![]() ![]() There are approximately 800,000 monthly active users-only slightly down from a one-time peak of 1.1 million in 2007. Today, users are still logging in from almost every country on planet Earth, and clearly a vibrant world still hums there. People are making money renting land, selling avatar fashion accessories, giving musical performances, providing services like hosting events, and for quite a few people, this is their primary source of income.” “Being a virtual landlord continues to be among the most financially successful businesses in Second Life. “Users took home a collective income of $60 million last year,” Peter Gray, a senior spokesperson for Linden Lab, later tells me by phone. And for many users, operating a business there is still incredibly profitable. “Last year the GDP of Second Life was half a billion dollars,” Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab’s CEO, casually tells me while at their offices in San Francisco several weeks ago.īy that figure, the in-world economy of Second Life, the one that supposedly “failed” to take off, still outranks some small countries in gross domestic product. The in-world economy of Second Life, the one that supposedly ‘failed’ to take off, still outranks some small countries in gross domestic product. ![]() While Second Life never reached a level of mainstream adoption in the way a platform like Facebook has, it’s worth noting how groundbreaking it was-and still is today. That assessment, however, presumes that to be successful, it needed to take over the online world. ![]() But by 2008, the shine began to wear off, and user growth stopped.Ī decade later, a common narrative is that Second Life, the “once massively hyped virtual world,” failed. Major companies like IBM and American Apparel opened offices and stores, and Reuters even stationed a bureau chief to cover the virtual happenings there.īy October of 2006 the site welcomed its millionth citizen, and then millions more joined in 2007. Users were able import virtual items, buy and sell virtual goods, design and personalize avatars, and hang out in nightclubs, shopping centers, and art galleries-each created by Second Life’s residents themselves. The platform represented all that our future lives inside virtual worlds could be. It was the first time someone had generated such staggering real-world wealth by selling digital stuff in a virtual space.įollowing the article’s publication, Second Life’s popularity exploded. What caught the world’s attention, however, is that Anshe Chung wasn’t a real person-she was an online avatar-and the properties she sold were computer-generated images rendered in the virtual world Second Life. In May 2006, Bloomberg’s Businessweek ran a cover story detailing the business empire of real estate millionaire Anshe Chung. On its 14th birthday, a reflection on Linden Lab’s groundbreaking Second Life, and how their next project Sansar hopes to go even further. ![]()
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