Idea of the day:
Virtual Currency
Since money is a metric of value, then it is indeed possible to have other metrics as well. In fact, there are already heavy layers of abstraction that have been placed over the abstraction of money, to create advanced metrics, such as real estate, stocks and options, and a hundred other instruments that an economist or a financial analyst could tell you about. In the virtual world of the web media, a new metric is also being spawned.
All over the world, gamers have been paying real money for products that do not exist except on the web. Even people who are not serious gamers, but would just like to kill time playing Farmville do not mind spending some cash for the sake of what they consider to be entertainment. And since money itself is an abstraction, one may argue that the virtual goods are as valuable as real goods, and so is the virtual currency. How much this line between "real" and "virtual" currencies would be blurred in the years to come remains to be seen, but the potential of virtual currencies and goods in making "real" profits has been capitalized upon (pun intended!) by companies like Zynga, which is one of the fastest growing web-based start-ups today. And what also remains to be seen is whether this is indeed an encouraging concept or a disturbing one.
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