Virtual+Goods

by Jen Vega
//Is it worth the money?//

 Every year millions of people spend billions of dollars on things that they will never be able to touch or enjoy themselves. Welcome to the virtual world, where people spend their hard earned cash to buy virtual goods. Virtual goods are all over the internet from avatars, coins, bling, even pets. 



Virtual objects aren’t really objects – they are graphical metaphors for packaging up behaviors that people are already engaging in. As James Hong from HotorNot tells it, his virtual flower service has 3 components: there’s the object itself represented by a graphical flower icon, there’s the gesture of someone sending the flower to their online crush, and finally, there’s the trophy effect of everyone else being able to see that you got a flower (Wu).

Virtual goods are a way for people to express themselves just as they would in everyday life. For instance, over 150 million people are buying widgets through sites such as RockYou. These widgets are a form of self expression, just as if one was accessorizing with clothes and jewelry, they are expressing themselves with widgets for profiles on social networks for all to see. 



The virtual world of creating virtual goods is a profitable business, especially because there is little overhead. For example, Gaia Online employs only three people to open mail sent in by customers and it is the 3rd largest auction site for virtual goods. The virtual goods market will continue to grow as social networking sites and the internet play an increasingly crucial role in people’s daily lives.