The economy is everywhere. Its laws are applicable even in societies that don’t exist, which are inhabited by people that are not real. It is what has happened in several online games like World of Warcraft, Hattrick or Second Life that have suffered diverse economic problems with monetary losses that impact the real world sometimes.
World of Warcraft is an online role-playing game where the player participates in a fantastic universe similar to The Lord of the Rings. It has more than 10 million registered users, according to the programming company (Blizzar). About half of them are in Asia. In fact, the problem came from Asia: in this game, the most valuable currency is the gold, very difficult of getting, and for that reason, some people and companies decided to make business, mainly in China. They got “gold” during 24 hours a day, then they sold it to the other users who didn’t want to get it by themselves. The transaction was carried out to exchange “gold” for real money in auctions websites like Ebay (for example, if you want to buy 5000 gold coins, then you need about 150 Euros). This way, a scarce thing began to be plentiful, the gold was devaluated and the inflation was caused by this. In this game, the cost of “living” was radically increased. For this reason, the company closed the accounts of 114000 people who were making money by this method.
Something very similar happened in another video game: “Final Fantasy XI”. The owner closed more than 4000 accounts of players who exchanged virtual assets for real money. This situation also caused inflation. The action of the programmers was definitive. They reduced the money flow by eliminating several millions in order to decrease prices: the European Central Bank dream.
Some virtual worlds have a surprising similarity with reality. Second Life has cases of real estate speculation and financial crisis. This game uses the linden dollars as currency to buy properties and virtual objects. It is possible to exchange them for real money in a market implemented by Linden Lab (a programmer). In this market, a dollar is equal to about 250 lindens. The business opportunities are always present: there is a story about a Chinese woman (her nickname is Anshe Chung) who appeared on Business Week cover. She won $250000 when she sold “lands” where she built hotels and apartments.
Business Week article (2006)
Some interesting links on my preferred sites and other stumbled webs:
* FirePow - Set Your Blogging On Fire: Firepow will be launched on 30 April. It is a software developed to help you make your blogging and niche site marketing a more profitable experience.
* Zivity: Promoting Beauty 2.0: What an interesting site. According to his founder, “Zivity is a cross between Myspace, Playboy and American Idol”. Zivity empowers women to publish photos as a model. Also, it allows to the photographers to publish nice pictures of beautiful women. Basically, the photographers and models submit their photos where users can vote on them. Also, they can make money if people vote on them.
* One Mans Blog - Specialization is for Insects: Excellent blog! Although it looks like a well-known blog, I have to say I never had seen this blog before. But now I really enjoy the posts written by John P. According to his philosophy (”Specialization is for Insects”), the blog don’t have a defined topic. Basically, “the goal of One Man’s Blog is to educate, enlighten and entertain”.
* The Product Launch Blueprint: Product Launch Formula 2.0 will be launched today. Maybe you should take a look at it. Meanwhile, there is an inspiring video about how to launch a product on Internet with no email list, no web site and no joint venture partners. A guy did it. He made over $7,000 in sales.
* AdSense PROFIT eLetter: Are you a new publisher and want to make money with Adsense? AdSense Profit eLetter is a resources center that can help you.
* More Bloggers Raising Money. Here Come The Politics. And Here Comes My Rant: Michael Arrington wrote a very interesting article about how many blog networks are trying to raise capital.
* Screencast and WordPress 2.5 RC2: WordPress 2.5 RC2 has been released on March 26, 2008. It is the prior version of the final WordPress 2.5.
Traditional media is not the best option to be updated about how to make money on the Internet. It is not usual to hear some news about it or maybe we hear some news but probably old news for bloggers. Anyway, later is better than never. This video is an Associated Press report about making money by writing online.
Matt Jones from Blogging Fingers has released a free e-book called Blog Monetization Strategies: Make More Money From Your Blog Without Increasing Traffic. It is a short e-book of 16 pages which I have read and I have to say it is a good starting point if you are thinking about making money with your blog or starting a blog to make money. The e-book is centered on these sections:
- Monetization Strategies: Basically, there are two types of blogs. Some blogs are Flagship blogs, which are blogs with loyal readers and high traffic because it has a broader topic. Other blogs are niche blogs where the visitors find the site via a search engine and will leave once they have found the answer to what they want. Depending on your blog type and your visitors, you should apply a different strategy.
- Core Blog Monetization Lessons: If you want to make money from blogging, there are two concepts you need to apply in order to achieve a good monetizacion: diversification and experimentation. Don’t put all your eggs into one basket (like Google Adsense); you need several revenue streams. And you need make a lot of testing to find the best performance of your income streams. Matt also talk about Pre-sell pages and Resource Pages.
- When To Monetize: It is a question without a simple answer. Starting to monetize now or later, have both advantages and disadvantages. However, if your blog is definitely a blog niche, then “there is very little to lose from monetizing it straight away because it does not ‘stunt’ the growth because you are not trying to keep readers on the blog”. The advantages and disadvantages are listed for Flagship Blogs.
If you want a free copy of this e-book, please visit Blogging Fingers and enter your email in the right sidebar under the the section entitled “FREE Blog Monetizaion Strategies e-book!”.
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