Shrinking (virtual) Cities.

Honestly - I never got comfortable with Second Life. It almost looks like a parody of capitalism: a mix of shopping, sex and questionable taste. Also a lot of people are worrying about the rise of Second Life's virtual real estate bubble: Users of Second World can buy and sell virtual land. Anshe Chung 's claim to have earned over $1m USD from SecondLife is primarily related to her virtual land brokering business. Some critics refer to Second Life's as pyramid business model (source: Capitalism 2.0 ): "non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered." (source: wikipedia )

Anyway, Second Life seems to have lost attraction: it seems to shrink. "Abandoned company islands and empty program plaques and displays characterized the view, as the ‘Los Angeles Time’ reports. Computer manufacturer Dell gave up its island, as did the hotel chain Starwood." (source: shrinkingcities )

On this occasion the competition "Reinventing the City – Die Stadt Neu denken", the Shrinking Cities project in collaboration with the architecture magazine archplus has launched the competition “Reinventing the Virtual City – Die virtuelle Stadt neu denken".