Claire Cain Miller and Brad Stone, Writers, New York Times

Virtual Goods Start Bringing Real Paydays

November 9, 2009 at 12:08 am PT

Silicon Valley may have discovered the perfect business: charging real money for products that do not exist.

These so-called virtual goods, like a $1 illustration of a Champagne bottle on Facebook or the $2.50 Halloween costume in the online game Sorority Life, are no more than a collection of pixels on a Web page.

But it is quickly becoming commonplace for people to spend a few dollars on them to get ahead in an online game or to give a friend a gift on a social network.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Tagged with: Brad Stone, Clare Cain Miller, digital, Facebook, innovation, Internet, social networking, virtual goods

comments so far. Add yours.

About Voices

This is a section of the AllThingsD Web site featuring posts that have been curated from around the Web: pieces we’ve read, discussions we’ve followed, stuff we like. Five posts are included here each weekday, but only the headline and the first two sentences. We link to the original site for the rest. The section is explicitly labeled, so it’s clear that content comes “from other Web sites.”

We also solicit original full-length posts and accept some unsolicited submissions. Voices is edited by Beth Callaghan.