Virtual Shopping
Continuing our coverage on Second Life, eBay announced today that auctions for items in Second Life will be exempt from eBay’s ban on items from virtual worlds or online games. The reasoning? “There is an open question about whether Second Life should be regarded as a game.”
Now, both the House of Representatives and eBay are taking Second Life serious enough to consider it “not a game.” If our government and a commercial giant believe Second Life to be a legit form of, well, life, I wonder how far behind a critical mass is. Philosophical debates about the merits of virtual reality aside, the implications for our society, human interaction and values is fascinating. As more governments go online, more companies, commerce, criminals, etc., when does this become something more than virtual?
The virtual madness continues…Sweden recently announced that it will have a virtual embassy in Second Life:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070129-8726.html
While at first this seems like an obvious PR stunt- make an announcement, generate huge press about opening the first online embassy, profit- I can also see why this move might actually be worthwhile move.
If so many millions of people spend a lot of time in these virtual worlds, they are spending less time in front of traditional media. Advertisers must therefore go to where the eyeballs are- and in this case, Second Life is just as legitimate as anything else! And it seems like Sweden is actually putting some thought into their online embassy- with tons of information about the country.
I personally will wait and see how all this goes…I’m not a second lifer- and so far NOT being on it hasn’t affected me…but as the fabric of our society changes and adapts to technology there is a lot that remains to be seen.