Valleywag
The seedy past of Second Life's business showcase, Anshe Chung Studios, has finally hit a mainstream press that once hyped up Linden Lab's virtual world. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Anshe Chung, a 30-person studio in China run by Ailin and Guntram Graef, got its start as a "virtual masseuse" in the 3D environment. This would be laughable were it not for the fact that investors such as Benchmark Capital and Jeff Bezos have invested about $20m in Linden Lab in the belief that the company could make money out of the virtual economy it enabled; 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.
Press digs into cover star's seedy past
The seedy past of Second Life's business showcase, Anshe Chung Studios, has finally hit a mainstream press that once hyped up Linden Lab's virtual world. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Anshe Chung, a 30-person studio in China run by Ailin and Guntram Graef, got its start as a "virtual masseuse" in the 3D environment. This would be laughable were it not for the fact that investors such as Benchmark Capital and Jeff Bezos have invested about $20m in Linden Lab in the belief that the company could make money out of the virtual economy it enabled; 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.
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7:15 AM on Wed Jan 17 2007
By Nick Denton
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