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Second Life: Real Money in a Virtual World

You can make a lot of money buying and selling things that are not real. Second Life has built a booming virtual economy around some little animated characters called avatars.

Avatars live in a computer-generated city, and participants can create their own character for free. For a few pennies here or a dollar there, you can accessorize your avatar with new clothing, a car, even a house.

All that spare change has really started to add up and Second Life has earned hundreds of millions of very real dollars.

Steve Inskeep got a tour of the simulated city from Reuben Steiger, who runs a company called Millions of Us that helps businesses do business in Second Life.

Steiger spoke with Inskeep from a studio in San Francisco as their digital counterparts met outside a theater somewhere in cybertown.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.