Second Life Business Now Worth $1 Million

Unlike the unfortunate Mr. Wang, discussed this past weekend, the million dollars Anshe Chung has minted selling data in Second Life is unlikely to get her in trouble with the law. Terra Nova has an interview with the tag-teamed Avatar, discussing what being the first online world Millionaire means. There's also some fierce debate in the comments about whether it's an accurate count, and what this could mean for other online traders. You may recall Anshe from 'her' BusinessWeek article in May of this year. From the Terra Nova interview: "TN (RR): How long do you think the SL economy can sustain the level of growth that it has achieved thus far? Anshe: I believe the real growth of SL economy will be sustained for very long time. At least until one strong competitor arrives, which I think is not likely soon. However, the 'explosive growth' with 1.5 million accounts is a little bit of a misleading figure. Our own internal estimate of number of active paying users in SL agrees with Raph [Koster]'s estimate of about 100K. It seems the real growth of SL is about 100% every 6 months, which is still amazing. One must understand that people, once they are really immersed in Second Life and join those who are regular users, don't tend to get bored or to drop out, even not after years of use. This is fundamentally different from MMORPGs."

Re:Okay?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see why someone blew a mod point on you for being "informative". Yes thank you, we were all VERY curious at to whether or not Tadrith had any interest in Second Life. Thanks for clearing that up for us! I will be sure to pass that informative tidbit on to all my friends.

Re:Okay?

[Jesterboy]

First Life is okay, but there's too much grinding for my taste. I spend 40+ hours a week farming money to support my weekend raids of the movie theatre, mall, and beach. Don't get me started on my food / pots / repair costs for just farming! Plus, my '89 Nissan Sentra mount costs me money every week in the form of gas.

Although, I will admit, First Life's, uh, "software" and "wetware"...excellent.