Second Life Virtual Property Boom

The Guardian Gamesblog has an interview with Philip Rosedale, Second Life's CEO and Founder. In the wake of last week's virtual property slaying, they discuss the realities of owning something intangible. From the article: "We launched Second Life without out of world trade and after a few months we looked at it and thought, 'We're not doing this right, we're doing this wrong.' We started selling land free and clear, and we sold the title, and we made it extremely clear that we were not the owner of the virtual property. USD$.4m a month is traded directly to world markets in Linden Bucks on Gaming Open Market. That's USD$.4m redeemed, or Linden Bucks turned into US dollars. In May 2005, the total amount traded in-world was USD$1.47 million. There were 1.3 million transactions between 19,500 unique users."