Core77

We all know you can't get something for nothing; but apparently you can get nothing for something. The Times' "Internet" column has an article up describing how

Silicon Valley may have discovered the perfect business: charging real money for products that do not exist. These so-called virtual goods, like a $1 illustration of a Champagne bottle on Facebook or the $2.50 Halloween costume in the online game Sorority Life, are no more than a collection of pixels on a Web page. But it is quickly becoming commonplace for people to spend a few dollars on them to get ahead in an online game or to give a friend a gift on a social network.

Which raises an interesting point--if someone buys me a gift (let's say, a crudite platter shaped like a pirate ship) that I never use, or if they get me a virtual bottle of booze on Facebook, isn't that basically the same thing, minus the manufacturing and shipping costs? "It's the thought that counts" and all that? And taken to the (admittedly unlikely) extreme, the rise of virtual gifting would mean fewer product design jobs to go around, and future Gift Fair tradeshows moved from the Javits Center to MySpace.

In any case, lest you think this is some blip in the economy, the Times article points out that virtual gifting is big business indeed, for the companies selling the goods: We're talking five billion dollars a year. Read about it here.