Of course, having seen this I could hardly resist posting something from it:
Most american articles rarely mention that there is something in Second Life which has to do with Sex whereas the German articles most correctly state that there is also a lot of sex involved. Cheap sex to be precise. If you look for most articles, SL is great because of the people, the land rentals and sales, some selling of goods and of course now the big companies coming into the game. When in reality it is all about sex. gaming and clothes / enhancements for sex. The land rentals are only there to provide space and place for this and I would consider the sales for items non sex related to be rather small.
She’s not wrong, and it’s only going to get… well some would say “worse”, but I’d say “more interesting”. What Copybot proved was that selling “goods” in a virtual world is a non-starter (just as, within my lifetime, it will be in the real world). Digital economics means that goods can be copied infinitely for almost zero cost, whether you like it or not. What can’t be copied are services – and within SL, services = escorting, at least at the moment.
There are, of course, other services that can be used. Custom, one-off avatar creation for a start, something that a friend of mine has recently earned a decent amount of money from. CEOs and marketing people who will become at least part of the natural audience for Second Life (like it or not) will want their avatars to look like them, even if pranksters will copy them and make them wander around with 10 meter penises attached to their heads.
Technorati Tags: sex, second life
