Coffee & Power Now Trading L$ for Coffee Dollars; Smart Way to Connect Real World Work Tasks to SL Projects

Well this was inevitable but also quite cool: Coffee & Power is now trading Linden Dollars for Coffee Dollars, the official virtual currency in the new real work trading network from Second Life founder Philip Rosedale. L$250 gets you C$1 (Coffee Dollars are equivalent to US Dollars.) Go here for all the details.

Offhand, I'd say this is a really good idea: While Second Life has a vibrant in-world economy, a lot of SL-related projects require work which actually needs to take place outside SL: on the web and external servers, for example, in Photoshop and Final Cut, and so on. Linking Linden Dollars to Coffee Dollars is a smart way to leverage this dynamic, and the C&P's karmic system is probably a good way for reputed SL developers to establish a trust network. I wouldn't be surprised with Philip's new system, which aims to transform real world work, actually gets inundated by avatars.

Comments

[Devon Alderton]

Ah, tax consequences are very real for RL barter systems. Many people consider their in-world earnings to be tax-free so long as they do not remove their lindens from SL. This can't work that way. It may even bring more IRS scrutiny to those SL earnings.

According to IRS "Tax Responsibilities of Bartering Participants":
Barter dollars or trade dollars are identical to real dollars for tax reporting. If you conduct any direct barter-barter for another's products or services - you will have to report the fair market value of the products or services you received on your tax return.

See www.irs.gov for more info if you are subject to US tax laws.

This is not legal advice or tax advice. Just a word to those SL players who may suddenly be stuck explaining to their accountant exactly how they earned their spacebux. They may not be so thrilled at Philip's latest brainstorm as a consequence.

[Ezra]

Interesting but very weak integration with having to send L$ and an IM to a CoffeeAndPower avatar. That's how XStreet used to work via scripted ATMs prior to being bought by Linden Lab. Why hasn't Linden Lab taken what they learned from creating Marketplace to extend Paypal-esque APIs outside of Second Life to transfer L$ between Second Life accounts?

This is cool nevertheless, but illustrates how closed a system Second Life is when even its founder and presiding chairman can't come up with a solution to take L$ for an external service other than to presumably run a bot account, or pay someone to man the CoffeeAndPower account.

[Ciaran Laval]

I've been saying for ages that they should have Coffee & Power intergration in Second Life, now they could do with a forum for help wanted.

[elizabeth (16)]

@ezra

maybe that atm be one of the first things that gets made for coffee

[Ezra]

@elizabeth

It'd be much better if there was a "Pay by Second Life" button or similar right there on the Coffee & Power website, just like they have a "Pay by PayPal" and "Pay by CC" button.

I've always thought Linden Lab should've spent their time creating a PayPal like solution for Second Life instead of, or alongside, buying XStreet and creating Marketplace. They could still earn the same money via transaction fees but their reach would be much wider, as evidenced by this attempt that falls short because it requires logging in world to transfer L$ from one account to another.

[qarl]

i'm confused - this story says it was posted sunday, but the comments here are dated saturday?

was the story posted saturday and then reposted sunday?

hm.

[Hamlet Au]

I bumped it up after that Glyph Graves event came and went.

[OhYeah]

Well, he did get people to work their arse off for virtual peanuts. I suppose this is the new business model. Avoid taxes and work for virtual peanuts.

No thanks, cash, check, or Paypal works fine. No need for any virtual currency middleman. Cannot believe people would put the effort into this type of thing. But, then again look at RealPlayer. What did you expect.

[bongo]

wha..? no mimimum wage..massa?