eBay snubs virtual goods, Valleywag snarks virtual worlds

Did you realize people were auctioning off virtual goods on eBay? A search for “second+life” as of this writing yielded 107 items, most of which were items without any bids on large amounts of Linden dollars (pictured above). Maybe I’m not looking in the right place or maybe eBay has already pulled all the listings, but I didn’t find any virtual goods being sold on eBay. Not even one listing. I never thought of selling my Dice Cube on eBay but it looks that isn’t allowed any more.

Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one. The policy on digitally delivered goods states: “The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner.” Given the nebulous nature of ownership in online games, eBay has decided the prudent decision is to remove the possibility for players to sell what might be the IP of other parties via their service. Mr. Durzy made it a point to say that initial listings of virtual property would not have punitive actions.

Valleywag which lately as frequently been making snarky Second Life and anti-VR related posts points out that:

eBay founder-chairman Pierre Omidyar … also invested in Linden Lab, makers of the virtual world Second Life

Just to backup how I’m coming up with “frequently” I decided to do a Valleywag search for “virtual” and “second life” to see how many recent stories (within the last few weeks) contained anti-VR snark, detailed below:

1/26/07: eBay doesn’t want your virtual goods - Linked above
1/24/07: The final moments of a Second Life resident - “The deserted Sears showroom was set up just this month, to an enthusiastic reception by marketers.”
1/23/07: BBC to offer avatars to real children - “This is not to be confused with the ageplay areas of Second Life, the Benchmark-backed virtual economy, where perverts or sex chat workers merely pretend to be 7-12 year-old kids.”
1/23/07: Virtual world’s supposed economy is ‘a pyramid scheme’ - “Linden Lab’s virtual world — a much-hyped online amusement arcade of cartoon porn, avatars of IBM executives and frog bands –”

Must admit I’ve never seen one frog band or IBM executive firsthand in SL, but surely they exist. Cartoon porn? Yes, you’ll find that in SL, but then lots of porn exists outside SL too. I’m not sure there is any higher concentration of adult material inside Second Life than there is outside. Are there more casinos and gambling in Second Life than Nevada? I’d say no. What do you think?

1/17/07: Press digs into cover star’s seedy past - “Anshe Chung Studios is the prime example of a business made possible by Second Life, their signature avatar making it to the front cover of BusinessWeek magazine; and blue-chip companies such as IBM and Sears, largely unaware of the sex chat that underpins the virtual world, have rushed to allocate marketing budgets to the creation of digital islands; and Second Life, if it fails, may well provide the iconic story of the second online bust.”
1/16/07: A virtual world’s tarnished icon - “Second Life’s most ludicrous scandal, the “sexual assault” of the virtual world’s richest entrepreneur by a flock of flying penises, just got more baroque.”
1/16/07: Second Life’s Press Hype - “Benchmark-backed Linden Lab claims 2.7m ‘residents’ of Second Life but concedes only a tenth of that number visit the 3D environment each month.”

There were at least three Valleywag posts referencing Anshe Chung’s “seedy past” as an SL escort, including Poster avatar’s seedy past. They have driven home the point that Chung was formerly an escort in case anybody else forgot.

1/12/07: Why gambling won’t fund Linden’s virtual world: “Reality check: there’s only one reason to prefer the crude Benchmark-backed 3D environment over a purpose-built online casino. The Department of Justice, which tracks down online gambling in the US, and Paypal, through which many Second Life users fund their accounts, simply haven’t grokked yet what’s going on.”

1/9/07: V-tail: “But less forgivable is Rubel’s latest crush: on Second Life, and efforts by Sears and others to promote shopping in the clunky virtual world. “Get ready for V-tail,” gushes Rubel.”

Got to admit I laughed out loud at the absurdity of the phrase V-tail, too. Snarky fun in this case. What’s not to despise about marketing catchphrase.

Increased Valleywag snark a good or bad thing?
I’m in the camp that believes bad publicity is better than no publicity. If you wind the clock back a mere 90 days ago, you will find the Valleywag anti-VR coverage has slipped from nearly daily to weekly and going back even further becomes a couple posts a month or less.

Clearly Valleywag appears to be going through a let’s regularly bash Second Life phase. To balance out the hype, I think it’s important to have anti-VR coverage, hence posts like this one detailing where to find the snark if you want more of it, but if you only read Valleywag, one might believe Second Life was Hell on virtual earth.

Important to note that snark is Valleywag’s M.O and they’ve been brutal to Google (particularly Marissa Mayer), Yahoo, Microsoft and many other companies in the past. Time will tell if all their snark toward virtual worlds, primarily Second Life, is deserved or the type of tabloid trash you find at every grocery store checkout area. For the time being this author is putting it in the latter column, but sometimes the tabloid trash can be good fun. Just don’t take too seriously.