3pointD.com

ValleyWag has another bitter post attacking Second Life today, this time focusing on its economy, charging that it’s a kind of Ponzi scheme. The original blog post by Randolph Harrison is slightly more reasoned overall, but still fails to be an argument about Second Life itself. Instead, Harrison is upset that Second Life doesn’t match up to its hype.

His main complaint is that the currency exchange market isn’t liquid enough for someone to be able to cash out large amounts of L$ at current rates. Moving large volumes of currency results in a fall in the value you actually receive for your L$. This doesn’t make SL a Ponzi scheme; it simply means there’s not a lot of liquidity in the market. Large currency moves in real-world economies that can’t handle them often result in the same thing. The problem — and it’s a real one — is that Linden Lab advertises SL as an economy as robust as any mature real-world economy. It simply isn’t yet. But neither is it a scam. (more…)

Another one that dropped while I was away, but which Giff has just reminded me of: The New Media Consortium, which set up shop in the virtual world of Second Life sometime back, has announced that it has established a new services unit, NMC Virtual Worlds, to cater to “educational institutions wishing to explore, build, or establish a presence in a range of virtual worlds.” NMC itself is a non-profit consortium of more than 225 research and educational institutions, so it will be interesting to see what kind of virtual world educational initiatives the organization can catalyze both within its own ranks and in the broader educational realm. While there’s only one project on their portfolio page at the moment, NMC is apparently working with Second Life creator Linden Lab to create a specialized new-user experience for educators, and is already working with a number of groups within SL. (See the announcement for more details.) Services will also be offered for 3D online spaces like Croquet. We look forward to learning what they come up with.