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Via Create Or Die

My monthly column is online:

Menschen wollen besitzen. Besitz bedeutet Ansehen. Besitz bedeutet Sicherheit. Besitz bedeutet Verfügbarkeit. Es muss nicht der Porsche sein. Manch einem genügt bereits ein virtuelles Stück Land. Ein Beispiel: Second Life. Hier besitzt man virtuelles Land real. Ein anderes Beispiel: WhatsYourPlace.de. Hier besitzt man reales Land virtuell.

Read on: CREATE OR DIE! > Hauptsache haben

What? Am I crazy? Am I schizophrenic? Did I not said, that DRM is the problem? Yes, it is, because in case of music DRM does not satisfy the needs of the customer but of the producer. It brings no benefit to the consumer. The opposite is true: the buyers are limited in the usage of their purchases.

In the case of virtual goods, where most goods are produced by the consumer (the prosumer), DRM is a must-have! Users revolt if DRM does not work! Take for example Second Life. The residents demonstrated, because their business was threaten by a simple programm called CopyBot.

So now imagine a world where people can buy music and are allowed to resale it (e.g. in different compilations). In such a (virtual) world people call for DRM! Brave new world ;) Have a good time!

Yes, the hype over Second Life is over. However, there are a few things we (as web-developers and entrepreneurs) can learn from Second Life and other virtual worlds. Second Life showed us, why people pay for content, why they spend not only money online, but also an huge amount of spare time and what customers really seek for on the Internet.

If you are interested, attend the webinale 08 and join my presentation (in German because most attendees are German):

Was wir von Second Life & Co. lernen können

Interested in what paid content and the social web have in common? Then contact me: szugat@paidcontentisback.com. I love to talk about these topics on your public or internal conference, workshops etc.

Have a good time!

I think social networks are a great thing. I use them (especially XING and Facebook) in my everyday life – they are in fact part of my (digital) life. I’m also a fan of Second Life, because it offers more options to express myself. I can change my appearance with just a few clicks and on demand basis and show the world who I am, how I am and what I’m a fan of. The problem with XING, Facebook & Co.: they are mainly text based. I don’t feel well described by a few tags like philosophy, technology, society etc. I would need thousands of tags to express myself in the right manner! But no one would read that.

We need other forms of self-actualization on the Internet. Games are a great thing to do that, but also other non-interactive rich media like songs, movies etc. The industry should not force people to buy these products on CD or DVD and just exhibit them in their living rooms. People live digital! They love to show things online. A picture can say more than thousand words! And a movie more than thousand books!

Live digital and have a good time with your second life!