METAVERSED ISLAND -- Viewing what's going on in the virtual economy through the lens of macroeconomics is taking the metaphor too far, according to Gene Yoon (Ginsu Linden in Second Life), VP of Business Affairs for Linden Lab. Yoon spoke with Rob Bloomfield (Beyers Sellers in SL), professor at Cornell University and host of the Metanomics business events in-world on Monday.

Yoon, whose background includes law and venture capital, referred to Second Life throughout the one-hour panel as a “product” and considered the linden currency used in-world as merely an “element” of the product offering.

“When we thought about how to put together the offering - Linden dollar – we were a product team - although we did retain economic consultants,” Yoon said. Using the metaphor of a virtual economy is not useful for Linden's product managers to understand what is going on with their product, Yoon said.

Yoon dodged Bloomfield's questions about Linden Lab managing a monetary policy in-world by repeating his mantra about the metaphor being a distraction from Linden's business of offering a service to customers.

Yoon likened Linden's business offering Second Life as “software as service” and drew parallels to both an Internet Service Provider offering e-mail services and a company like eBay offering a platform where customers can transact business amongst themselves.

“I found it fascinating that Ginsu dispenses with the usual metaphors like thinking of in-world activity as an 'economy,' Lindens as 'money,' or sims as 'land'....or anything that would interfere with his preferred metaphor of 'SL as product,' said Bloomfield after the panel. “This very pragmatic perspective does a nice job of making what seems novel and complex - World of Warcraft with real money? - seem familiar and straightforward (such as) E-bay and e-mail with great visuals.”

Bloomfield wondered what Yoon might be “throwing away” by eliminating the metaphors. He pointed to the fact that Second Life does have an economy and believes that Yoon should be thinking about “the supply and demand of product features that are traded freely among customers.” Regardless of Yoon's perspective, the “product” is still novel and complicated, Bloomfield said.

At the start of the panel, Yoon admitted that he tends to see things in “black or white” terms and that his views do not always reflect the universally accepted views within Linden Lab.

Said Yoon, "Give people what they want from a product perspective – Linden Lab has a responsibility and opportunity to satisfy user demand, to give them the product functionality they want.”

Yoon went on to say, however, that some customers think that “Lindens must be the