Virtuality

The Weirdness Of The Virtual

eBay says they won't allow the trade of virtual game goods... except those from 'Second Life'. Still, here's the article excerpt:

Does eBay see Linden dollar signs? The company has banned the sale of virtual game items, but made an exception for items from Second Life, owned by Linden Lab. Second Life (SL) is a 3D virtual world that anyone can join, and participants (called avatars) buy and sell virtual goods using a virtual currency called Linden dollars. Users can purchase virtual Linden dollars with real money (including PayPal) - and then use those Linden dollars to buy virtual goods, such as clothing, furniture, buildings and land.

eBay says it "pioneers communities built on commerce, sustained by trust and inspired by opportunity." Does the SL virtual world, also called a metaverse, inspire opportunity for eBay? I can only speculate, but eBay founder Pierre Omidyar was impressed enough with SL to have invested "real" money in the project. And there is precedent for eBay to follow Pierre: eBay invested in MeetUp, a social networking site backed by eBay's founder.

At the time, an eBay executive was quoted as saying, "Meetup.com and eBay share a focus on using the Internet to connect people and create communities."

It's not a stretch to think eBay would be interested in ecommerce in a virtual world - or Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, for that matter. Companies have already been brainstorming on how to market to Second Life participants. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School held a two-hour panel discussion in Second Life in June entitled "Avatar-based Marketing: What's the Future of Real-Life Companies Marketing to Second Life Avatars?"

Besides marketing to avatars, there's real money to be made on SL, though it's impossible to say how big the opportunity is, and how sustainable it could be. According to a January 22, 2007 article in Fortune magazine, "In December, Linden Lab estimated that 17,000 residents had positive cash flow in Linden dollars, with about 450 generating monthly income in excess of $1,000 (that's U.S.)"

There you have it. You can work off your rear end in the real world to own a virtual reality Supercar, and eBay will be a vendor in that market.