So I’m hearing this lady made a mil on the Internet. “Not surprised“, I thought. “So did that one kid with the Million Dollar Homepage“. However, this lady put a new twist on making a mil on the Internet.

The world of Second Life, where she made her money, always seems a little looserish to me. You fly around aimlessly, look at other people’s crap, visit a virtual dance club, make your character flail around next to some goth-looking anime chick with huge boobs and demon wings, a fat 45-year old man’s online identity. It’s a giant chat room with a twist, hahaha LOL cyber anyone !!!!!!!!!!!!! PRIVATE ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! However, it doesn’t matter what I think is stupid. It only matters what other people think is cool.

So enough people though Second Life was awesome. The losers blew their real money (converted to in-game Linden dollars 1:100) on a virtual pair of pink slippers and a set of wings, the smarter people sold huge spinning ads …

… the smarter people yet designed virtual dance clubs and casinos …

.. and the real smart people bought in-game real estate, subdivided it into plots, rented them out and created shops (little green dollar signs are land for sale) …

She made her money the same way people in the First Life make big money – real estate and commerce. It took her 2.5 years and $10 of original investment.

So how does it work? You create a free account, buy a computer with a beefy video card, download and install a free client, and pick your name. I’ve done all that, of course, as I was morbidly curious.

The name picking was an adventure – you can choose your own first name, but the last name must be chosen from a list of pre-set names, among which Apparatchik, Milestone, and Recreant. All people who work for SL have a last name of Linden, after the creator. Cre-e-e-epy …. Like a cult. Send me a message, my SL name is Laptop Battery.

After that, you free account allows you to roam and fly freely, but only a premium account ensures that you can buy a chunk of very crappy land filled with spammy neighbors.

Then you build. That’s another adventure in itself. Want a house? You better bone up on Descartes x-y-z plain and geometry formulas, such as the distance between two points. After spending half an hour trying to figure out why your roof has a glimmering seam, you’ll curse just like your Daddy did. Knowing EXACT coordinates of each chunk ensures everything fits snugly.

I built a lookalike of the Temple to Augustus Caesar in Pula when I was down with flu last week. Took me 4 hours and 3 sheets of coordinate plane paper. I always thought Romans were bad-assed. It’s for sale – grab a copy for only 10,000 Linden dollars. Hey, one person bought it already …

Here’s my neighborhood ..

What a miserable dump :)

SL creators thought everything out fairly well. For example, you can build a finite number of shapes on your land. The more land you own, the more complex things you can create on that land. A little 5×5 plot may allow you to build a few ad boards, and a huge private island will ensure you can stack up realistic Harley-Davidson replicas 50 high.

Conclusions? Good software developers and designers are the real winners here. They spend $300-500, create a virtual casino, and rake in. After that, they are making money 24×7 as poor slobs from all over the world spend their hard-earned in a dubious unregulated casino inside a video game.

If you are good with 3D Studio Max, Maya, and especially with C++ (and have some time on your hands), you are stupid to pass up this goldmine. Last 24 hours, $1,200,000 of REAL money was spent inside the game by its 900,000 residents.

Anyway, this was just an intro, I’ll poke more fun at the whole thing later …