Some people view Second Life as a game. Some think of it as the next generation browser. Others look at the business opportunities in Second Life, and still others focus on the educational opportunities in Second Life. All of these views can be seen in the way people relate to the stock markets in Second Life.

For game players, it can be a simple replacement for gambling in Second Life, or it can delve into the depths of game theory. How do my bids affect the market as a whole? Can I drive up or down stock in a way that will benefit me? The way to keep score is to see how much you’ve profited. A good friend of mine wrote his doctoral dissertation on game theory in financial markets. I’ll leave that topic to him.

As a business opportunity, people are raising capital to fund their ventures. They are using discussions about their companies to raise the profit and profitability of their companies.

To me, however, one of the most compelling areas is the educational opportunities. I’ve spent quite a bit of time informally helping people learn how to trade stocks in Second Life. Typically it starts with the simple logistics, depositing money in the ATM for the various exchanges, understanding the difference between market orders and limit orders. This leads to discussing day trading options as well as evaluating the value of a company. The role of corporate revenues, how they are used, to meet expenses, pay dividends, or grow the company has been explored. Recently, I’ve been talking with people that are interested in creating more formal classes in trading in Second Life, and I think this would be really valuable. People can learn a lot from trading in Second Life that can be carried over to real stock markets.

Yet it isn’t just new investors that can be learning a lot. New CEOs and even people at exchanges can learn a bit about investing along the way. I’ve spoken with heads of various companies listed on the Second Life stock markets. We’ve talked about problems of determining how many authorized shares to issue in an IPO. I feel that many companies have issued too many authorized shares, diluting shareholder value. We’ve talked about how much money should be paid out in dividends, how soon after the company launches, what sort of payouts make sense, etc. Personally, given how quickly things happen in Second Life, it seems like companies need to pay higher dividends more quickly in Second Life than they would otherwise do in real life. We’ve talked about how to use the treasury shares of a company in a way to enhance stakeholder value, something that Samantha Goldflake of the Virtual Stock Exchange wrote about recently.

I don’t know how many of these issues will be discussed in IntLibber Brautigan’s CEO classes. IntLibber has plenty of detractors in Second Life who have questioned whether IntLibber should be teaching these classes, but if these classes are done well, they could be of great value. I attempted to contact IntLibber, and he was unavailable as I wrote this, however, Saissunshine Fackler, Intlibber’s Executive Assistant said that while she did not have an outline for the course available at this point, but she was sure that IntLibber had one and would get me whatever additional information about the course she can.

To the extent that you look at Second Life, and the stock markets in Second Life as a game or as a business, there are great educational opportunities and taking advantage of some of these opportunities could make the game aspects more fun and the business aspects more profitable.