It's a whole other world out there!!!!

So yes it is very true that when I first heard about virtual worlds like Second Life or Viximo, where people create differen characters to represent themselves and live out weird fantasy lives in the virtual environment I chuckled and thought of how foolish they must be with a lot of time on their hands. Boy am I eating my words now!!

Recently as one of my consulting undertakings I have come across one social website looking to monetize through the virtual craze and the existing services that they provide. True that I came in with the same preexisting attitude of "who would pay for intangible goods over the internet????" In my research for this project however, I have found out that virtual goods industry has brought in over $800 million dollars in recent years! $800 million dollars! Who knew that people pay that much money to defend their virtual worlds and distinguish themselves in Second Life. Wearing Versace dress to go out to a night on the town in the most prestigioug club by taking a limo while sipping Cristal costs about $5, gives a chance to experience this for those individuals that have always dreamed of such a lifestyle but could not afford it in real life.

It is this concept of self worth that has so succesfully translated into the virtual world and it turns out that it is a lot easier to actualize this concept in virtual world than in real life, hence the big and somewhat unexpected success. People do pay money to distinguish themselves online and it looks like the more innovative ways will come about to do this, the more money people will spend on this outlet. The growth possibilities are endless and I am excited to keep watching and learning and not at all ashamed to say that I had to eat my words!