Using a unscientific survey of 10 Attentio people at lunch, I tried to get to the bottom of how impactful the currency of Second Life will become. The Linden Dollar is the currency of the fastest growing virtual world and people have become “real millionaires” by buying and selling properties (and other money making initiatives) because the currency has value and can be traded for real dollars.
My question was when will the Linden Dollar be published next to “real” currencies in the Financial Times? Using a “wisdom of crowds” approach, the table answered the question of how long it would take. Never was the main answer (5), 3 said 18-24 months and 2 said within a year. Ascribing a value of say - 20 years to infinity - to the never answer, this means the lunch crowd, that day, think it will between 10 years and never before the Linden Dollar gets to the Financial Times.
In hindsight the better question was probably, when will a virtual world currency be treated in this way rather than Second Life specifically? Second Life has emerged recently as a big player but were not the first. It also has problems (I think) in keeping members that are attracted initially. It hasn’t worked enough on building a younger persons world, my take on this is that 12-18 year olds will be so familiar with these places that they will be used to talking and trading there when they get to 18+. Newer worlds will emerge which makes believe that I will open the FT on a plane (you know when you get it for free) and there will be virtual currency compared to the dollar, pound and euro in the not so distant future.