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Virtual Worlds and the Implication for Accountants: The Case of Second Life

While real world economies may be shaky, economies in virtual worlds keep growing as sites such as Second Life become more and more mainstream. Research firm Gartner Media estimates that by 2011, 80% of Internet users worldwide will be using Second Life (Gartner, 2007). This growing popularity has real world financial implications. On a typical day, Second Life members spend close to $1.5 million on virtual items and virtual real estate transactions (Alter, 2008), and some residents generate six-figure incomes in real world dollars (Hemp, 2006).Second Life is still in an early stage of development, and there are many financial and legal regulatory issues to be resolved. But with these challenges come opportunities; Second Life may be the impetus for a new accounting platform that may bring different practices together and provide new growth opportunities that financial communities have been looking for in the virtual world.