Making Second Life More Viable for Investment

With the folding of Ginko Financial, even the slow mass media is beginning to toss their heavy opinions around - with a lot of their research gleaned from weblogs that have been covering the issues for some time (sometimes even with acknowledgement). And while all of this is happening, the result for the community should be seen as positive. In a world where certificates and degrees seem to mean so much, common sense seems to be forgotten a lot of the time - and common sense is necessary for dealing with money.

For those who have lost money investing in Second Life, take heart: In the real world, the price of an education is sometimes how much you lose. Learning from it is a choice, just as running away with one's arms in the air and screaming is a choice. It sucks what happened with Ginko Financial for the community, it really does - but it is the price of an education. The community can either learn from the lesson, or repeat the mistakes, or withdraw one's hand from the stove for fear of being burned again. Some may say that the last is the same as the first, but that is an extreme position and one based on one's ability to tell if the stove is hot or cold. Understanding the difference is an important aspect of the education provided by the situation.

As I wrote before, the community needs to take steps forward. These steps, as I wrote, include these demands:

• We want better investment or we will not invest.
• We want more transparency or we will not invest.
• We want more realistic expectations on our investments
• We want better policy from Linden Lab when it comes to these things.

Toward Transparency

Some people have been pro-active in these matters prior to the closing of Ginko Financial, particularly transparency. Some examples include The Rock Insurance, which has been gaining information from bank owners and lowering the cost of insuring deposits based on the transparency of the bank provided to them. In essence, the Insurance company is taking the risk for people and is assessing the risk before deciding how much it will cost to insure a deposit. Recent events have overshadowed this, but to their credit they have acknowledged that they have people who insured their deposits at Ginko Financial and are now in the process of honoring these certificates. That is a big step, and while it is bad for many people it certainly will demonstrate that insuring one's deposits isn't a bad idea - especially given the small percentage of the interest earned by the deposit being used as a cost.

Another interesting development in the context of stock exchanges is that the CapEx exchange has three new IPOs. By itself, that's nothing - but what is not mentioned in that article was mentioned inworld via a group notice, emphasis mine:

Come to CapEx now to check out three great new IPOs.

SL Fantasy : Interactive, SL Fantasy Sports

VBL: Verballis

XXX: Tropical Temptations

Visit CapEx at the AVIX Website, www.allenvestfinancial.com.

Check out thesse great companies - ALL ID VERIFIED!

I am not suggesting that people invest in these IPOs. What I am pointing out is that there is a public acknowledgment of transparency issues, that some are taking the issue seriously, and that this is a step toward a culture of business transparency within Second Life. This is a good trend, and one which needs to permeate Second Life.

My advice is quite simple: Don't invest in anonymity. Unfortunately, some may see this as a betrayal of anonymity - but the second one becomes responsible for the investments of others, one should not expect anonymity... especially with recent events.

But is transparency enough? Of course it isn't. It is a big step, but it is only a single step.

Realistic Expectations

If someone is telling you that you can gain better interest rates investing in them than you can in the real world - you need to start asking serious questions. Questions like:

• Is it legal?
• Is it too good to be true?
• If it all falls down, can I afford to lose this money?

Questions on legality are not very simple, though on the surface it may be. If there is a resemblance to a [w:ponzi scheme], for example, one should ask hard questions. If the answers one gets are not satisfactory, or include the phrase 'you would not understand', do not walk - run, and by all means scream.

The last question, whether you can afford to lose the money - that is a simple matter of common sense. Never put your eggs in one basket. If you're going to take risk, spread the risk out.

But What Else?

Everything described above is, frankly, common sense. Yet even with transparency and realistic expectations, the community lacks teeth - Second Life is international, and international law may make things difficult should your investments go sour. The way around this, of course, is through [w:Linden Lab]: Linden Lab could make this easier through policy changes and set a standard for virtual worlds when it comes to these things. But that would require a transparency in Linden Lab itself which is not apparent.

Linden Lab prints Lindens at will, artificially increasing the circulation of the Linden dollar and implicitly devaluing it - something written of by an expert. Linden Lab continues to print land to lower prices in an insane and costly battle with land barons... and it isn't even certain that the virtual land is a 'service' or a 'commodity'. And Philip Linden's comments on transparency and regulation do not indicate that Linden Lab thinks change is necessary.

Some people disagree.

While the community does make strides forward toward an investment viable Second Life- Linden Lab lags. A community request urging Linden Lab to address these issues may be required, and while it may arrive on empty ears (as these requests often do), then maybe you should not invest heavily in Second Life.

Linden Lab, after all, does seem to understand the bottom line quite well. You should too, or the cost of your education may be proportional to your 'investment'.