Theory Meets Practice Online

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What do dream homes look like? What neighborhoods are most appealing? Is it a buyer's or seller's market? What's the best way to stage a home? The questions researchers could ask are endless. Carmakers also have used the virtual world to show off new interiors and other, add-on features. And B-school professors have suggested that virtual worlds can serve as incubators for real-world enterprises.

Discussions about the direction and utility of online economies are heated. For instance, regarding online stock markets, serious Second Lifers are not easily convinced that rules are the answer. At this month's panel discussion, avatar Arbitrage Wise, CEO of the proposed Second Life Capital Exchange, said he's a firm believer in the markets and wants few regulations in his exchange. Meanwhile, avatar TraderJohn Susa, the chairman of the Second Life Exchange Commission, a group intending to regulate exchanges and facilitate self-regulation, says that while the virtual exchanges are pretty good at policing themselves, he hopes people realize that rules are necessary for a positive future. "Second Life is only four years old," Susa said. "There are a lot of things happening and lots of growth yet to come."

B-schools are starting to catch on to the possibilities of the virtual world (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/16/07, "I Was a Second Life B-School Student") Bloomfield sees potential and is spending his summer vacation organizing what he calls Worlds for Study, a project he initiated that will bring together professors and tech experts to develop a virtual world platform just for teaching and researching business. A paper he recently wrote on the subject garnered interest from the academic community and has been downloaded from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) hundreds of times, says Bloomfield.

If the futurists cited by Bloomfield are correct, virtual worlds will dominate the Web in coming years and virtual realities will seep into actual realities. The Second Life currrency—Linden Dollars—will be converted to real dollars. And everyone will want to learn from this so-called game.

For more, visit BusinessWeek's slide show.

Di Meglio is a reporter for BusinessWeek Online in Fort Lee, N.J.