Archive for August, 2007
Coldwell Banker Sells Real House in Second Life
Second Life is a virtual environment where people spend real money in exchange for a virtual currency known Linden dollars. They use Linden dollars to buy virtual real estate, often to build virtual homes or various other items for their virtual lives.
Coldwell Banker, one of America’s largest real estate brokerage firms, has been selling and building virtual houses in Second Life for $20 per home. The idea of marketing a real home seemed like the next natural step. On August 2, 2007, Coldwell Banker placed a real $3 million US dollar brick-and-mortar house on the block in Second Life — yet another example of a growing trend with virtual environments: the mixed nature of reality and virtuality.
A photo of the real world and virtual Seattle home.
Second Life avatars can meet with an real Coldwell Banker agent, tour the house virtually — a more than $3 million new home near Seattle. Prospective customers can make bids on the home, and even negotiate a deal. Not everything is digital though: any paperwork would have to be done in the real world, though. To take a tour of the virtual home, just visit Coldwell Banker Headquarters within Second Life located in the Ranchero sim using the following SLURL (requires login to Second Life): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ranchero%20/210/229/32/. The design, execution, and ongoing maintenance of the Coldwell Banker presence in Second Life is handled by Code4Software LLC.
E-commerce and buying merchandise and services, is big business in many virtual worlds. Over $1 million US is exchanged in Second Life on an average day.
Second Life
Second Life at a Glance
- In short: A 3D world with fully customizable avatars and a built-in scripting and building language. Users imagine and create all sorts of objects, including educational simulations and real-world products for sale.
- URL: http://www.secondlife.com
- Maintained by: Linden Lab since June 2003
- Price: Free basic accounts. Premium accounts are $9.95, which allows one to own land on which you can build upon.
- Second Life system requirements
- Platforms supported: Windows, Mac
View this virtual environment »