Uh-oh, that professor from Wheaton is now telling us that model doesn’t really generate much, and least not *enough*, and even *he* had to mention sale of virtual goods in virtual worlds.

BTW, all the copyleftists and whatnot so overrepresented here are always telling us that giving away stuff and “selling nothing that has no marginal costs” i.e. musical downloads, etc. is a great thing. So, why the hating on “vanity” goods? Why is a music download from Magnitune “cool” or a freebie book of Cory Doctorow’s “cool” but some kid’s little furni “not cool”. The former don’t make money except for a few people at the top of the heap, and mainly from consulting and licensing fees, not from the sale of the thing itself. They are vanity items for the digerati, that’s all, it’s merely a different kind of virtuality.

Habbo has 11 million people and it makes money. It makes money out of *nothing*. It does great deals like the licensing of American Idol properties — everybody got paid on that one, Habbo sold little star stuff inworld, American Idol got its brand around. All those kids grow up and go somewhere and buy more stuff, this time not company generated but user-generated — Second Life? Blue Mars? Facebook if they put in Facebucks to buy stuff?

These are all places *where Techcrunch will not be and will be irrelevant* because they are user generated, whether amateur or professional. Tekkies hate users. They think users are “PICNIC”. They hate user-generated because they can’t control it. It profoundly challenges them.

Good!

Second Life is evidently more profitable than Habbo, but it, too, has 300 mouths to feed to keep the servers running, and only 1.5 million uniques in 60 days. But it turns over millions a week for other businesses who get paid running businesses inworld on this platform, and that income has to be factored in as well.

Then there’s Metaplace coming up to beta soon, which will also have a model for creators to sell wares and people to start businesses.

What on earth will Techcrunch *do* when no one needs it and its gurus anymore because they start start-ups themselves in virtual worlds, without even any VC cash needed, with *nothing* and they make money. Imagine!

You mean like the record industry?
They just re arrange some bytes on your disk, and
MUSIC, zero marginal cost.

Guess they are haveing trouble with their model also.

G
Anthropologist

Keep on with your stellar work!

Those of you moaning about the morality of the business model for kids. Why do you buy Nintendo/games for your kids? Kids will waste their money one way or the other. Better stop being a moral apostel.