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.

Now you can get even MORE exposure with Digital Dish advertisement! Not only is your ad featured on this website as well as the Digital Dish IMVU home page, but you could find your advertisement on my new product pages Like This One!

Talk about serious exposure. Your mere 5,000 credit/per month can have you riding on the coat tails of a Pro developer. Get tons of new traffic for cheap. This website alone gets hundreds of unique hits daily. Imagine how many people could be seeing your banner on this page alone!

A reminder of what you need to do in order to take out ad space:

• Make a 180x180 image [must be GA compliant and suitable for those with photo sensitivity]
• E-mail your banner, avatar name and linked banner to IMVUDigitalDish@gmail.com to express interest
• Once your ad is confirmed, send 5,000 credits x However many months you'd like to run the ad to DigitalDish

It's really that simple! Every 90 seconds (or upon page refresh), the banner rotates for ultimate and fair exposure!

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.

IMVU finally introduces the Friends Tab in version 417.12 which you can download here. Unfortunately, for someone like me with 871 friends, this tab looks mighty messy.

They haven't done away with the regular "Buddies list" of all just yet, but according to IMVU Staffer and Engineer N8Downs, "All the engineers are definitely itching to get rid of the separate friends window, but there's still some functionality that needs to be migrated to the new UI (e.g. settings) before we can throw that old code away. As you've observed, friends mode is a big step towards that, and you can expect to see more steps in that direction soon."

One of the functions of this new tab allows us to see what Public Rooms our friends are in. I foresee a lot of people screaming for the option to not use this new "feature". While I for one, don't really care that people know I'm in a Public Chat room, I do have an issue with it being so easy for them to locate me and come in. Let's face it - I love y'all, but I don't always want to be found and bombarded with developing questions. It's all very different from scrolling through the list of Public Rooms and having that little icon that said "One of your buddies is in here" and being able to look at the list of people there.

You can view the list in different ways - whether it be all of your friends or just those online. You can also see a sort of grid view which includes the pictures and a little information regarding that friend, or a more simplified list view. So seek out these options in 417.12 you need to click the small gear icon at the upper right in the friends tab section.

Unfortunately (yes, more negative stuff) the ability to switch back and forth between IMVU 2.0 and the UI of old will soon vanish as the old "buddies list" is done away with. There go my nice catalog images.

Of course a picture is completely necessary. My apologies to the people on my buddies list. It wouldn't look right if I blurred you all out. For the sake of giving you all the real idea of what it looks like, I chose to display only the friends currently online. (Click to make larger)

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!