There’s an article over on BusinessWeek, “My Virtual Life” (Link), that does a fairly comprehensive job of covering the virtual world Second Life. Much of the information will be a rehash for SL residents – whether it’s a repeat of previously-reported news (e.g. Anshe Chung’s success) or the kind of information mostly gathered from reading the forums (e.g. Shaun Altman’s virtual stock exchange). There are, however, interesting tidbits. In particular, here’s a piece that I enjoyed reading:
All this has some companies mulling a wild idea: Why not use gaming’s psychology, incentive systems, and social appeal to get real jobs done better and faster? “People are willing to do tedious, complex tasks within games,” notes Nick Yee, a Stanford University graduate student in communications who has extensively studied online games. “What if we could tap into that brainpower?”
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