See, instead of spending millions of dollars on recruitment advertising no one will actually see, the IRS instead spent thousands of dollars to create an IRS Careers Island in Second Life which no one will actually see. That's much cheaper! I actually visited the island as soon as I heard about this, and one can definitely see how they saved millions. It's a bunch of booths with clickable information signs, and a couple of lounges with some very pretty penguin clip art that must have cost them a small fortune to secure.

Frank Stipe, Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager for the IRS, explains why the IRS needs a Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager.

In the physical world, we could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on sponsoring a race car that displays our brand in a field of thirty or more other cars. In the SL virtual world, we have spent a few thousand dollars to build complete entertainment and communications venue that includes a race course. IRS branding throughout the venue not only displays our messaging, but it also instantly dispenses marketing collateral and links to our Careers web site.

Wait, there's an IRS race course in Second Life? Excuse me a moment.

Wheeeeee! The IRS rocks!

The service is currently working with Universities and other academic institutions to raise awareness of its Second Life presence. Those interested in more information can contact recruiter Robin Laviscu or sim engineer RobinRasberry Sorbet.

IRS Saves Millions by Using Second Life to Market Its Employment Opportunities [College Recruiter]

Pure West's Second Skin looks the lives of gamers and virtual world residents as they live out their lives playing World of Warcraft, Everquest, and of course, Second Life. It touches on the topics of addiction, online romance, and the community feeling and sense of camaraderie that can be fostered by a group of people essentially only connected to each other through the internet.

Since first reading about the project back in 2006, I've pretty much lived through most of this documentary, having put my Everquest addiction behind me well before that. Back then I thought it would be interesting to watch in order to see how those people live. Now I'm going to pick it up to see if I spot anyone I know.

Along with the DVD release on August 25th, Second Skin will also see a limited theatrical run, so check your local papers, just in case. Check out a sneak peek at the first five minutes of Second Skin below.

Internet access in many Arab countries often employs filters that prevent access to online games or sites that are considered offensive to Islam or Arab culture. Muxlim's as yet untitled 'Second Life style' MMO aims to provide an environment that is acceptable to such restrictions while still being a fun place to hang out.

According to Muxlim, users will have “the opportunity to wear a hijab, and go to prayer rooms.” Which may not sound like that much fun but, when you have seen the kind of tedious stuff they get up to in actual Second Life, starts to seem fairly reasonable.

Muxlim plans Muslim world’s first virtual world [TechCrunch]

Hewitt, as protagonist Melinda, must enter the world of Virtual Life and send the specter haunting the online game toward the light and away from her hilarious outfit. Based on the preview spot for the episode, after the jump, we expect good times at someone else's expense.

The show airs tonight on CBS at 8 PM, which for those of us on Eastern time is right now.

IBM and Palace Museum Announce Opening of The Forbidden City Virtual World Celebrating 600 Years of Chinese Culture

"The Forbidden City: Beyond Space & Time" Recreates Historical Treasure as a Fully Immersive 3D-Internet Experience

BEIJING, Oct 10, 2008 — Today, some 600 years after construction began on the 178-acre site that would become the center of unrivalled imperial power known as China's Forbidden City, the Palace Museum and IBM will open the walled fortress — and hundreds of years of history and culture — to the world.

Three years in the making, IBM has meticulously built a virtual recreation of the architecture and artifacts of the former palace grounds, enabling online visitors to get a first-hand view into imperial China as embodied in the intricate design, history and storied culture of this newly accessible Forbidden City.

"The Forbidden City: Beyond Space & Time" ( www.beyondspaceandtime.org) is a first-of-a-kind, fully immersive, three-dimensional virtual world that recreates a visceral sense of space and time of this Chinese cultural treasure — as it was centuries ago during the height of the Ming and Qing dynasties — for most anyone with access to the Internet.

"The rich cultural heritage of China's imperial past, embodied in the Forbidden City for over five centuries, is now brought to life and accessible to all through a virtual world created by IBM and the Palace Museum," said Henry Chow, Chairman, Greater China Group, IBM. "This initiative takes the online experience to a new level of innovation with rich content, educational storytelling, community and social networking features that represent the next generation of 3D-Internet applications.

"What makes me proud is that IBM now has opened the door to a cultural treasure and rich heritage to everyone, everywhere which in the past was only available to relatively few."

Originally, the Forbidden City was constructed to embody the idea of the emperor as the center of the universe with a series of dramatic courtyards and gates, buildings and landings underscoring a design built to reinforce security and power. This huge palace complex was completed in 1420, about twelve years after construction began, and contains hundreds of exquisite buildings and historic artifacts, and on October 10th, celebrates its 83rd anniversary as a museum and one of China's major cultural attractions.

Now, using virtual world technology, visitors can experience the awe inspired by this vast and amazing space. Rather than experiencing its wonders in isolation, the virtual Forbidden City allows you to see and interact with other users and a range of helpful automated characters. As you explore the virtual Forbidden City, you can choose to simply observe the buzz of activity, or you can take tours and participate in activities that provide insights into important aspects of Qing culture.

Visitors to the virtual Forbidden City will be able to take tours that correspond to major historical topics and stories from the Forbidden City, such as Dragons of the Forbidden City, the Supreme Golden Halls of the Forbidden City, the Imperial Garden, and the Symbolic Animals in the Forbidden City.

"'The Forbidden City: Beyond Space & Time' is a program that combines China's world-class cultural heritage with state-of-the-art information technology. Three years in the making, the Palace Museum worked closely with IBM in jointly engineering the program. Both parties have been deeply touched by the profound and dazzling ancient Chinese culture," said Zheng Xinmiao, the Director-General of The Palace Museum. "Meanwhile, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to IBM for its full investment and devotion and its strategy of applying innovative technology to social and cultural promotion. This program is only a start, which, as we believe, will have an unlimited future to explore China's traditional culture."

Visitors to the virtual Forbidden City may also engage in activities in which their avatars take an active role in the culture of the period. For example, avatars can take part in activities such as archery, cricket fighting, and playing the ancient game of Weiqi, the "board game of surrounding" now popularized as GO. Visitors may also view and inspect artifacts and scenes such as "The Emperor Having Dinner" and "Court Painting."

The recreation of the Forbidden City represents how 3D technology can be used to educate and provide cultural experiences on a large scale. At the Forbidden City in Beijing, local visitors can also use a kiosk to interact with the virtual world. It is the first virtual world to be built using SOA architecture and includes open source components such as Linux.

IBM's BladeCenters with Linux Blade Servers are at the heart of this virtual world — supporting robustness with the capability to enable thousands of concurrent users and the scalability comparable to that of massive multiplayer online games. IBM built the application using WebSphere Application Server, Tivoli, ESB (Message Broker), DB2 Viper, and IBM BladeCenters. The virtual world runs on Linux, Windows and Mac operating environments.

IBM has dedicated more than a decade to creating successful cultural heritage projects, including the Vatican Library, the Pieta, Hermitage Museum, Eternal Egypt, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The essential issue recognized by the "Avatar Rights" movement is that players ascribe substantial value to their game characters and virtual assets. The willful denial of this fact, in some sense, has helped enable the growth of gold farming and criminals who target online games.

Because developers don't consider the value that players put in their virtual "stuff", customer service is often not responsive to player complaints about lost items. Also, the game systems are not built to easily log, track, remove, and restore these items in case of loss or theft.

In some sense this is ironic, the same game companies that argue vigorously that the virtual items have no value, at the same time are extraordinarily reluctant to restore players characters or virtual items after alleged theft. The argument is typically made that the players are abusing the system by allowing their items to be stolen (or, actually, selling them) and then making a complaint to the game operator.

If the items have no value, then restore them.

Short, but interesting, musing — with references — on the 'avatar problem.'

The Quixotic Quest for Avatar Rights [PlayNoEvil]

The outcome of such work isn't important because it's good; it's important because it holds meaning for its creators and their kin. No matter what the VCs and technopundits may say about sharing and aggregation, YouTube and Flickr and the like function as social media because they function first as private media. Our notion of "private" has just expanded somewhat.

If you look closely at sites like Sims Carnival, you'll find the snapshot games hidden among the much less interesting DIY attempts at mainstream casual games. Games about crushes, games celebrating birthdays, games poking fun at celebrities. That site even has an "e-card" section for such games, and premade templates to create games about kissing a date, icing a birthday cake, or celebrating the holidays.

Sims Carnival's tools make the customization process more like Eastman's "we'll do the rest." It's easy for someone to insert fixed assets like text and images — the things they already learned how to create easily in previous eras.

It's worth a read through; there's been a lot of talk about user generated content, and even universities have gotten into the act when it comes to making it easier for non-pros to make pretty, individualized assets. The comparison to casual photography works really well here, and there's no doubt that 'casual' asset design is ever more important to virtual worlds.

Persuasive Games: Video Game Snapshots [Gamasutra]

With so many entertainment and consumer brands moving into virtual worlds, it’s easy to overlook the opposite trend starting to emerge.

A handful of successful online brands are starting to move onto store shelves through licensing and partnership agreements.

Neopets is the poster child in this space and Habbo, on the back of some early dabbling in the space, hinted at the show of a major offline brand tie-up to be announced soon

The real-to-virtual transition can be tough (be it a virtual world or movie tie-in), but it seems a lot easier to go the other way — and considering a lot of virtual world denizens are so damn cute already, how hard can a toy line be? Perhaps more traditional companies looking to 'break out from the glass wall' of retail can take a few marketing cues from their younger, simpler virtual worlds cousins.

The War on Geekiness and 4 Other Trends from Virtual Worlds Expo 2008 [Free To Play]

A study into the social psychology of virtual environments, by Northwestern University, indicates that people respond to the same social cues about race in virtual worlds as they do in real life.

In an experiment carried out in There.com users were approached by a researcher wearing either a light-skinned or dark-skinned avatar and asked a series of questions..

The study found that when asked a fairly demanding question, followed by a less demanding request (a so-called 'Door in the face technique', dark skinned avatars received a significantly lower rate of positive responses.

Same old, same old.

Researchers find racial bias in virtual worlds [ITNews.com.au]

(image source: http://soulsphincter.blogspot.com/)

Everything. Much of the GUI is not as complete or polished as planned in designs. Room creation/publishing/decorating could be a lot easier than it is now - we're working on that. Social functionality needs to be built out further - finding friends and inviting friends should be easier and more productive. There are some aspects of the client that limit how flexible it is as an element of web design - we would like to have it be more malleable in the hands of web designers.

There is a big demand for the ability to create content. We have a tool that our artists and partners use to publish content after its been exported from off-the-shelf DCC tools like Max, Maya and SketchUp. The publishing tool needs a redesign and documentation before its ready for public consumption. However, UI design and development for that is a simpler task than ironing out the policies for user-generated content.

Ruberg's initial complaints centered around Lively's lack of support for cybersex, but she coyly notes that "Earlier conversations with Young may or may not have involved interface design changes specific to cybersex, but since Google has no official statement on sex in its virtual world, those comments will have to be left to your imaginations ...."

Q&A with Google Lively's User Experience Designer [Terra Nova]

... We tested whether fantasy gamers conform to the Law of Demand, which states that increasing the price of a good, all else equal, will reduce the quantity demanded. We created two exactly equivalent worlds, and randomly assigned players to one or the other. The only difference in the two worlds was that the price of a single good, a health potion, was twice as high in the experimental world than in the control. We allowed players (N = 43) to enter and play the environment for a month. We found that players in the experimental condition purchased 43.1 percent fewer of the potions, implying a demand elasticity of -0.431. This finding is well within the range one expects for normal economic agents. We take this as evidence that the Law of Demand holds in fantasy environments, which suggests in turn that fantasy gamers may well be economically normal. If so, it may be worthwhile to conduct controlled economic and social experiments in virtual worlds at greater scales of both population (thousands of users) and time (many months).

This is kind of a less cool version of the WoW plague research, still my favorite example of academic research utilizing MMOs. As noted by the WoW researchers, virtual worlds may offer the potential to conduct research that would be impossible using real people (like, say, unleashing a plague upon the world).

A Test of the Law of Demand in a Virtual World: Exploring the Petri Dish Approach to Social Science [via Terra Nova]

A new report has been released on the utility of 'serious games' and in-game marketing in virtual spaces like Second Life; OTOinsights, the research arm of One to One Interactive, takes a look at the success (or lack thereof) of marketing attempts by major firms. They describe the results as 'uneven' and make some suggestions on how companies can better utilize virtual spaces to pitch their product(s):

"Serious games" refers to the use of games and game technologies for non-entertainment purposes. Traditionally, the education, health, and military sectors were the primary actors in this domain, but in the past few years, marketing has arisen as a major sub-domain of this area. Examples range from the selling of advertising inside video games to dozens of small, experimental corporate-sponsored spaces in virtual worlds such as Second Life, to the fully realized first-person shooter America's Army, developed as a recruitment tool for the U.S. Army. The results have been uneven, as most of these early efforts have had an experimental edge. This report releases findings that compare player engagement in some of Second Life's most successful user-generated areas compared with some of the more ambitious corporate-sponsored efforts in Second Life.

From Worlds In Motion:

In its study, the firm noted that overall, the top user-generated sites are more popular than the top corporate sites in Second Life. "Perhaps the explanation for this disparity is that corporate sites offer different content or experiences than user-generated sites, and builders of user-generated sites are more effective at offering the content users want. Or perhaps the corporate sites offer similar content, and the reason is that Second Life users are simply resisting corporate influence as a part of their hipster ethos."

Oh, snap. Starbucks, we don't want your kind here.

Serious Games for Marketing [One to One Interactive via Worlds In Motion]

Those concerned with 'virtual worlds' — as opposed to 'games' — spend a lot of time contemplating the role of virtual worlds in a wider market; over at Terra Nova, Bruce Damer looks at the potential future of virtual worlds, which could be a lot bigger than most people imagine. Some potential answers to keep the industry growing? Piggybacking off platforms that are currently growing at a rapid clip, making sure virtual worlds are 'worth' something — perhaps some as of yet undiscovered little platform will be the key:

As we can see from the history of computing, it is often the case of “the small gobbling up the big, and everything else”. Trivially small, lightweight yet rapidly replicating platforms often grow up to become all-encompassing solutions. DOS grew up to become Windows and along the way the PC triumphed over the time-shared mainframe, minicomputer and workstation. Could it be that there is some small world platform out there that is destined to become the standard? Dick Gabriel of Sun Microsystems has written much wisdom and books on this phenomenon (http://www.dreamsongs.com/Books.html) in which he posits that one of several ways to create a virally spreading success is to hitch your wagon to something that is already growing. Does this mean that a small world embedded in Facebook or some other social network(s) is the answer?

It's an interesting article that pulls examples from other (formerly) 'new media'; the rise and sustainability of virtual worlds is an interesting problem. I suspect even the 'big ones' will be trucking along pretty quietly — not unlike a lot of the popular free to play MMOs from abroad.

Virtually Eternal: A Positive Pathway to a Healthy and Sustainable Virtual Worlds Industry? [Terra Nova]

Now I know why they're not inviting the press yet. Home is still in its good-in-theory phase. In execution it's still lacking. I'm all for Betas having rough edges. That's the point. But I was surprised that the Home Beta doesn't seem to have that something special — the thing that yet makes it obvious it's going to be a hit.

Sorry for the vague terms, but Home is a vague kind of thing. Are you supposed to have fun with it? Or, like most other interfaces, just take pleasure if it works smoothly?

I spent about 10 minutes with Home. I loaded it off the PS3 cross media bar, taking control of a lone avatar. During my brief time in Home I saw no other avatars. The service looked as it has in screenshots. It still has a virtual PSP for an interface as well as a diverse set of pre-canned emotes. I made my guy dance.

I went from an outdoor area to the movie theater lobby to an amusement area containing a bowling alley and an arcade. If that all sounds familiar it's because it was. The Beta wasn't packing any pleasant surprises.

Instead, what I encountered was a lot of loading. Each area my avatar stepped into had to load. This could be because the person who's PS3 I was using hadn't used Home before. It did underscore how key swift movement is going to be in Home and how frustrating it will feel if it takes too long to get from, say, the lobby area to the area where you'd go watch trailers. In the current Beta, loading isn't done even once you're in an area. In the movie theater, for example, framed wall-hangings initially displayed screens with loading progress bars on them. The videos that needed to display took a moment to show up.

The arcade was the best area I saw. It has a few stand-up video game machines including a Chop Lifter-style game that's been shown before as well as a locomotive-stacking puzzle game. I tried bowling and found it about as basic as Grand Theft Auto IV's implementation.

There's a reason projects are in Beta and not release. All the kinks aren't worked out. New ideas are surely being considered. And, clearly, Home can't be accurately judged when no one but yourself is in it.

So what's the big takeaway? Home is clearly still a work in progress, functioning not that differently from what you heard about more than a year ago. Whatever it needs to make it a hit, I don't think it's in there — yet.

User generated content is something of a hot issue, with even universities like Stanford getting in on the game of how to make it easier and more intuitive for people to make their own stuff for games. At the recent Social Gaming Summit, a couple of industry types got together to talk about user generated content in virtual worlds, and why the model works for their games (such as Habbo Hotel or Puzzle Pirates):

"The more tools that you provide can lead to richer behavior, but often it's the simpler things that people enjoy most," began Daniel James, CEO of Three Rings. "As designing games constraints can lead you to designing better games, constrained environments can lead to more fun."

"The simplest games are the ones everybody can join in and play," expanded Ted Rheingold, founder of Dogster and Catster.

The panel also went on to discuss why we should think of 'virtual spaces' instead of 'virtual worlds' when looking at game design — design from the avatar up, not the 'world' down. Clearly this would not work for everything, but with casual MMOGs getting ever more popular, probably not a bad idea to go forward from for some developers.

Why User-Generated Content Matters For Games

Things kick off June 23rd with a keynote speech from Linden Founder and Chairman Philip Rosedale and newly appointed CEO Mark Kingdon, both of whom better have some pretty kick-ass avatars. If they don't have at least jet packs and glowing eyes I'm laughing them off the stage. Cue my character's temporary ban in 3...2...1.

Hit the jump for details on some of the milestones that SL will be celebrating, or visit the official site for a schedule of events.

Linden Lab Celebrates Second Life’s 5th Birthday With a Virtual World Fair

Keynote Addresses by New CEO Mark Kingdon, Founder Philip Rosedale and Board Member Mitch Kapor Highlight Two-Week Long Celebration

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life® (www.secondlife.com), has announced that it will hold a two-week long Virtual World Fair to celebrate the 5th birthday of the Second Life community. The virtual fairgrounds, created in tandem by Linden Lab and Second Life Residents, will host a series of roundtable discussions, parties and exhibits that showcase the vast creativity of Residents as well as groundbreaking organizational uses of the Second Life platform. The event will be held in various regions in Second Life and will take place from June 23 – July 7, 2008.

Open to Second Life Residents, Linden Lab employees and industry thought leaders, the event will explore such topics as the evolution of Second Life’s culture, the role of virtual worlds in business and the opportunities the platform offers for education, art, philanthropy and health care, among others. Founder and former Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale and newly appointed CEO Mark Kingdon will each give an opening address and Linden Lab board member Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, will offer closing remarks.

Some highlights of the first five years that will be discussed and celebrated include:

2003

June 23, 2003 – The highly anticipated Second Life virtual world comes out of beta and launches to the public

November 14, 2003 – At the State of Play Conference, Founder Philip Rosedale announces that Linden Lab will allow Residents to retain all IP rights to the content they create in-world, a groundbreaking move that while initially questioned by industry leaders, epitomizes Linden Lab’s approach and philosophy and has greatly helped establish its leadership position

2004

June 15, 2004 – Linden adds a Custom Animation scripting engine to Second Life, enabling Residents to more fully develop and personalize their avatars by adding distinctive moods and movements

August 15, 2004 – Second Life surpasses 10,000 Residents – to celebrate the milestone Philip takes the entire office to a Giants game; by the time the game ended, residency had jumped to 13,000

2005

April 25, 2005 – Having outgrown its office, Linden Lab moves to a much larger office on Sansome Street in San Francisco. A short time later, Linden would move again to its current location at 945 Battery Street

October 3, 2005 – Linden launches the “LindeX” – its own hosted currency exchange - L$400,000 is traded on the first day of business

2006

January 5, 2006 - Second Life surpasses 100,000 registered Residents

May 1, 2006 – BusinessWeek cover story “Virtual Life, Real Money” further validates Second Life as a revenue-generating vehicle for individual entrepreneurs and businesses

September 15, 2006 – Second Life surpasses 1,000,000 registered Residents

2007

January 8, 2007 - Linden Lab announces that it will release the code to its viewer software – further opening the world and enabling Residents to have more control over their experiences. An audacious and unusual move for a company in a leadership position but indicative of the company’s approach and ethos and a key step towards Linden’s vision of a pervasive 3D online environment

March 26, 2007 – Second Life surpasses 5,000,000 registered Residents

September, 2007 – In the month of September, Second Life surpasses: a) 10,000,000 registered Residents b) 25,000,000 total monthly usage hours and c) 50,000 concurrent users logged in at one time

2008

April 3, 2008 – Linden Lab announces that IBM will host regions of the Second Life Grid behind IBM’s firewall, combining the operational scale and security of IBM’s BladeCenter with Second Life’s dynamic content creation tools and vibrant user community. Combing these solutions together has the potential to make custom-created, security rich virtual environments a viable option for enterprises

April 22, 2008 – Philip steps down as CEO of Linden Lab, assumes the position of Chairman of the Board and names Organic’s Mark Kingdon as his successor; Mark officially began his tenure on May 15, 2008

“It’s amazing to look back and reflect on everything that we’ve accomplished in such a short time. From our initial launch, to the decision to allow Residents to retain their IP, to opening up the Platform to third parties, most of the decisions we’ve made have gone against the grain of conventional wisdom and that’s made all the difference,” said Philip Rosedale, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab. “While we’ve come a long way in our first five years and have surmounted significant challenges, there’s still plenty of work left as we continue to advance the medium. With Mark’s leadership and the passion and creativity of our Residents we are extremely excited about what the future holds and the evolving role that Second Life will play in business, arts, education and communication in general.”

The experiment is significant because the signals his brain sent to move the character came from the man imagining that he was walking. He also used a microphone to meet and converse with another Second Lifer. Then a swarm of flying penises surrounded him and the appalled researchers. OK, just kidding about that.

Researchers are studying a system that would let people select letters for a text message using the same type of brainwave controls. They surmise that, in the future, paralysis patients could use virtual worlds as a surrogate interaction with the real world — for example walking through a virtual mall and making purchases the same way one would in real life.

The research may also deliver mental health benefits as well as physical ones. Researchers hope that the activity will motivate and inspire people who are otherwise too depressed to attempt rehabilitative exercises they consider futile.

Paralysed Man Takes a Walk in Virtual World [AFP via Yahoo! News] [picture]

In a somewhat bizarre interview with The Times Online, Nancy Smith (head of the Sims division at EA) said that " in light of the popularity of virtual worlds ... the Sims may soon become a multi-player game." The article fails to mention the failed experiment of The Sims Online, later rebranded to "EA-Land" and scheduled for closure in August. But Smith talks of potential new (and old) modes for online play:

Ms Smith was adamant, however, that The Sims would not break wholly with its past, and would continue to require players to buy and install software on their machines before being able to play. Some virtual worlds, such as Club Penguin and Habbo Hotel, can be played entirely within a web browser ....

The Sims franchise would also continue to explore new revenue models that have become associated with virtual worlds, she said, including sponsorship and the sale of 'virtual goods', as on the fashion-focused virtual world for teens, Stardoll.com.

It's a really odd interview in light of the online element that already fell flat on its face; maybe second time will be the charm for the Sims?

The Sims prepare for a sociable future [The Times via Worlds In Motion]

"Despite a multitude of challenges, virtual worlds present a unique marketing opportunity to target a highly sought demographic, and virtual worlds should be part of a company's marketing portfolio," according to Harvey Cohen, President of Strategy Analytics.

Hear that? You might as well sign up now. Go ahead and IM Caliban Karas on SL if you need to know where to pick up your furry avatar.

Study: One Billion Virtual World Users in Next 10 Years [GameDaily]

My summer will be filled with exactly the same things my school year is (herding students along to enlightenment, reading, and research), minus pesky seminars, but for the younger generation, gainful summer employment is getting harder to come by. One solution? Turning to virtual worlds for employment:

In the real world, summer jobs are in short supply. Only about a third of teenagers are expected to work this summer, the lowest levels in 60 years, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. Summer youth employment has fallen from about 45% of teens in 2000, a downward trend made worse this year by the faltering economy.

But money-making opportunities in virtual worlds have grown as such sites go mainstream.

The WSJ piece also has a look at seven high school and college students who have been making virtual worlds — what they do and how much they make.

My Virtual Summer Job [The Wall Street Journal via Virtual Worlds News]