Second Life News & Events & Guides

Can a virtual business reap real profits? The popular "metaverse" Second Life is providing some real-life ventures with an opportunity to discover whether they can find real business in a virtual world.

Second Life is one of the most popular online metaverses (a fancy term for virtual worlds). Visitors to the site create avatars — virtual "people" — to represent themselves and their computer screen becomes a window to a virtual world.

Think of it like a cross between a video game and a virtual reality simulation of the real world. Through their avatars(Second life linden), people can journey through online environments that resemble fictitious lands as well as actual places, with roads, buildings, islands and so forth.

But Second Life isn't only an interesting place to visit — it offers potentially interesting business opportunities as well.

The creators of Second Life, Linden Labs, let people buy land, create buildings and do business using Linden Dollars (about $4 US buys 1,000 LD).

Despite the fact that the rules for making real profits in this virtual world aren't yet clear(Secondlife linden), several Canadian business and education organizations are taking a trial-and-error approach, certain that their efforts will eventually produce rewards.