How real virtual worlds can become is shown by the role-playing online game Second Life by Linden Lab. There are more than two million avatars inside this virtual reality by now. The game with an entry free of charge contains tools allowing even complete laymen to create detailed, virtual items. What is special to Second Life is that players have the opportunity to sell these items for a virtual currency to other users. Thereby an exchange system exists coupling the virtual currency on the US-Dollar allowing an exchange in both directions. In the meantime, virtual banks and stock markets have developed inside Second Life trading with the internal currency.

On this basis a far reaching market of digital goods has been created on which digital items or services can be traded for real money. Out of this a whole economic system came into being in which 800.000 dollar a day change hands inside the game. With Second Life there is a virtual world without limits in which every player can decide to produce things and sell them to others or simply just to consume.

The real dimension of Second Life is shown by the fact that in some Asian countries the production of in-game-goods has become a small industry with several hundred jobs. The supplied goods reach from airplanes or clothes to body parts and self programmed in-game-games. The most prominent example for this phenomenon is the game figure Anshe Chung, being the richest person within Second Life with a fortune of 250.000 dollars. Anshe Chung specialized in designing virtual landscapes selling them afterwards to paying customers. With this business model the former teacher in the meantime earns her living.

The business models inside Second Life are thereby just as manifold as in the real world. The risk of becoming an entrepreneur however, is far less within a virtual network. Here it is a good idea that counts in the first place. The simple tools provide the implementation.

The innovation of Second Life can be specified: virtual worlds coupled with real money. It is the virtual entrepreneurs steadily developing Second Life. The reportage by the media furthermore has let Second Life arrive in reality. Companies like IBM already start with developing own business models within Second Life, lifestyle companies like Adidas open virtual shops. The boundaries between virtuality and reality seem to become increasingly blurred.