Walking
Down The Avenue
by Alan Jobe
Copyright
2012 Alan Jobe
Smashwords Edition
This
e-book is (c) 2012 Alan Jobe.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in critical
reviews, this material may not be reproduced in any form without the
express written consent of the publisher.
This e-book is a
continually evolving resource and is updated frequently as Empire
Avenue evolves and the rules, policies and procedures change.
This
is Smashwords version 1.2 of Walking Down The Avenue. This is the
fourth major release of this material to the public.
There are
three previous versions of this e-book:
Smashwords
version 1.1 November 1, 2011
Smashwords
version 1.0 September 1, 2011
Smashwords version beta 1: June 30,
2011
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you
would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an
additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and
did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then
please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you
for respecting the hard work of this author.
While every
effort is made to ensure the complete accuracy of the information and
advice presented herein, the author and publisher specifically
disclaim any warranty or guarantee of the accuracy or efficacy of any
information or advice contained herein. If you have questions or need
help, please feel free to contact me in the game, where I am
(e)LIBDRONE.
Alternatively you can e-mail me at writing@libdrone.info.
My
sincerest thanks to my friend Dawn for creating the book cover image
and to Claire McGonigal, (e)CMCG
the best copy editor any author has ever been lucky enough to work
with.
Thank you for purchasing my guide to succeeding on
Empire Avenue. I hope you come to enjoy the game as much as I do, and
that your social networking efforts work to your benefit as much as
mine have to mine.
Alan Jobe
Tacoma, Washington,
USA
February 1, 2012
Is
Empire Avenue Right For You?
Empire
Avenue is a social networking stock market game. Your Empire Avenue
scores and success are directly affected by your participation on
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, foursquare, Instagram,
WordPress.com and YouTube. If you already use at least two of these
social networks and are interested in maximizing your social
networking effectiveness, you might very much enjoy Empire Avenue. If
you are not already participating in any of the above social
networks, but are interested in joining and want help and company
while you do, Empire Avenue could be a great tool for you. If you're
already a master engager and have thousands of friends and fans on
all of your networks, Empire Avenue can be a very effective tool for
managing it all. If you don't participate much on Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn, Flickr, foursquare, Instagram, WordPress.com or YouTube and
don't much want to, Empire Avenue is probably not for you.
If
You Find You DON'T Like It
If
at any time you decide that you do not want to participate on Empire
Avenue anymore, the very first thing you should do is go to Settings
(the cogwheel symbol at the top right of any Empire Avenue screen
), click on Account Settings
and then choose Delete My Account at the lower left of the Settings
screen. Delete your account before you tell any of your friends that
you plan to do so. If you tell people that you are going to delete
your account and that they should sell, some people will sell. Each
time someone sells, your share price goes down. The last shareholders
to get and act on your message could lose most of the value of their
investment in you as your shares get traded down. The most awful
mistake that I see players make over and over, week after week, is to
send a shareholder mail announcing why they've decided to quit Empire
Avenue. When you delete your account via the control panel, all of
your shareholders get a full refund at your then current share price.
Your shareholders lose nothing if you just abruptly up and quit. They
stand to lose almost everything if you announce that you are going to
quit. PLEASE. Just
quit. Don't announce it first.
I
also think it bears mentioning that if you do quit Empire Avenue,
you will most likely keep and continue to interact with the friends
and acquaintances you've made there. I have had lots of friends
who for various reasons decided to delete their Empire Avenue
accounts. Very few of them stopped being my friend, and
certainly not because
they are no longer on the Avenue.
How
To Get Started
If
you're not already signed up, join
Empire Avenue now! You'll
get 2,000 eaves free from me. When you sign up, the first thing you
will do is to choose your ticker symbol. It must be between 1 and 12
alphanumeric characters. Many people use their three initials,
believing that shorter ticker symbols are best. Others use their
entire handles (on Empire Avenue I am (e)LIBDRONE),
while still others are forced to abbreviate their handles or conceive
new ones. I think that a catchy and memorable ticker symbol is a lot
more important than a short ticker symbol.
Once you've chosen
your ticker symbol, you'll connect in your Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn, Flickr, foursquare, Instagram, WordPress.com and YouTube
accounts. It will take at least five full days of having your
accounts connected before Empire Avenue assigns you your first
permanent scores for each network. These are displayed across the
upper right of your Empire Avenue profile page and give a quick score
for how well you are doing on each network.
As part of the
sign-up process you will be prompted to upload an avatar image. Some
folks use their own face picture, as on Facebook, while others go for
their logo, or an animal or nature pic. Do try to choose an image
that scales well and can be displayed in various sizes. Do consider
what your image will say about you to all the people who will view
it. Don't obsess or spend too much time worrying about your image.
You can change it at any time and as many times as you wish via the
Settings --> Edit Profile menu.
Pro
Tip:
Change your avatar image four times within an hour to unlock the
“Shapeshifter” secret achievement.
Before
You Do Anything Else
Go
to your Empire Avenue profile page and scroll down just a little bit.
Look for the words “Manage
who can post shouts and send you messages”
just below your status box and just above your Shout Out box. Click
there (or just click on the words in this e-book), and on your
privacy settings page, check the box to allow Everyone to post to
your Empire Avenue page. Unlike on Facebook, where there are some
very legitimate reasons for keeping your wall locked, I strongly
advise you to open your Empire Avenue wall. If other users are
allowed to leave messages for you, these messages are the beginnings
of conversations, which lead to relationships, which lead to pretty
much everything. Social networking is all about building
relationships with other real people. So check the Everyone box and
plan to chat and socialize on your way to Empire Avenue
success.
Buy
Stocks
Empire Avenue
is a game of buying and selling stocks, so as soon as you have
connected your networks and uploaded an avatar, you will want to
invest all of your initial eaves into stocks so that you will begin
earning dividends. Every stock pays a dividend once a day. The amount
of the dividend varies and depends on the blogging and social
networking activity the stock's operator engages in. There are many
different investment strategies: some players are mostly trying to
promote their brand (company, career, product), others are mostly
interested in meeting people and socializing, while still others are
mostly playing for virtual wealth. Regardless of what strategies you
ultimately decide to use, it's best to go ahead and invest all of
your initial eaves.
You may choose to buy a relatively small
number of shares in expensive players who pay out very high rates of
dividends, usually while maintaining a high but stable price. Or you
may prefer to invest mostly in brand new accounts, looking to gain
from their appreciation as their share prices typically rise as they
connect in their social networks and begin participating on Empire
Avenue-- which often prompts people to participate more on all of
their social networks. You might choose to focus your investments on
mid-level players who pay pretty good dividends and still have room
for lots more growth. Chances are you will try all of these
approaches as you develop your own personal style of Empire Avenue
play.
About your share price: when you first begin, your share
price is an even 10 eaves. (Eaves are Empire Avenue's virtual
currency. You can buy additional eaves if you like on the Shop
page, but it is not possible at this time to sell eaves for real
money.) As people buy your shares, your share price rises. For the
first 7 days that you are on Empire Avenue, other players can buy a
maximum of 200 of your shares. You, likewise, can buy up to 200
shares in any other player's stock. After your first week, other
players may buy up to 600 shares in you if they have bought the
necessary upgrades.
To buy more than 200 shares in another
player, you must purchase Bigger Piece of the Pie upgrades in the
Shop. These upgrades cost 250,000 eaves each (for 250, 300, 350 and
400 shares), 350,000 eaves for 500 shares and 550,000 eaves for 600
shares. The upgrades can also be purchased for $20 (in real hard
cash) + 10,000 eaves each for the first five, $25 in cash (no eaves
cost) for the 600.
Once you've spent all of your eaves, you
may want to leave the game for a few hours. While it is not in fact
true that a watched pot never boils, hitting refresh every five
minutes is not a very productive use of your social-networking time.
So do set Empire Avenue aside for a bit and get out there and be
social!
Be
Social
Empire Avenue
is all about social networking, and while it is not necessary to join
all of the social networks that Empire Avenue tracks, you really do
need to be a strong participant in at least one or two of them and to
have an account in a few more. As you play and interact with others
on Empire Avenue and in related Facebook groups, you will be able to
meet lots of people. Even if you never create videos or take
pictures, for instance, you can still add contacts and make friends
on Flickr and YouTube, and by liking and commenting on your friends'
photos and videos, earn scores on these two social networking content
creation networks. Even if, like me, you don't have a mobile phone,
you can still sign up on foursquare and (shhhh! Don't tell!)
“check in” anywhere in the
world from the comfort of your desk. As far as I know, however, the
only way to sign up for Instagram is on an iPhone.
For many
Empire Avenue players, Twitter and Facebook are at the heart of their
online social lives. Honestly, if you don't want to use Facebook and
Twitter and/or don't want to make your tweets public and accept lots
of friend requests on Facebook, Empire Avenue is probably not for
you. A complete discussion of strategies for using either of these
social websites is far beyond the scope of this e-book; however, I
will offer just a few tips.