First Meta. Second Life: It's not a game. NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Last November in Beijing, IBM gathered 2,000 employees, with 5,000 more watching on the web, to unveil a series of global initiatives on digital storage, branchless banking, and the like. During the presentation, CEO Sam Palmisano walked up to an onstage PC, logged onto the online three-dimensional virtual world called Second Life, and took command of the cartoon-like "avatar" that represents him there. He then visited a version of Beijing's Forbidden City built on virtual real estate, dropping by an IBM (Charts) meeting where avatars controlled by employees in Australia, Florida, India, Ireland, and elsewhere were discussing supercomputing. Among the initiatives announced by Palmisano that day: a $10 million project to help build out the "3-D Internet" exemplified by Second Life. By early January more than 3,000 IBM employees had acquired their own avatars, and about 300 were routinely conducting company business inside Second Life.
US Congress launches probe into virtual economies. US Congress launches probe into virtual economies Sun Oct 15, 2006 10:43pm PDT By Adam Reuters.