Interesting bit of drama over on the Second Life forums which might only be a joke, but one that’s worth giving some thought. First some background:

Due to some announced changes coming to Second Life, there’s been quite a bit of discussion on topics that generally have to do with… you guessed it… money. The impending changes appear on the surface to potentially devalue “telehub” land, and this is making a relatively heavily-invested group of residents pretty unhappy. During all this debate I caught this bit of public relations/advertising in the official Robin Linden “Point to Point Teleporting” thread by none other than SL’s biggest land owner, Anshe Chung:

Project Entropia
IMVU
WoW

My IMVU avatar name is “Anshe”. I just added one new service at ANSHECHUNG.COM that allows you cash in your IMVU credits into US$. This should be great help for all content creators who consider expand to this new and exciting platform!

If you want hook up with my guild in WoW, feel free visit our homepage

At least in WoW nobody can suddenly destroy value of 20000 US$ investment in telehub land.

Now if there’s one thing that I realized almost immediately about Second Life – or any virtual world – it’s that any investment in content constrained to that world is at risk. And of course any services (like the ill-fated Gaming Open Market, which closed its doors when Linden Lab implemented an in-world monetary exchange system) are similarly at risk. So the only real way to protect your investment is to work on cross-platform content (basic textures, for example) or – and this is the important part – develop a good reputation that spans virtual worlds. I’ve posted previous entries on reputation and it’s importance which you can read here and here.

I’d therefore hazard a guess that being in the inherently risky virtual land business, Anshe decided to do what any Wall Street investor does: diversify. And that’s what the above post was really about: leveraging her business reputation. The next thing one has to wonder is whether the all-to-common practice of selling/buying accounts can be worthwhile in this effort; not just to gain reputation, but to protect it from detractors and critics.

Enter into evidence this little announcement posted today by Anshe critic Mulch Ennui:

Yes, It is true*, Mulch Ennui has sold his Avi. Now I can’t name names as to the new owner of my avi, as it is against TOS, but needless to say I was priced and sold. Just pure speculation (or maybe flight of fantasy), but I have a a suspicion as to why I was chosen to be mercilessly driven out of Second Life.

It has been fun guys. I will miss you all (except the usual asshats). I hope my new owner will bring as much joy and controvery to the world as I have tried to do.

Again, I cannot say who my new owner is per TOS, but if you are need need of land, I guess you can contact this one avi now.

A prankster’s joke? Perhaps. Likely. But the issues raised are real. It reminds me of the Chinese virtual world employee about whom I’ve previously written. As noted over on the New World Notes blog, she’s recently left her job… and with it her virtual identity. When/if I run into that avatar it will, to be honest, be a bit odd. Does the avatar itself have a reputation that will carry forward? Is there anything that will carry forward?

This all makes me wonder how many eBay accounts have changed hands. I’ll have to look into that.