Second Life Analysis

Watching the BBC money programme on Second Life it enlightened me to the growing popularity and staggering money in it. Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world which is a source of entertainment, social interaction and most importantly is a growing way of making a living. There is big money to be made from the virtual world and there are people who have made considerable amounts. It is turning over half a billion pounds a year and it is growing rapidly between fifteen and twenty percent a month which is staggering growth. The growth is clearly evident as in 2002 the virtual world had only four members and now it has something in the regions of sixty million members. What fascinated me most about this virtual was the vast amounts of money in it and the ability for someone to make a living from it. Anshe Chung became the first member to earn a million dollars of real money through exchanging Second Life's own currency into dollars by buying land and developing on it and then renting and selling them to other Second Life members. Even top businesses have got in on the act advertising real life products for example Calvin Klein has recently brought out new perfume and advertises it in the virtual world while also offering members a real life tester of it. Below are a set of updated facts from an article about the story of Second Life:At a Glance
LOCATION3,000-plus servers at a data center in San Francisco
POPULATION518,524, growing by 36 percent a month
PERMANENT RESIDENTS236,562 (Residents who logged in at least once in the last 60 days)
AVERAGE AGE3.6 months (Skews young due to high birthrate; oldest living resident: 4.5 years)
AVERAGE TIME SPENT IN-WORLD40 hours per month
MAJOR ETHNIC GROUPSBlingtards, Elves, Furries, Geeks, Goreans, Goths, mechas, Steampunks, grad students looking for a grant project
MAJOR CRIME CATEGORIESPushgun assaults, retail fraud, cyberterrorism, mafia racketeering
TOTAL AREAAbout 83 square miles, growing daily
LANDOWNERS16,908
AVERAGE PRICE PER SQUARE METER OF LAND, SECONDARY MARKETL$6
LOCAL CURRENCY Linden dollar (L$); convertible to $US at secondlife.com/currency
EXCHANGE RATEL$309 : US$1
ECONOMYFree market
COMPATIBILITYWindows XP, windows 2000, and mac 0s X (Linux client in alpha)
TAXATIONCaste-based: Basic accounts pay no monthly fee; Premium accounts pay US$9.95 per month and up, receive L$400 stipend per week
MONTHLY TRANSACTION VOLUMEL$1.93 billion.
Travel Advisory: Second Life is a rapidly expanding and mutating world. Stats true as of August 2006.

What i have learnt about this virtual world is that with the obvious growth it is making and the money ploughed into it this could become a multi-national business. This backed up by the fact that people have given up real jobs to be work full-time making money in Second Life and this gives me the message this will not be a way of entertainment and socialising for much longer but just merely a way of making money and more importantly a full-time job to people