Industry Update: First Millionaire in Second Life

It is official, Second Life (which I have written about in two previous posts, Get a “Second Life” and More Second Life) has just created its first virtual millionaire (actually, it has created its first real world millionaire with virutal assets equal to real world assets of a million dollars.) Check out the press release–Anshe Chung Becomes First Virtual World Millionaire: Parlays $10 investment into million dollar corporation in 30 months.

It is an interesting concept that an actual millionaire was created with virtual wealth.

It now appears that virtual assets are as valuable as physical assets. What does that mean for trainers? How can we leverage virtual assets and knowledge of virtual assets to assist our learners in organizations and schools? These are interesting questions.

One company dealing with teaching others in Second Life is Wells Fargo. You can read an article, Wells Fargo launches game inside ‘Second Life’, which describes how the game can be used to teach about savings and spending using the virtual economy within Second Life to teach people how to navigate an actual economy.
As the article states:

…players are given $30 in imaginary money with which to buy clothes, pay for rides and the like. The idea, though, is to teach the players to save money–they earn 10 percent per day on “deposits”–and to learn new things about money management through a series of quizzes that, when completed, reward players with $5 of new funds.

What a great way to learn about money…in a virtual environment but also, what a great way to make money…in a virtual environment.

Are the lines blurry for anyone else?
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