And inside that box is another box
The whole Second Life phenomenon is just too weird. For those of you who don’t know, it’s an online society where you live out a second life. What makes Second Life different is that you can buy (with first life money) everything you need to live a great second life.
Take Anshe Chung’s Second Life land development business:
Second Life participants pay “Linden dollars,” the game’s currency, to rent or buy virtual homesteads from Chung so they have a place to build and show off their creations. But players can convert that play money into U.S. dollars, at about 300 to the real dollar, by using their credit card at online currency exchanges. Chung’s firm now has virtual land and currency holdings worth about $250,000 in real U.S. greenbacks.
Now American Apparel is opening the first Second Life store where you can buy clothes for your avatar for $1. What?
I guess this is the first sign that I’m slowing heading over that hill. What the heck is going on? I remember, in my day, we didn’t have second lives…
Technorati Tags: secondlife, e-commerce
I think that SecondLife is something that would be of great interest to you as it is in large part an economics and small business simulator.
In SL, you own the intellectual property embodied in your character and the goods you create. There is also a working currency exchange for Linden dollars (the in world currency) to USD.
These features add up to a very dynamic small business market. Thousands of people have stores, design clothing, engage in marketing campaigns, speculate on the currency, build houses and compete in the marketplace.
There are even “meta” services: web sites that interact over the whole of the SecondLife world, these are often analagous to some familar internet sites.
Flickr -> Snapzilla
Amazon -> SL Boutique
Google -> Second411 (my company)
Anyway, if you’d be interesting in checking out the SL Business community more send me an email at hal9k [at] second411.com or IM me in world.