Coldwell Banker To Sell Second Life Properties

Dekortage sends news of what may be a new development in the attempted mainstreaming of Second Life. We've seen plenty of examples of real-world news media, politicos, and PR campaigns setting up in SL. But so far most of this action has been about first-life organizations trying to gain real-world publicity by their forays into SL. CNN is reporting that the real estate firm Coldwell Banker is moving into SL for the purpose of selling and renting in-world properties. From the article: "Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central 'mainland' of Second Life. (Most companies own 'islands' scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent... 'A small number of land barons mostly control real estate in Second Life, and we thought we could bring real estate to the masses,' [a VP explained]."

Comments

Supply and demand

[Harmonious Botch]

Has Linden guaranteed in writing that they will never expand the world? If not, then Coldwell Banker buyers are idiots.

What is to keep Linden from increasing the amount of land? ( They did it back in 2003, IIRC ) Not only would this give them more space for more players, but it decreases the power of land barons. And having a 'new world' to explore would add more interest to the game. Anyone want to be Magellan? Or Columbus? There seems to be no downside for Linden to increase the ammount of land.
There definitely is a downside to NOT increasing the ammount of land: competition. If SL gets too crowded, that just helps up-and-coming competitors.

As supply increases, price decreases. There is not even the real-world parallel of "location, location, and location" to uphold property value in Second Life because of teleportation.

I predict that Coldwell Banker will lose their shirts on this one.

Re:Supply and demand

[Lally Singh]

I think CW's buying the initial land in order to get the ball rolling on getting themselves involved in the transactional business of real estate on SL. Long after the current stuff is sold off, they want to be the agents you buy virtual real estate from later.

Re:Supply and demand

[TapeCutter]

I don't know much about SL, it strikes me as a world where most people have more money than sense.

Re:Supply and demand

[UbuntuDupe]

As supply increases, price decreases. There is not even the real-world parallel of "location, location, and location" to uphold property value in Second Life because of teleportation.

Well, not quite true: it helps to have e.g. a lot of merchants together in one place, as it's a pain to teleport 30 times to look at everyone's goods. So new merchants are going to want to be where the merchants already are. Although I agree you can't use the whole "They ain't makin' any more land" line here, as LL certainly can do that.

Still, I have to ask, WTF? Don't people play SL to get away from assholes who add no value but take your money ... such as real estate agents?

The real question is . . .

[GeneralAntilles]

Who the hell actually plays Second Life? I seed tons of stories on /. and digg about it, but out of all the incredibly geeky people I know, none of them plays Second Life (or at least they wont admit to it).

Re:WTF is the point of this game?

[I_Love_Pocky!]

I'm convinced that the only people "playing" second life are the people writing these articles. I think that technology columnists are fascinated with the idea of second life, and love to write about it. I can't fault them for that, because the idea does have interesting implications, but I think they do us all a disservice by continually giving attention to a "phenomenon" that no one actually cares about.

After reading countless articles about this wonderful new world of second life, I decided to check it out. What a piece of bloated crap-ware. I don't think the idea behind second life is worthless, but it's current incarnation is a joke.

I don't have a PS3, and have no plans currently to purchase one, but I think their new "Home" has a better chance of becoming popular than second life ever will.

Do any of you actually use Second Life?

[lewp]

Do any of you actually spend time in Second Life? I'm not talking just popping in and poking around once in a while (I've done that), I mean you spend significant amounts of time in the world, you've actually invested some time and energy into making your character your own, and maybe you even develop content for it. I'm more interested in people who are more into the actual enjoyment of the world rather than speculators or people strictly trying to sell their wares.

The reason I ask is because so many companies seem to be on the bandwagon of this thing, but my friends are almost uniformly tech savvy early adopters and I don't know anybody who's ever logged into it other than to check it out and laugh at it. I've got nothing against it, and if anybody uses it I'm not going to laugh at you or anything. I may not see the appeal, but I don't see the appeal of a lot of things the average person likes. I just haven't seen anybody else who really likes it either, and that's made me question its popularity other than as a kind of inside joke.

I do think it's a great concept, and I'm sure true virtual worlds will be all the rage someday. I'm just suspicious that anybody actually sees this as a good enough implementation to really start spending time there. I've heard the furry community has taken up residence there to some extent, but honestly when I log in I hardly see any concentration of people anywhere, furry or not.