Products for the Internet Age

The internet's promise as a disruptive technology is being realized in ways unimagined. A virtual island was sold by Project entropia for 26000 dollars. The buyer can lease, rent or sell plots to other cyber citizens for real cash and also charge for mining rights etc. Is this an indication of a real big cyberworld in the making? Even today possesing a big island or a yacht is more a function of vanity than utility. Now if the same vanity were available for a piece of the virtual world, it might put less pressure on our precious real earth.

Already amongst the hacker and gamer community the social standing of a person lies in how good a hacker or gamer that person is. Looks, size of car, branded cloths, price of house, pay packet etc are irrelevant. As more and more people join the techie crowd corporates will see a sizable market which their current aspirational products can't address. New business models and product ideas are required for this set of people. I recently heard of a valley based Indian enterpreneur who is setting up a ratings network in South Korea (the most networked country today) using which gamers can access a online rating repository and see the social standing of a fellow gamer.

More discussion on the virtual island here on slashdot.