Looks like the good folks at SLBoutique are on their way to helping blur the increasingly fuzzy line between what’s real and what’s virtual. As Jerry P warned readers of his blog last week (Link), SLBoutique is now selling real goods for virtual cash (see the latest post over on the SL Future Salon blog – Link). Guess it should come as no surprise the first product is a computer component; too bad they aren’t selling something more dramatic… like a puppy.
But the truth is, I’m not sure this will make waves. A lot of interested people have already read stories about people in developing countries earning living wages playing online games. Is this really so outlandish given that news? I don’t think so.
On the other hand, in an object culture full of people claiming they “love” McDonald’s fries, “love” their iPod, “love” their new car, and sometimes “love” their significant other, who knows. Now if it had been a puppy…
Hey, I can comment now! Good choice to move to WP.
Actually, I’ve always used WP, but I was previously using v1.2 along with a customized index file and style sheet. I’ll be modifying the template files for this version once I’ve had a chance to poke around a bit.
As for commenting, I opened it up after I brought the blog back up last September. But right now I only leave it open for a couple days; I still get probed quite a bit and that’s proven – at least with v1.2 – to be an effective way to keep the spam away. However, I’m thinking about leaving commenting open a bit longer… like a week or so… while I test some spam filters. Fingers crossed.