Language And Finance in A Virtual World

While looking for something completely different, I came across 'Investing in the online property boom'. I thought, 'great, another article about [t:Anshe Chung]'. But once I choked past the ad nauseam, ad infinitum first paragraph related to her, I got to the good stuff. Like:

...Moreover, they can freely buy and sell their goods for an in-world currency, called Linden dollars, that can be exchanged for real life greenbacks. However, these transactions have largely been limited to English- and German-language speakers. Some users have found creative ways around the limits. For example, a Second Life denizen created a "translation hud" that an avatar can wear to communicate in nearly any language. Simply don the device, set the language you'll be typing in and the one that you want to appear on screen. But not everyone knows about it. "The language issue has presented some cultures from embracing Second Life completely. Even if they speak English as a second language, they'll stay away," says David Fleck, vice president of marketing at Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company that created Second Life.

Now, however, Linden is adding more language options to Second Life, which could broaden virtual reality's global reach, giving anyone with a computer and the common language of SL's building tools a chance to test their entrepreneurial skills. Even when the virtual world was essentially bilingual, Second Life had users in 101 countries and was exploding in terms of population and commerce. There are more than 1 million residents, up from about 20,000 a year ago, and they're spending more than $400,000 in a typical 24-hour period on land, clothing, batwings, beautifully constructed facial expressions and programs that allow their avatars to engage in warm embraces and other physical manifestations of human emotion. Linden has silently added Korean and Japanese language options; Chinese will soon follow.

Fleck envisions a universe where Rwandan teens and Chinese housewives have equal opportunity to flex their enterprising muscles and make more money than they could in their real life economies, giving the promises touted by globalization advocates a run for their money. "For a person in a developing country, they can make meaningful amounts of money in Second Life," says Fleck. Moreover, these budding businesspeople will not operate in different countries, separated by language, but still all exist in Second Life. The site itself is responding in kind by looking more and more like a sprawling city with ethnic enclaves and neighborhoods, something akin to New York, Hong Kong, Paris or Toronto...

Aha. I missed this article because it was poorly titled, and yet here's something which relates to globalization, language, and a virtual world¹. Buried under a business headline which has little to do with the actual article itself and found only through the good graces of Google. But instead of continuing to spank the editor and writer responsible (it's not fun after one paragraph), it bears some scrutiny. Especially in the context of global internet penetration as I wrote about in 'Globalization and Second Life'; with language as less of a barrier there's more potential toward progress.

Yet there are those still being left virtually behind. Even today someone within the Caribbean Culture and Language ICT community told me that (after months of lag and a lot of badgering) he had finally logged in. But all of this isn't apparent to a lot of people until you take the time and look. ² And if it's slow to drag active ICT people into the mix, it's likely to be slow for the lumbering paper bureaucracies responsible for the digital divide to take notice. Microprocessor Immune Deficiency Syndrome ([t:MIDS]) within governmental bureaucracies creates MIDS in policy which enforces MIDS on people who are affected by the policy.

But the good news is that language is becoming less of a barrier. Meanwhile, improper headlines are a bit of tongue in cheek humor when it comes to communication. Even in the same language, miscommunication can cause people to not read things that would interest them.³

¹ See 'Notes On A Virtual World: Language and Technology'.
² Sometimes you can't go back to the cave and tell people what's outside, sometimes you have to drag them kicking and screaming into the light. But by the time they come into the light... it may be too late.
³ Oops. Couldn't help a parting spank.