Making Money in Second Life

If you have found yourself interested in Second Life to the point of hanging out and enjoying this pixelated metaverse more often than just attending support group meetings, then congrats! Maybe we should start a support group for Second Life addicts.. eh?

We will have provided a good deal of 'freebies' for our members, at the Ouchies' Clubhouse, but we realize that the best content usually costs some dollars, or lindens, as it were.

For many Second Lifers, shopping and owning nifty things are some of the most fun things about Second Life. Not all of us can own a cherry vintage muscle car convertible, but it's definitely more possible in Second Life. Same with designer clothes, mansions, and the list goes on.

There are several ways to make money (Second Life currency, called 'Lindens', after Second Life's creator and CEO, Philip Linden) on the grid. Arguably the most prevalent of these, is in the ever booming adult industry, but fear not, there are other ways.

One of the age old ways to earn cash is by what's called 'camping'. Though it's a bit less prevalent these days, it still exists. You just need to open your search window, and go to the tab called 'Places' and type in 'camping'. A list of places will show up, and if they advertise camping, you will be able to go there and sit on a poseball in a chair, or that makes you dance, or wash windows, while earning money just by being there. Shopping in Second Life is often driven by people searching for places via the aforementioned 'search' function, and places that have the most traffic, or visitors, are towards the top of the list, and get more business. The mindset is that if a place is really popular, it must be really good, and so places will pay people to just be there, and keep their 'traffic' up.

Another way is to search for 'hippie pay', and go to a spot and get paid for filling out surveys. Real life marketing companies are starting to see the use in paying people small amounts of money to give them feedback.

Finally, you can just search 'places', or 'classifieds' for the key words 'jobs', 'hiring', etc. You will undoubtedly find places that are wanting to hire go go dancers, or exotic dancers, but you can also likely find jobs doing what's called 'hosting', which is getting paid to plan and run parties at various clubs in Second Life, or find a shiny new Second Life career as a sales associate, someone who works in a store, helping customers that come in, to find what they're looking for.

Yes, one can also make SL bucks, or even real life money by creating content (skins, hair, clothes, furniture, toys) and selling it, or even being a Second Life real estate baron, like the famed Anshe Chung, but please be aware that just like in real life, in SL, it takes money to make money. To be successful, it also takes a lot of hard work, and of course, a lot of talent.