Professor McLeod said that she attended a charity fundraiser last week on Second Life. This came as a shock to me, as I hadn't fully grasped the monetary aspect of this virtual world. After doing a bit more research, I understood that Second Life has it's own booming economy, based on the 'Linden', that's built on the residents' ability to buy and sell their virtual creations. With our economic crisis, and the unemployment rate at a record high, Second Life provides individuals with additional economic opportunity they might be just as, if not more lucrative than their 'real life' job. In 2008 more than $100 million worth of Lindens were bought and sold on the virtual exchange, LindeX. Second Life provides an exceptional opportunity for economic growth through real estate, and buying and selling originally manufactured products and services.
Real Estate is obviously an enormous factor behind the Second Life market. Although there are very few zoning restrictions, which was demonstrated in Samuel and Zazzy's argument, buying and selling virtual land can be an extremely lucrative business for virtual users, and an important indicator of your social status, not unlike real life. For example, the 'sandboxes' are a communal area where anyone can build, but their structure was deleted after a short period of time. "Sandboxes were significant locations for social interaction; they acted as a commons where persons with shared interests or social networks could interact as they learned how to use the building function of the Second Life program or experiment with a new idea". Sandboxes would be full of "newbies", who Professor McLeod described as the bottom of the social ladder in Second Life. Those who are smart and pro-active about buying and selling real estate, probably snagged the property by the telehubs early on. As I stated before, real estate provides users with an additional opportunity to invest their money and potentially make an enormous profit.
In class, Prof. McLeod and some of the students collaborated and built a couch. Although I'm not sure I personally would buy this couch, someone would! Collaboration on Second Life can lead to extremely creative and original products, as the avatars involved may come from different backgrounds and therefore offer a broader range of style. The ability to sell these products provides users with extra motivation to create an attractive product.
Another way to make money on Second Life, is by 'camping'. Basically Camping is when somebody pays you to sit (or dance, or sweep the street, or wash the windows ...) at their land; the longer you stay the more you earn.
An article in BusinessWeek features the first Second Life millionaire; "Anshe Chung’s achievement is all the more remarkable because the fortune was developed over a period of two and a half years from an initial investment of $9.95 for a Second Life account by Anshe’s creator, Ailin Graef. . . Her real-world persona, Ailin Graef, figures her net worth based on her substantial in-world land holdings, cash in “Linden dollars,” which can be converted to real cash, as well as virtual shopping malls, store chains, and even virtual stock-market investments in Second Life businesses."
Ailin Graef exemplifies the economic potential behind second life. In this economic crisis, with millions unemployed, a simple ten dollar investment might pay off and turn our economy around.
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I don't know about whether virtual economic potential would turn our economy around, but I was also taken aback at the money making behind Second Life.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the first virtual world to start trying to relate financially, but it seems to be one of the most successful. In my honest opinion, I don't like the idea of complete virtual economy. Something about it just tells me that we have to stop relying on technology so completely.
Definitely an interesting point about the economy in Second Life. I know that in class the prof just built a couch, but if he bought some land and expanded his business into a furniture store, he could have a thriving business. This leads to an interesting point about collaboration. In the real world, if ten people were working remotely on building or designing a couch, things might be complicated. In Second Life, remote users work together in a virtual environment, which means that they are not really remote users at all. This means that people can work together on a global scale, but as though they were all together.
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