Do you have a Second Life?

An INSEAD Campus , a running economy of its own with its own currency (Linden Dollars) , a Currency Exchange and GDP, a free market where you can buy or sell virtual goods and services,entertainment, a profitable real estate biz (you can buy and sell virtual lands and make a profit in Linden Dollars and finally get it converted to REAL ACTUAL non-virtual US Dollar : 1 US$ = around 260 L$) , Festivals and Celebrations, boyfriends/girlfriends or escorts for hiring , Banks , ATMs and shopping centres et all - Second Life from Linden Lab has it all.

More than 60 Fortune 500 companies have established their presence here. Coke has set up its vending machines and selling millions of cans of virtual drinks (just think why these virtual drinks are being bought !). Corporates are using it for business meetings, education/training and simulations. Having no need to buy food to survive, several residents here are making real-life money from SL businesses making it a commercial hub.

Your involvement just depends on how deep in the virtual world you want to get into. And remember it's not another so called Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing "Game" wherein you face some challenge and try to overcome it. One common aspect is that you are here to enjoy just like any other game. Still , if you are a fan of a Quake, Doom, Halo, World of Warcraft or Age of Empire, your chances of adopting the SL is higher. You being a resident have a perceptual immersive experience with entirely new set of capabilities(eg: you can fly) in this virtual Linden World. Create, design and offer products and services limited by your own imaginations. Slowly , it is turning out to be the online media for the firms to do pilot testing for new products , experiment , sell and promote their brands.

How Linden Lab makes money 

• Advertisements from Second Life viewer/console and Marketplace where goods and services can be bought and sold for the virtual world.
• Gets commissions for items sold in the marketplace.
• Currency Exchange: Transaction cost is charged when users buy or sell L$ with each other.
• Land Rentals make up around 80% of the revenue. The users can buy or purchase public or private piece of virtual land for a monthly fee.
• Premium Accounts : These are tiered subscriptions which gives user a certain amount of land.

But as we know, our online behavior can be very different from our real life one and so there is still a question mark over how successful any consumer/market research activity will be on this platform.Plus,there is no government rule but still you cannot behave or cause harm to the experience of others as there are establised measures placed to tackle such behaviour. The fact that the richest 10% of the users control around 90% of the money in this economy makes it less appealing to competitive users.

The transition from early adopters to followers is still a long way ahead. But still , a thriving economy Second Life has become, it will indeed be interesting to watch how it will evolve and facilitate the next level of innovation by breaking the geographical barrier at least virtually. And don't get surprised the next time you hear of a Sony Island where they have a virtual headquarter with a window office !