cory opens with a picture of bush, stating: meatspace is over. let’s move to cyberspace. cory is a lead developer on second life, probably the most advanced cyberworld today. cory asserts that there is a significant market for digital goods: estimated at $1B. The total strength of this trade is about $10B currently, rising sharply. Because digital goods are becoming commoditized, game companies are in an arms race with their user base to develop new content. Most online world force their users to assign copyright to them, which limits trade and economic interest.
“Atoms suck, you end up with traffic problems and Walmart”.
Markets are developing on second life. You can buy skydiving and even skydiving classes from user-run stores. (It turns out that cyber skydiving is great fun). There are also live DJ’s streaming and talking to their users.
Someone created a gun, and contracted out the pieces of it (artwort, physics etc) inside the gaming world. Cory Doctorov wrote a chapter of his latest book by hanging out in second life and interacting with users from around the world. This sets the stage for online collaboration. Currently, the application runs on 500 commodity pcs and covers 32 square kilometers. People are adding twists: Someone added alien abductions, and started abducting people..
Cory recommends the mystery of capital. He asserts that business is moving towards decentralization (quoted from Tom Malone) and that online worlds support this perfectly. The user community started protesting in the game against the game designers by walking around with protest signs in areas with new users. What a great way to put pressure on developers 🙂
Institutions of meatspace are recreated (only better) in cyberspace: Theaters, Digital cool hunting, exploring business models. Cory predicts that in a few years, their physical simulation will get good enough to be able to design real cars in record time.

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