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Ingdahl explained the beginnings of the virtual worlds from a perspective of three internet revolutions, using what the internet community perceived as the "bad guys" for explaining how the dynamics and power relations of the three revolution have shaped the virtual worlds. The title of Ingdahl's speech Capitalism and its distilled form in Second Life paraphrases Milton Friedman for the 21st century: if you want to see capitalism in action, log on to Second Life. It is an arena were no barriers to entry, exit or trade exist, with little to no taxation and without government interference to rapid technological innovation.

The virtual worlds offers many the opportunity to work from home. They also bring globalisation a much needed human face, as it enables a meeting of cultures and ideas on a individual level instead of the first wave's globalisation which mainly entailed corporations and governments.

Ingdahl explained how the reality estate markets work in Second Life, its value for political communication and for improving e-government with online administration.

Second Life has three killer applications that distinguishes it from other virtual worlds. The "You create, you own" policy in Second Life gives a new popular spin on the need for intellectual property as more people become creators in themselves.

We all live in a increasing virtual world anyway, when production is increasingly revolving around intellectual production. Even in ordinary goods the knowledge and software parts become more important, as production can be made almost anywhere.

Ingdahl explained the significance of Edward Castronova's work in economics, and gave some economic statistics for Second Life's economy. Pornography and gambling is rapidly losing its dominance of Second Life's economy as more users log on. This is concurrant with the trend on the internet in general as for instance MySpace-sites overtook sex-sites as the most frequented from the UK last October.

He explained how eduction and organization can benefit internally from the virtual worlds and reduce many costs of communication.

The first hype about Second Life is already passing by, the ghosttowns of fully stocked but empty corporate islands is changing into new strategies. Ingdahl used as example one the dot.com boom's most abysmal failures: the online clothing store boo.com. Nowadays mail order companies are actually doing boo.com's work with great success, and Ingdahl explained how they succeeded where boo.com failed.

It is important to understand that Second Life can be used as a community building forum, achieving the right dwell quotient from the right community, for companies and organizations. Producers of physical goods must still keep them in focus and understand that Second Life is relying on the sale of information.

Ingdahl also explained the main legal and political issues of the virtual worlds in the near future. We will see the intellectual property issue move into Second Life, and there will be a discussion on taxation and regulation of these worlds. Are the virtual worlds heading towards anarchy, a policy conflict between the United States and the European Union over "choice of law" or will actually the "acts of God" model still prevail where company creating the virtual world will have a great say not only in how the world works but also in how business is conducted in it?

The virtual worlds will probably reach a critical mass when interconnectivity between them is possible. This is a good time to begin a strategy for establishing oneself in the virtual worlds as experiments are not as costly.

Mikael Haglund of IBM (left) gave IBM's impressions of working in Second Life. His presentation can be read here >>>

Johan Björkman from Barncancerfonden explained the experiences in Second Life made by an NGO

Professor Johan Roos acted as a moderator. The seminar was simultaneously broadcasted to a Second Life audience of avatars.

Alexander Kanaev, author of Reality of virtual life- The first generation explained some of the recent developments in the virtual worlds.

Micael Dahlén, one of Sweden's foremost experts on brands and branding explained how branding and copyrighting works in Second Life.

Robin Teigland, the Stockholm School of Economics, described some future developments of Second Life and other virtual worlds.

Journalist and author Ana L. Valdés made the concluding remarks for the conference.

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