted a shiny like everyone else].

Here are the steps required to create your own custom badge.

1. Decide your badge size
2. Create your image (JPG, BMP, and PNG file formats are supported) [And here is where I interject and tell you to create the badge as a GIF and upload it as a GIF because that is the ONLY format it actually supports since the badges are converted to that format after upload. You'll get some pretty yucky graphics that way so just make it a GIF first!]
   
3. Import your image
4. Cry over the amount of money you just spent on a pixelated picture.
   

There are two three methods to give badges to your friends.

1. Manually give the badge to your friend
   a. Click on "Manage Badges" in your account settings page
   b. Click on "Grant/Revoke" Option
   c. Type in avatar name that you and hit the "Grant Button"
   
2. Automatically give badges to profile page visitors who requests them.
   a. Click on "Manage Badges" in your account accounts page
   b. Click on the "Edit Settings"
   c. Click on the "Badges Auto Grant" box
   d. If you want to restrict who can get your badges, use the Panel Visibility Settings
   on your account settings page to choose a sub-set of visitors, e.g. your buddy
3. Use an automatic badge script. Several people offer one. Just browse around the forums for it.
   

IMVUStylez.net is celebrating it's second birthday! For two years they have been offering you fantastic codes, tweaks and information regarding your IMVU Home page. IMVUStylez is home of the original and TOS friendly product page generator (now defunct thanks to IMVU), the operator of the well-known Bling Directory and the all too amazing Jspunkette.

Of course, there is nothing like a new look to celebrate another completed year of excellence. Yours truly got the chance to participate in the look and fabrication of the new and improved design - including being the artist behind the banner [sorry, had to brag a little there]. Of course one need thank the lovely Mercuria for her drawing of the new IMVUStylez mascot (hmm, who doesn't have a name!). Jspunkette is a true visionary and coding expert. The new site looks great and best of all - it still offers you all of those important odds & ends of coding that you need.

On a more personal note, I've had the honor and pleasure of chatting with Jspunkette a lot in the last few weeks. Not only is she the mastermind coder behind IMVUStylez, but she's the brains behind the operation of my homepage and new product pages [not to mention one of the people behind the script for Digital Dish advertising]. Jspunkette is a total sweetheart and a pleasure to work with.

Happy birthday IMVUStylez and congratulations Jspunkette! May you have more more birthdays to celebrate!

I finally got around to downloading Version 418.6 today, which you can download here. It took longer to download than updates of past - or maybe my computer is just feeling feisty. I heard some things about it thanks to the Latest News & Release Forums so I was a bit hesitant to upgrade.

The only new thing that comes with this update are a bunch of new bugs and a pallet to use to change the background color of the dressing room (not to be confused with the Shopping Dressing Room). Well la-dee-da. Too bad IMVU has still ignored my pleadings and they have yet to remove that horrid shadowing from the dressing room. I will give them small props, however. It does look as if they toned it down slightly - or maybe my eyes are just getting old.

Unfortunately, the dressing room for your 2.0 shopping experience does not have the new color changer. Figures.

Picture time! Just a few of the colors. I don't think you all really care to see EVERY color. (Click image to see full size).


In case you're remotely interested in the outfit I'm wearing, I took a Save Outfit Picture and you can Check it out here.

Ah can you smell the immaturity in the air? It's almost not worth mentioning... but I will anyways [cut a lady some slack - I'm bored].

Looks like I have a new friend! Her [or potentially his?] name is Guest_KimiIsaBitch. I applaud you for stating the obvious and giving me entertainment.

Oh, and thanks for the messages on my home page. :)

Some comments in reference to my last post have gotten me thinking. Maybe people have missed the point about this blog. Maybe it's not what they thought it was. I can't imagine what people thought a blog called "Digital Dish IMVU News and Gossip" would be about if not the obvious [or what I thought was the obvious].

On several occasions since I started this blog on June 30th, I have made a lot of very personal references to several developers. I've talked about people like Thovarex, DarkAngel5, Hot4Krissy, Lollirot and some others - some of it good, some bad. I make a point of making sure that if I am going to say something negative, I'm fair about it. I state only the facts of what happened and I always post exact quotes. I made a promise to myself when I started this and I have kept to that promise. I also always make sure that if I am going to say something not especially kind, I'm sure to say something positive as well.

My last post is no exception. I had plenty of kind words to put in the post. But this is also a gossip column about things going on in our community. I was bound to post something that specifically happened to me at some point. It interests me that people were outraged that I'd post something personal to myself. But that's okay. I don't understand it, but I'll accept it.

To quote an Anonymous poster, "I think you should stop bashing people on here. Or people will mistake you for Perez Hilton."

Sorry. I hate to break it to you, but this blog was started with Perez Hilton very much in mind. I'm not gay. I don't have orange hair. I didn't get punched by Will I Am's body guards... but I am a very open minded [and open-mouthed] person. Do I plan to be as ruthless? Goodness no. I'd like to think I'm not that mean. Unlike Perez Hilton, I have a soul. Unlike him, I don't just make jabs at people and things because I can. I make exact references. I post the quoted words spewed forth by the community. I don't just throw stuff up here and call it journalism.

Since all of the negative comments were left anonymously, I have no idea who all is hurt by my last post. So, I can't speak with any of you about it or apologize on a more personal level. So this is all I can offer: I apologize to those of you who were either shocked, outraged, upset or anything else negative because of my last post. I thought I'd made it clear what this blog was about. If I didn't, then that's my own fault.

I'm not sorry for the post itself. I stated the facts. Did I let myself be a little biased? Well, yes. But I thought I'd made it clear that that's what this blog was about. Wait... I know I did. Check out the About section directly to your right and read it [or just read below].

Welcome to my IMVU News Blog. Get up to date and totally biased news on what's happening in our IMVU community from me! I dish it out - from the community wide changes to the small time drama.

One again, I apologize to those I hurt - including Terror. But I stand by my decision to make the post as well as my point of view.

See the Digital Dish Girl in this image? She was made by Terror. She's pretty nice and I'm happy with the piece. The cost was steep - 10,000 credits. But I'm a fairly generous developer and I didn't mind the cost because I wanted the piece done practically immediately. I was anxious and it was a pretty big piece.

The image is also used on the Digital Dish homepage - and again, Terror is credited for the artwork.

And this is the avatar picture I used for a whole month after I got married. The avatar image within the picture was also done by Terror. He did a good job on the enhancements. The hair was... different but hey, it's a heck of a lot better than I can do. Again, cost was steep - another 10,000 credits. But again, I'm generous and I was really excited about the piece.

The piece was used only as an avatar image [as shown] and as a temporary display filler for the icons I am selling. So Terror was never credited anywhere except for my file sale thread Virtual Virtuosities where Terror points out that the image I'm using was created by him.

And then I needed another piece of avatar art - this time to be used on my new product pages and home page. It was pretty important to me and I spent hours playing dress up and digging through my hundreds of poses to pick out just the right one. I made my decision and took the picture. But I needed an artist yet again.

Of course being that I like Terror's enhancements, he would have been the natural choice based on work alone. But his work ethic is pretty flaky. If you scroll down to the bottom of this website, you will see that Terror is clearly noted for his artwork on this website. And I also did a nice Blog Post for him in recognition of his work. This wasn't good enough for him. Okay, no problem! I offered him ad space for FREE and FOREVER and asked that he provide me with the banner needed and I would link it wherever he wanted. Didn't get the banner. But yet he went on to do the wedding artwork for me.

So a friend talked with me about the artwork I needed and I mentioned that I wouldn't pay 10,000 credits again. Let's face it - I really don't have a lot of money and I knew if I shopped around, I could have easily found someone to do it for less. But this friend gave me 5,000 credits so I would use Terror's services again. So I took the money and gave it to Terror in exchange for more artwork on July 31st.

I told him I needed the piece "in about a week" because I wasn't in a huge hurry. I was still working with the lovely Jspunkette on the coding so I didn't need the piece immediately. Being that he already did two pieces of work, I assumed he understood what we were doing, but I explained it anyways. But then the work in progress (WIP) I got from him had the arms completely removed [he told me he "didn't like the arms so he removed them"] and the hair drawn from the edge of the canvas - rather than pasting the image into a new, larger canvas where he's have plenty of room to draw it. I complained of course - it needed to be done correctly and I'd already paid.

On August 5th, he showed me the completed image. I agreed to it and asked it be sent. He offered to send both the PNG and the PSD file to me. On August 6th, I messaged him asking for the transparent image. I knew the piece was done, so I didn't feel bad about reminding him for it. But then days passed. On August 10th, I reminded him that I had paid him and needed to be sent the artwork. Again, I knew the piece was done, so I didn't understand why I was still waiting for it. No biggie - we all forget or have lives. He finally sent it to me.

Now, the agreement was that in exchange for the image, he would get 10,000 credits from me as well as recognition for doing the work on the pages the image appeared (as I specifically stated - my home page and product pages). I specifically wrote to him...

"There is going to be a sort of ad space for the digital-dish ads and I still need an image for you to put there. There will be another thank you section where you will be. Eh it's hard to explain. lol You'll see."

Well I haven't finished the thank you section yet. In fact, I was working on it before I got a nasty message from Terror, complaining yet again. And I already reminded him about the banner for the ad space [which he decided today he doesn't want because apparently he's too good for an ad reel where other people's banners will cycle through]. I promised him he'd get the shout out he deserves.

So here it is Terror. I have linked this blog to your name a total of eleven times in this post. It's seen daily by hundreds of people. Is this good enough for you? Don't worry - I'll make sure you get what I promised you. I don't go back on my word. I'm sorry if I didn't work fast enough for your liking but funny thing - it took many days for me to get my artwork from you and I didn't complain. I wasn't threatening to you nor rude.

Enjoy your moment in the spotlight. And for those who think this post is rude - well, I'm just telling it like it is. This blog is about IMVU news and gossip - and my point of view.

I'm still in the process of reading these New Forum Rules. Honestly, I have no idea what has changed. Perhaps some of you can comment and shed some light on it for me.

Differences I do see:

• Thread "bump" changed to 10 hour intervals [or maybe it was always 10 hours and we've just been pretending it was 6?]

• I'm pretty sure in some ways, this rule applies to Digital-Dish.com [I don't think IMVU is real happy with my site anyways.]

Offsite Linking
Any offsite link must adhere to our Terms of Service.
The following forms of links are prohibited:
- Links to commercial sites
- Direct links to competitor sites
- Links to phishing or other malicious sites
- Links to any content that is considered Access Pass or Unfit for IMVU
- Any links to pornographic or hate sites. Any instances of this type of linking may result in a permanent ban from the forums and may also include disablement of your IMVU Account.

• Pretty sure this one is new as well:

Requests for Charitable Donations
As per IMVU’s Terms of Service, requests for charitable donations are not permitted. Donation requests that benefit federally recognized 501.c3 organizations are the exception. If you feel your cause in support of a 501.c3 org should be considered, please send your request to communityteam@imvu.com for pre-approval.

So what do you all think? Anything I missed?

I've been mulling it over in my head and I just HAVE to talk about this.

There is a new AP bundle called Avatars Gone Wild by Hot4Krissy and GothPoser. It's pretty much exactly what the majority of you are thinking - an IMVU version of Girls Gone Wild. I have no issues with the bundle itself. I'm sure it's great. But the marketing gets a HUGE thumbs down from me.

Do you see what I see?


In case you don't get the clue, the avatar lifting her shirt to expose her e-breasts for the world to see, is wearing a wedding ring. Which leads me to my next question(s)...

1. Who did the marketing for this bundle?
2. What mastermind wore a wedding ring for the picture?
3. Does this turn you off from buying the bundle?

Don't get me wrong... It's likely the fault of IMVU. It usually is come to think of it. Most creators don't get much, if any control over the pictures and marketing. But whoever is to blame... know that I find this is very poor taste.

Let's cut the red tape on this one, shall we? It now costs $19.99 to remove the "Guest_" from your name. Ridiculous? You bet it is. We saw the cost of the Name Change Token (NCT) go up last month from $6.00 to $12.99!

Here is a list of the current prices:

Name Registration: $19.99
Name Change Token: $12.99
Age Verification: $15.99
VIP Club: $6.99 / per month.

I should mention that the VIP club costs 99 cents for first time VIP club registrants and it includes the name registration. So even if you aren't eligible for the 99 cent special, it's still a heck of a lot cheaper to get the VIP for one month and then cancel your subscription. Of course now that I'm said that, IMVU will undoubtedly change it.

Get in on a discussion about this HERE or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Things around IMVU seem pretty quiet right now. That makes for a boring day at the office for me! So just a friendly reminder that if you have anything to share - news, gossip, etc that pertains to IMVU, you can e-mail me at IMVUDigitalDish@gmail.com with your tidbit.

More people seem to be getting into Twitter and I'm enjoying seeing all of your daily tweets about your life and your new products! But please remember that if you want the daily twitterings that bring you the dare I say awesome news you get here, you will have to follow IMVUDigitalDish and not my personal Twitter account. (You can follow that one too, but unless you like knowing that I'm twittering and peeing at the same time or what I'm having for dinner, don't bother haha)

In other Digital-Dish news, we have had some great sponsors this month. You can see them in the featured section. Be sure to check out those sponsors and their links! And remember, it's only 5,000 credits per month for ad space of your own. That's less than $3.00 and it reserves your spot on THREE different pages (and soon, my product pages as well). That's a HUGE steal!

Recently, the Access Pass version of the Daily Outfit Challenge went public. If you're interested in checking it out, you can click here if you have an AP. Edit: Apparently I'm totally wrong! Oops. Well, we're all human. I was told that the AP version went public and since I can see it when I otherwise couldn't, I assumed that to be correct. Sorry y'all! In order to see the AP Daily Outfit Challenge, you have to Join This Group!

The AP version of the DOC is still relatively new and few people in comparison to its General Audience counterpart, participate in the contest. I've been checking it out the last few days. The themes seem decent enough - mostly repeats of past themes from the traditional DOC.

Quite frankly, it seems like people are using it as a reason to get naked and take pictures. It's like looking at fancy, internet pixel porn with pretty colors and whimsical backgrounds. I looked through at least ten of the themes and in each one, I found at least 5 people who were either topless or completely naked. Is this really necessary!? What on earth does a Steampunk challenge have to do with your naked behinds? What would possess someone to expose their e-breasts in lieu of such a theme? I don't understand it.

Is the AP Outfit Challenge still so new that people are just eager to literally bare all for no other reason than because they can? Silly me thought when the AP version was introduced "Finally! I can use all of those totally perfect outfits that I couldn't use in the GA contest due to a few red pixels showing." Getting naked never even crossed my mind.

Switching gears, I'm beginning to wonder if the AP DOC is IMVU's ploy to find some UFI (Unfit For IMVU) content. With themes like All Tied Up and Botched Surgery, I can't help but raise that question... and an eyebrow.

A couple of days ago, I was invited to a new group (yeah.. shocking *end sarcasm*). But I joined it because it sounds rather promising (and I just love adding to my now 100+ list of groups).

The group is called Oppotunity Knocks and it is moderated by Harley1979. It's not exactly IMVU oriented. it's a group for discussion about opportunities to earn money online outside of our virtual world by using media outlets such as CafePress, Zazzle, DeviantArt, Second Life and more. It's made with a simple philosophy in mind "Don't put all your pixel eggs in one virtual basket."

It's this blogger's opinion that with this horrible economy we are in, using IMVU as an income is becoming more and more impossible. It seems every week between the economy and changes in the catalog, we're all making less money these days. Credit resellers are having a hard time selling credits, so they are having a hard time buying from developers. Sales are at an all time low for most.

I recommend this group. I think it can be beneficial for all of us to look at the world (both real and not) around us and explore other opportunities.

I hated to do it, but I had to monetize the Digital Dish blog. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but the blog sadly has yet to pay for itself. It costs money for the domain name and for the hosting space used by several elements of this site. So in hopes of gaining a little more revenue, I have placed relevant Google Ads within the side bar and bottom of the page.

If you'd like to help me financially run this site, purchasing ad space is a great way to go for very little money. With an average of 100+ unique hits daily, it's the perfect way to increase your own traffic - especially since the ad space is shown on my IMVU home page as well as the Digital Dish homepage. The price is 5,000 credits for a month of ad space. That's less than $3.00!

You can also help by clicking the Donate button in the right-hand column. It leads directly to PayPal. Every bit helps and your contribution is definitely appreciated!

Again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you all understand. Hopefully in time, I'll be able to remove the ads completely.

This is a rare, public announcement. IMVU is actually seeking new moderators for the Daily Outfit Challenge. IMVU is typically very hush hush when it needs new people to moderate and it's interesting (to me anyways) that they are being so open about it. Heck, they even gave us a real e-mail to contact!

If you are interested in becoming a moderator, you must meet the following requirements and complete the following tasks:

Have previously participated in the DOC
Been a member of the community for at least six months
You must e-mail your real name, avatar name and real age to the following address
communityteam@imvu.com

Such an odd topic to see (in my opinion anyways). IMVU is introducing their own movie series called "Private". It's a 10 week web series about "Easton, an exclusive private boarding school in Connecticut, where having the brains and the money to get in doesn’t necessarily mean you have what it takes to survive…."

You can get a sneak peek of the casting call for this series . It's basically a preview to the actual series that includes interviews with the three finalists chosen to compete for the role of Kiran Hayes. It looks like you can earn 10 credits per episode you watch. Well golly gee.

It appears that in lieu of this new series, IMVU has given us a movie tab within the 2.0 client. This is great for the IMVU users who make their own videos. I know there are some people who make quite a few of them. The tab exists when you download 416.12. Here is a picture of the tab so far.
Is any this really neccesary for the client? In my opinion - no. Why can't we all just go to YouTube to watch these? I understand that the IMVU videos are at least related to our virtual world, but what on earth does this series about rich kids in Connecticut have to do with us? Oh IMVU, you never cease to amaze and confuse.

Last night, something happened to me that changed my entire perspective on the internet. All of my most important online accounts, including my PayPal account, were hacked by one individual - seemingly in a matter of minutes. By the time the person was done, they had the following:

Three personal e-mail accounts
AIM Messenger
My hosting space
Ripway.com account
PayPal
MySpace
One IMVU account

Some of the above is serious and some of it isn't. The most serious part is that I like to think I choose good passwords. I use lots of letters and numbers and even capitalization. I make them unique and hard to guess. But even that didn't save me from one person taking over my entire life last night.

I found out I was being hacked when AIM sent me a message, telling me I was logged in at two different locations. Suddenly, people on my list that I wasn't even talking to began messaging me. I wrote a mass message to my list to tell them I had been hacked. The guy hacking me, used my own AIM account to message me and began telling me that I needed better passwords and told me everything he hacked.

I started changing my passwords - starting with my AIM account. I opened my e-mail to find multiple messages for password retrievals that I didn't ask for - all of them opened. That is how I knew he'd gotten to everything. Not only did he have my main, personal e-mail account, but the use of that account lead him to other accounts associated with me. And since I was using two e-mail accounts interchangeably, it was only too easy for him to use one against the other. Whatever password he couldn't find, he could just ask that it be sent to my e-mail and he had it.

He gained a lot of my personal information - including my full name, address and home telephone number from the account section of my hosting space as held by the company I host with. He was able to read correspondence between myself and family as well as my attorney - very personal and confidential messages.

After he was done hacking into my accounts (or so he said he was) he began talking to me, telling me exactly how he did it. He started with my Ripway.com account. While this topic is important to the IMVU community (and anyone really), I think it's even more important because so many of you use Ripway.com as a free hosting site for your badges and your home page.

According to my hacker, he first landed on me by hacking into the root folders of Ripway. There he was able to find credit card information as well as the logins and passwords of everyone who has purchased space from Ripway. He took my password and the e-mail address associated with the account and put two and two together. He used one account to gain access to the next going back and forth through my entire online life. If he had continued, he would have ended up in my Bank Account. He already had control over my PayPal assets.

Fortunately, I was lucky and the guy was, I dare say... nice about it. He left me alone after that and I changed every password to every account I own. I spent hours last night making crazy new e-mails and dividing up everything. I learned a very valuable lesson last night and I felt it was important to share.

Twitter is quickly growing in popularity and giving social networks like MySpace and Facebook a run for their money. Twitter asks the simple question of its users "What are you doing?" and it's amazing that such a simple question has an unlimited amount of answers.

How does this apply to IMVU? Well for starters, it seems every day I run across another member of our community who has a Twitter account. Even IMVU Inc. has one and they use it to update us on important news from new client releases to Daily Outfit Contest themes. It's come to my attention what a great marketing opportunity this is both for each content creator personally, as well as the entire IMVU community.

Each person I find uses Twitter a bit differently. Me for example, I have a more personal twitter account in which I update friends and family of quite literally what I'm doing at any given moment of the day. Sometimes I throw in some IMVU related "tweets" but it's mostly your every day stuff. But others have taken their Twitter accounts to a more business type level. Developers like Pop, NickyRat, Ashantaey and DarkAngel5 use their accounts to do announcements of new products, freebie giveaways and more. And this marketing idea seems to be working well for them.

I think it's important that the community work together in support of our virtual world. It's become apparently that IMVU Inc. cannot sustain our life here themselves and I believe it is up to us to do our share. With that in mind, I want to share a few Twitter marketing tips!

1. When announcing new products, be sure to leave a link in your "tweet" about the product. Always use a URL shortener so that you can fit as many characters as possible. For Twitter, I like to use http://bit.ly for its Twitter integration. It allows you to see how many times the link has been clicked on.

2. Don't just spam your followers with product information. Communicate with them. Read their "tweets" and respond to them. Make them feel like you care about them, and they will care more about what you are posting.

3. Play games with your followers and offer products from your catalog as a prize.

4. When possible, include the tag #imvu in your "tweets". Together, we can make #imvu a Trending Topic, thus getting our virtual world some attention!

Stumbled across some interesting gossip today while checking out an ad IMVU has running called Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I misclicked and I ended up on the purchase page to find IMVU claiming to be an Accredited Business of the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

I then remembered about a year ago seeing a discussion about contacting the BBB about IMVU's shady dealings with their company. The BBB website had many open claims in reference to IMVU that were quite negative. So how on earth could it be that IMVU managed to become an accredited business?

I checked the BBB website and there is no listing for IMVU or IMVU Inc. anywhere upon searching for it in the "I" section. However, a little research landed me on a page that references IMVU as an accredited business since October 2008 as seen here. I find this funny considering the page specifically states "This company has been accredited since 10/01/2008 and we are satisfied that it honors its commitment. The company has agreed to uphold our accreditation standards, which include a commitment to act in accordance with ethical business practices and to respond to customer complaints."

I'm sure many of us would agree that IMVU has not upheld the standards of the BBB and most certainly does not "act in accordance with ethical business practices". I find interesting that the BBB chose to rate IMVU Inc. an "A+". For what? Because it most certainly wasn't effort. Even more interesting are the horribly negative reviews by real customers on the site and yet, the BBB gives IMVU Inc. an "A+". That's laugable at best.

I hope that you all use the linkes provided wisely. *wink*

The Graphic Arts Services and Requests (GASR) forum is being moved as early as tomorrow, July 17th to the "social" section of the forum index. All of your bookmarks and saved links will still work - they will just be moved to what is being called "the appropriate place" by forum moderator, Ewe. Check out the discussion thread here.

What does this mean? Most importantly, it means that posts in the GASR forum will no longer count as posts made in regards to Tiers. No word if this means all previous postings this month will count or not, but from tomorrow and forward you will no longer earn points by posting in that section. It's my understanding that your current posts probably won't count.

Personally, I hope that by moving the section, we will see less spam but that's highly unlikely since it is being placed in the social section of the index. It raises a question - Are graphic artists not considered content creators? I'd like to think yes, of course they are! The dare I say unbelievably talented artists who frequent the GASR forum are in their own right, content creators and deserve to earn points based on their community participation. It's a shame they are being moved like this. I see IMVU's point of view, but it's sad.

As stated on page 2 of the thread posted by Ewe in regards to this change...

"The placement of GASR has been discussed for a long time - it is not closely enough related to Content Creating to be a Content Creator forum. When Tiers were introduced this became even more of a concern.

While some people choose to offer catalog icons and banners as pieces within their shop, this is the only loose connection to content creating this forum holds.

The primary purpose of the GASR is the trade of Art. Be it a catalog icon, avatar picture, drawing, etc, it is social. The GASR is permitted more leeway with "spam" than any of the true CC forums.

The primary purpose of having the Content Creator forums included as a possible way to earn tier points is to reward those who are helping others directly in relation to the Content Creating program.

As such, staff has finally agreed to move the GASR forum.

Now - the direct question i received was, will the posts made already go towards tiers. I cannot answer this directly, and I am not sure how long it would take to get a direct answer, but I will ask.

However, based on what knowledge I have on how the forums work, and how the tiers work, my best guess would be that no, they will not. Once the forum is moved, the posts will no longer be under the CC category, and therefore will not be included when the system collects post counts from the forums still in that category.

I understand that this may be a bummer for some, but, the GASR is not an area that is really fulfilling the purposes that were in mind when making the forums part of the tier system."

Thank you to Violated for this news tip.