Wednesday 10 PM ET/PT/SLT, “A woman's murder sends Mac into "Second Life," the internet-based virtual world to track down the killer in both the real and cyber world. TV14-V.”

This is expected to bring a whole new wave of people to Second Life. To prepare for this wave, the Electric Sheep Company is expected to release a new client for Second Life, the OnRez viewer, which people are already arguing the pros and cons of.

Over on the Second Life Educators mailing list, people are wringing their hands. “What's going to happen on Oct 24th … and shortly thereafter when the 100s of new sims come online? Is that a good day NOT to be teaching or building in SL?”

Prokofy Neva in The Future of Content: Watching the Detectives wonders what all the new residents will do to Second Life. They “may or may not contribute to the existing inworld economy as consumers or even producers. I'm betting they won't, and that the inworld economy will take a severe hit.“

Well, if they don’t consume or produce, how are they going to deal the inworld economy a severe hit? How will such a severe hit compare with the closing of gambling, the decline in real estate prices, the runs on the Second Life banks, or the turmoil in the Second Life capital markets? How will such a severe hit compare with people becoming more involved with alternative grids?

Maybe some people will stick around, rent or buy some land, invest in some stocks, or put some money in banks. Some might be simply feed the next fraud du jour, others might make some good investments.

How much of an impact will CSI: SL really make anyway? Depending on how close a game it is, a lot of people may still be busy watch the Rockies and the Red Sox fight it out.

A different person commented, “Terrific. This will get the vast TV audience an opportunity to get a taste of "stepping inside" the TV. Should be mind-changing.”

I’m the eternal optimist. I don’t think Second Life will take a serious hit, either in the grid or in the economy, and somewhere, someone will have a mind-changing experience, and we will all be better off for it.

Also relating to Second Life finances, AnCapEx is now up and running. This is IntLibber Brautigan’s new stock exchange. In terms of functionality, it appears to be using the same software as the Second Life Capital Exchange (SlCapEx). I’ve always liked the SlCapEx interface, and I especially like their webservices providing an easily processed feed of stock prices. It would be great to see other exchanges pick up this format.

Currently, the only stock available on SlCapEx is Brautigan & Tuck Holdings, (BNT). This includes the merged in Countless Galaxies (CGI) shares. It will be interesting to watch the initial trading. On top of that, AnCapEx is talking about adding options. This will be a nice feature, although I’m curious about how exercising options will work. Ideally, they will list options on other exchanges which will require the exchanges to adapt and facilitate transfers of stock, such as through the exercise of options, as stock lending or stock gifts, and so on. This will move the capital markets in Second Life forward in ways greater than any influx of CSI views is likely to damage.