I just heard of a geezer who made $250,000 selling virtual real estate.

Cue Second Life, from Linden Labs.

Overlook for a moment the benevolent but kinda scary meglomaniac founder Michael Linden. He gave his name to the company, the currency (Lindens), the economy and gives frequent speeches about the state of things virtually just as Al and Ben comment on the economy in the real world.

Focus instead on the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars in real money has exchanged hands between the members of  this uber-Sims community, and that Second Life has already spawned the world’s first (real) lawsuit over virtual property.

Which means we are now at the point in life where we are forced to differentiate between what is real and virtual; we have arrived at the  moment foreshadowed by Bladerunner. In the movie, Deckard has a hard time telling the difference between artifical life and the real thing.

In deciding between Linden and the Plaintiff, who reportedly hacked a Second Life auction for sim (the name for artifical land in Second Life), a court in New Jersey has to grapple with the same collison of realities.

Let’s not trivialize the grandeur of Linden’s Second Life dream. They have created a parallel world with sophisticated laws, a functioning economy and active members. Taking their cue from Moses and the Big Guy Linden has made key decisions about society like how large your head can be, whether you have to listen to your neighbor’s tunes, and how, exactly, you should go about matching buyers and sellers of virtual property.  And they are living with those decisions every day. 

They are the first self-appointed Gods of the ether.

But unlike the Lord they have to answer the phone and remain accountable to their flock (that has to suck).

Remember all those people who made millions selling domain names while the rest of us searched for the Next Big Start Up? And how eBay made millions selling other’s crap? Or how the Star Registry will name a piece of the Cosmos after your cat, Tiddles?

Well, Linden are selling an experience. They have created a thriving market out of the ether. And a chance to start over. Business Week calls the whole thing "seriously weird", but underscores the funadmentals of Linden Land by pointing out that Linden have attracted investment from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and another $11 million in venture money.

I recommend you pile in.

Oh, those of you interested in the latest trend in online identity verification, check out Linden’s offer of  a one-time gift of 25 free Lindens to new users who validate themselves via credit card.

Its nice to know the new world is just like Vegas.

Viralists will note they also offer L250 for referrals.

I signed up today. Look for my Avatar: Mortarmark Gremminger.

I’m thinking of starting the First Linden Church: want in?

The opinions expressed in  Mortablog  are not necessarily those of the author or anyone else at the Mortar
for that matter.  Just who owns them is kind of unclear really.  If you
do find someone who will own up to them for sure, let us know.

Fans of Internet radio rejoice. Pandora, from the Music Genome Project, has arrived.

File under "how did I ever live without this". Pandora is the online music station for your inner DJ.  Simply enter the bands or artists you like and it’ll stream similar songs to you all day long. Unlike iTunes and other web radio services, Pandora provides a more interactive experience — its kind of like Amazon’s "if you liked this book, you’ll love these" service.

Like that? You’ll love this. 

Squeezebox is a $250 gizmo that streams web radio (like its partner Pandora and the now positively venerable iTunes) wirelessly through your stereo.

But perhaps most interesting is the business partnership between these two.

Pandora is subscription based. You get to listen for so long, or to so many songs before paying a small fee. Seems like a fair deal to me. I get to test out the service first. Establish whether it fills a gap in my life (it does) and pay accordingly.

And to help me with my listening enjoyment, Pandora offers me Squeezebox so I can rock out away from my Mac.

Pandora no doubt gets a spiv from Pandora in the form of a revenue share on Squeezebox sales.

Another perfect example of an web symbiosis. Just like Orbitz crossing selling hotels and vacation packages to complement travel plans, and eBay offering bonds to guarantee online purchases.

Note from the Viral Monitor: Pandora made its debut here at Mortar about five weeks ago in an email from an account services colleague. And the first Squeezebox was delivered to one of the CDs two weeks ago.

I’m going to be putting in my order soon. 

The feedback from yesterday’s posting was essentially: This was cool, a MONTH AGO.

It seems the Soda/Mento’s thing happened months ago. The idea has since morphed into many forms, among the best is this real-life human test on YouTube.

See this typical comment (from Judy, the head of MortarPR who by rights should be last to know about the topic because she is, like, older than me and hates the Internet):

"And the mentos and coke thing is so last month…..my niece, nephew and I did this on Easter after hearing it on freakin’ NPR and looking it up on their website……it was hysterical."

At least I’m not alone. It took the Journal 30 days to fact check the story (sniff).

I had intended to attempt to use this Blog to chronicle the immediate impact of viral stories. "I’ll scribble those in the blog just as soon as they pop up" I thought way, way back on Sunday when I became el Bloggist.

Then I’ll watch for when the rest of the world pays attention.

Little did I know, that I am the rest of the world.

Oh, yesterday was also notable for my first comment from Mortar’s Mr. Affable, the (now) grumpy Mr Gurin who has a very different perspective on the Dixie Chick’s predicament. Ta, Hugh.

How far have we come when I can’t watch the first game in the World Cup from my desktop?

One of my clients has put a TV in their London office out of fear employees will stay home and watch the game. But millions of people (like me) are glued to their desks at work. I just logged onto EPSN’s Soccernet and Fifa’s World Cup site on Yahoo. Neither offers a live webcast of the events. There is a cool real-time web commentary on ESPN but no live video.

I’m sure a webcast would produce a major network meltdown; but I am disappointed that we have not built enough capacity to serve it up — and that someone, somewhere couldn’t leap on this chance to tell the world about their streaming prowess.

In this age of the fragemented viewer, it was a rare chance to reach the entire world.