Fri

Jun 3
2005

Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly

Real Estate Development in Virtual Worlds

Interesting conversation the other day with Philip Rosedale of Linden Labs, creator of the Second Life virtual world. Most fascinating bit is how they think about their relationship with customers: they aren't selling subscriptions, they are leasing real estate, unimproved land in a virtual world. Others can improve that real estate and sell it to others. And it's not just real-estate. The users build other artifacts, and sell them to each other. The top seller is making six figures. A few days after I met with Philip, the NY Times did a story on the growing trend towards money making in virtual worlds.

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Comments: 5

  Tim O'Reilly [06.03.05 04:56 PM]

Hey reBang (sorry no comments allowed on your site) -- it's not just now on my radar. We had Ed Castronova do a talk on the subject at ETech in 2003, and Bill Gurley talked about it at Web 2.0 last year. There have been lots of stories about crossovers between real and virtual commerce. What was interesting to me about Philip's comment was how he framed his business: he isn't a service provider. He's a landlord.

  csven [06.04.05 05:22 AM]

Apologies for misunderstanding. My entry has been updated to reflect my mistake.

  Aaron [11.30.05 03:26 AM]

Hello,

I would like to turn your attention to a Virtual Real Estate of sorts - PixelHomeSales.com!

I offer my customers a prime piece of real estate in a beautiful Internet landscape for 25 cents per acre (pixel).

Check it out at http://www.pixelhomesales.com - many new landscapes coming soon!

Aaron

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