I haven’t written any general Second Life Trading Notes recently because there have been the Atlas Venture Capital (AVC) and Countless Galaxies (CGI) developments have taken a lot of my focus. On top of that, I’ve been focused on real life and have done less day trading in Second Life than usual.

This evening, however, I want to take a few moments to look at some recent developments. On the Second Life Capital Exchanges (SlCapEx), many companies have been announcing their dividends resulting in spikes in various stocks. Of note, Yellow Paperclip announced a dividend of .053L$/share which was up considerably from their previous .011L$/share.

Innovative Inc. (INC) posted a .01L$/share dividend, down considerably from their previous .04L$/share dividend. They noted their consistent profitability and dividend payouts. They talked about new plans and a redistribution of stock between key players.

The Innovative Index Fund (NDX) posted a .04L$/share dividend. This was up from a previous .03L$/share dividend.

Yet two of the most interesting announcements came from Second Life Capital Exchange (SLCX). In one announcement, they presented their new advertising rates. At the low end of the scale, they have 1000 impressions for L$ 1,500. That works out to be around 1000 impressions for $5, or about half a cent an impression. That seems pretty steep by normal online advertising standards, especially for a website that doesn’t even show up on Quantcast. However, it serves a niche audience, so the high rates might be justifiable.

The second interesting announcement was about their deal with Obopay. SlCapEx is setting up currency trading and the ability to withdraw money to Obopay. I had written about Obopay last February. I’ve set up an account, but never used it. One thing that Obopay does is that it gives you U.S. $5 for each person you invite who signs up, so if you are thinking of signing up, please drop me an email and I’ll send you an invite.

Back in June, Obopay announced plans to change their fee structure. When this was announced, I planned on canceling my Obopay account. Apparently I wasn’t the only one and they changed their plans. The report from SLCX is that they will charge a flat $1 withdrawal fee for taking money out of SlCapEx and transferring it into Obopay. While this may be less than many people pay for ATM fees, it is an awful lot when you think about micropayments. So, for the time being, I’m taking a wait and see approach to Obopay and Second Life. If they can find a way of making it work without the large transaction fees, it could be really interesting.

The other interesting company news is that SL Reports (SLR) is looking for a new General Manager. SLR is a company that I really like. They provide details about their management online. Yet being a person that has been producing online media for years, and made virtually nothing off of it, I worry about their business model.

They do show up on QuantCast, but with less than 2,000 unique visitors a month. My unique monthly visitors is currently just over 2,000, but it has spiked up above 3,000. If I can’t make much money that way, I’m not sure where SLR is going to make its money, with the caveat that I mentioned above about the possibility of very high advertising charges due to the uniqueness of the niche.

That said, the financials of the SLR deal are interesting. The GM would get a signing bonus of L$50,000. That works out to be around U.S.$ 200. That isn’t bad. In addition, the GM would get 400,000 locked shares of SLR. At current prices that is worth around US $ 1,000. The dividends would turn out to be around US $7.50 a month. However, this is presented as being close to a full time job, and a full time job at US $7.50 a month, well, that just doesn’t work.

So, what is the future for SLR? I hope they can build their brand and make this work. But, there are plenty of other sites reporting on Second Life, so this many be difficult.

In my other trading, I continue to accumulate Atlas Venture Capital (VSE.AVC). I have been very impressed with Monkey Canning and believe that he can make a viable venture capital firm here. He paid an early dividend, partly to get around the traders coming in to play off dividend payments. I reinvested my dividend and have been buying a little more each day.

I had been buying the stock at the selling price, figuring it was so low, it wasn’t worth dickering over. When I first started looking, there were sell orders for over 780,000 shares at a price of L$ 1 or lower. That has slowly decreased to 696,000 and then all the way down to 370,000 shares offered at below a Linden Dollar. It traded as high as L$ .36 today. If it continues to climb like this, I may just have to start putting in bids, instead of lifting the asking price.

There are some people who approach trading in Second Life as a game, and some of the companies may be little more than ponzi schemes. However, there are some real business efforts going on in Second Life that can be invested in and there is real money to be made. We need to start looking much more closely at the real business models and thinking about how Second Life businesses can grow and thrive.