Reuters opens virtual bureau . . . for real
Users of online worlds transact millions of real dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day and that means there's real business news to cover. Confused? Host Kai Ryssdal sorts it out with Reuters' Second Life bureau chief Adam Pasick.
Reuters Second Life bureau chief 'Adam Reuters'
KAI RYSSDAL: Imagine for a second you're a business reporter. And you're assigned to cover an economy that's growing 10 to 15 percent a month. There's a catch. The world that economy's in doesn't really exist. But the money sure does. It's an online game called Second Life. Reuters announced today it's setting up a Second Life bureau to cover the virtual news. Adam Pasick will be the correspondent. Hi Adam.
ADAM PASICK: Hello.
RYSSDAL: Help me understand this for a second. You're with a real news organization, operating now in a virtual world.
PASICK: That's right. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world. But they have their own economy, they've got their own currency and, even though it's a virtual world, there's people who are running real businesses and they're making real profits.
RYSSDAL: What kinda profits?
PASICK: Well, the most well-known person is a woman named Angie Chung who's a virtual real estate developer. By most accounts she's making a couple hundred thousand dollars U.S. a year.
RYSSDAL: Explain for me, would ya, the nexus between this virtual economy and real-life economics. I mean, they come together at a certain point.
PASICK: They do. Well, I mean, the laws of supply and demand hold true just as well in Second Life. And the interchange is a currency exchange called Lindex,where you can trade between U.S. dollars and Linden dollars. It's a floating exchange rate totally set by supply and demand.
RYSSDAL: What's the rate today?
PASICK: I can tell you. It is currently at 273 Linden dollars to the dollar. And that's one of the things that we're piping into Second Life. We're giving people kind of a live currency feed, so if you're making a business decision, that's the kind of information you'd want.
RYSSDAL: What kinds of things can you get for 274 Linden dollars?
PASICK: Uh, what could you get? You could probably buy quite a bit of virtual clothing. There are people selling virtual vehicles, helicopters. . . . You could hire somebody to build you a house.
RYSSDAL: This is a tricky thing to wrap your mind around.
PASICK: It is. It's hard to get used to. When I first got into it, it seemed very strange. But the more time I spent in Second Life, the more I realized that it's really not all that different than being a reporter in the real world.
RYSSDAL: What kind of stories ya gonna cover?
PASICK: Uh, if you look at the Reuters website where we're hosting these news — it's Secondlife.Reuters.com — you get a basic idea. But I'm concentrating on the business and finance stories. There's a lot of stories that also touch on the real world. For example, I wrote a story about a U.S. Congressional committee that's looking into whether virtual economies should be taxed.
RYSSDAL: Congress is really thinking about taxing this Linden economy?
PASICK: Absolutely. They're studying it right now.
RYSSDAL: How are they gonna do that?
PASICK: Uh, that remains to be seen. And there's quite a few interesting questions about how you, uh, . . . Can you have capital gains in a virtual economy? Should it only be taxed when you cash it out to a real currency? All those questions need to be answered. But there's a lot of money floating around, so it's clear that something's gonna have to happen.
RYSSDAL: Now, is this your fulltime gig? Or are you doing real world reporting as well?
PASICK: No, I'm fulltime in Second Life.
RYSSDAL: Adam Pasick is the Second Life reporter for Reuters. I guess you're the bureau chief, aren't you?
PASICK: I'm the bureau chief, thank you.
RYSSDAL: You're the whole thing, there you go. Adam Pasick, thanks a lot.
PASICK: Take care.
Full disclosure here: We get some of our financial news from Reuters.
