Baba Sucks

Sucking up the web

Second Life: Web 2.0?

September 24th, 2006 | Category: Links, Second Life, Stuff

Gwyn does it again in her post “Second Life is Web 2.0 more than anything else”, says Castronova.

Who is this Castronova guy? I don't know, but what Gwyn says is more interesting than him anyway.

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    Well, she gives him a pretty good intro, but he's also written a book on the subject.  He's a great speaker and very interesting to talk to.  It's been a treat to talk to him the few times I have, and I've heard him speak at several Developer conferences.
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    Baba, now you're going too far :) I'm blushing... "Who is Castronova?" For the ones that don't know, Castronova is the leading world expert on virtual world economics. Having written several papers on the subject, he is the reference on the way virtual world economies grow, expand, and become an embarassing aspect of the (real) world economy, since they show now huge figures (billions of dollars worth), and nobody really wants to listen to that... Castonova's only fault is not liking Second Life :) Somehow, in 2006, he's unable to ignore it, like he did before, shrugging it off as a "minor" MMOG (when it had less than 50,000 users). Now, as we slowly approach a million users, obviously he can't ignore us any more. It is interesting, though, how he now starts to understand what we SL residents have known for some years: that this is way more than just "another MMOG". Well, for me, it's important that he acknowledges it, and thinks about its meaning. So, yes, he is interesting, and I seriously encourage everybody to look him up and read what he has to say about virtual economies :) As for my rantings... I'm just a loudmouth. I can't even do my own accounting, much less understand how virtual economies work. Still, one can always aim to learn more :)

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