Weblo Virtual World

Weblo Virtual World: A Cyber Marketplace

Facebook Profile Worth at Weblo.com

Internet Worth Of Your Social Networks Profiles

Burj Al Arab, Hot Virtual Real Estate - Emirates Today

orkut Blog: Welcome!

Burj Al Arab a hot property on virtual real estate mart
30 June 2007

The real estate market in the UAE has become so hot that investors are now willing to pay for virtual land in the country, says a property website marketing the concept.
Burj Al Arab, Mall of the Emirates and Emirates Towers, for $1,500 (Dh5,508) each - as long as they do not mind never physically visiting their properties.
The virtual real estate market, according to the website, is booming as more people log on to the internet. Weblo.com claims to have sold 3,700 cities around the world for "real" money.
The site says it sold several states in the United States for large sums. California is said to have gone for $53,000 (Dh194,642), Texas for $23,000 (Dh84,467) and New York for $19,350 (Dh71,062).
Justinottawa, the web name used by the proud owner of the city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia in Weblo.com's virtual world, is offering to re-sell the holy city for $1,000 (Dh3,675).
Weblo.com says investors buy its "real" estate for many reasons. Some are eager to own a prestigious piece of land, even if only in a virtual world, or they have an emotional connection to the location.
Financial reward may motivate others, as the site claims they stand to benefit if visitors to their virtual property click on advertisers associated with the locations or offer to purchase buildings or neighbourhoods in their city.
Several sites in the UAE are on offer on Weblo.com. Abu Dhabi, for example, is part of the growing real estate empire of an anonymous Torontobased investor.The owner says he is willing to transfer ownership of the UAE's captial for $1,000 (Dh3,675).

By VM Sathish
© Emirates Today 2007
Article originally published by Emirates Today 30-Jun-07

England Up For Auction In Weblo Virtual World - The Age Australia

England' up for auction in Weblo virtual world
June 14, 2007 - 8:20PM

An online virtual world playfully branded "Monopoly on

steroids" is offering England to the highest bidder, with the winner to be crowned king or queen.

The website Weblo.com, a reality-based virtual world launched in December of 2006 by a Montreal-based firm of the same name, announced it was putting "England on auction."

Bidding begins Thursday and is expected to top 70,000 US dollars by the time the auction gavel drops July 12.

California is the most costly Weblo "property" to date, bought at auction for 53,000 US dollars, according to company spokesman Sean Morrow.

"We thought we could break out of the mold by not just letting someone be the president of a country, but the virtual king or queen," Morrow told AFP.

"We already have teams of Weblonians, citizens of Weblo, expressing interest."

The monarch of Weblo's England not only has the opportunity for prestige and profits at his or her own Weblo profile page, they get a percentage of all financial transactions in a virtual equivalent of taxes.

Unlike Internet virtual worlds of Second Life and Entropia Universe, members of Weblo are represented by MySpace-like profile pages rather than animated characters called "avatars."

Instead of fantasy planets or islands such as those in Second Life or Entropia, Weblo virtual properties are web pages themed for places, people or things from the real world.

"The real-world element of Weblo sets us apart form other virtual worlds," Morrow said.

"People have an affinity to their home towns, schools, the houses they grew up in -- so people are registering them as profiles. With Weblo you build a profile of yourself and favourite things and have a chance to monetize it."

Weblo properties vie for visitors with updates of news, photos, video, journal entries or other content in keeping with the theme, whether it is California, Paris Hilton, or England.

Owners share in online advertising revenues that rise with the popularity of their in-world pages.

"You promote sites, cities, celebrities the same way you would a MySpace page, but at Weblo you get paid," Morrow said. "If you own Paris Hilton on Weblo you can update how she is doing in jail to keep users coming back."

Weblo shunned avatars, betting people prefer a simple Monopoly game-format to the complexity of maneuvering avatars about animated terrain.

"Virtual worlds in general are a concept that scares the average person, figuring out how to move the avatar in that world," Morrow said.

"Monopoly has been around a long time and being compared to Monopoly-on-steroids is neat. If you can attach a picture to e-mail you can participate in Weblo. There is no learning curve."

Membership at Weblo is free and the website claims nearly 40,000 members.

"We're babies," Morrow said. "But we're out of the gate and running quickly."

The next major property to be put up for sale may be the United States, with an auction timed to coincide with the presidential election in 2008.

"That is another great avenue for exploration," Morrow said of the idea. "Anything that is out there in the real world can be brought in to the Weblo world."
© 2006 AFP

This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

Subscribe to The Age for your chance to win 12 years of Penfolds Grange!

England On Auction

Virtual Mayor - Brockville Recorder & Times

Montreal man paid $5 on the web
to become virtual mayor of Brockville
By RONALD ZAJAC

Staff Writer

It cost Montreal resident Alan Morrison all of $5 to become Brockville's new mayor.

Well, virtually, anyway.

The 40-year-old West Island resident, one of the nearly 30,000 members of the "virtual world" known as Weblo.com, recently spent that sum to purchase the company's virtual rights to Brockville.

"I just thought it would be fun," he said in a telephone interview.

The unemployed former office worker in the aerospace industry is also the virtual mayor of other cities and towns including Napanee, Tweed, Orangeville and Kamloops, B.C.

"It's a nice small town," he said of Brockville.

Weblo bills itself as a "social networking" website with "localized, relevant content about the real world."

The Montreal-based company was launched officially last December and now has nearly 30,000 members worldwide, said Weblo's senior director of marketing and operations, Kelly Ekins. Members use real-world money to buy virtual representations of real places on Weblo, said Ekins.

What they get is a small web page where they can put up relevant content about the place in question and derive revenue from relevant advertising funnelled to it by Weblo, she said.

The site is based on the American model, so Canadian provinces end up having "governors" rather than premiers, she said.

Hence, as Brockville's virtual mayor, Morrison must pay Ontario's virtual "governor" a cut of his ad revenue and other percentages on transactions on his page.

It may sound like a game, but many people figure they can make money off it. Weblo staff said the virtual equivalent of California sold for $53,000, while virtual Ontario sold for $16,900.

But Brockville residents hoping to see themselves represented on Weblo may be a little disappointed. So far, there is very little Brockville-related content on the site. What figures most prominently is a MySpace video about a Bigfoot encounter.

Morrison said he bought up a few small cities on Weblo hoping the upstart company will prove as popular as another virtual world, Second Life, where people have been making money on similar transactions.

Should Weblo prove as big a cyberspace hit, he may even get a profit by selling Brockville to someone else. (The city's current resale price is listed as $100.)

Interested area residents can get to Brockville's Weblo equivalent by going to www.weblo.com/property/city/Brockville/62368.

· Published in Section b, page 7 in the Saturday, May 26, 2007
edition of the Brockville Recorder & Times.
· Posted 10:00:55 AM Saturday, May 26, 2007.

Virtual Property for Real Dollars - Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON JOURNAL

Virtual property for real dollars

Analyst doubts 'experiment' can succeed
David Finlayson, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, May 18, 2007

EDMONTON - Meet the new premier of Alberta and B.C. -- Gela Chisholm of St.Albert.

She bought both provinces on weblo.com, the new virtual world that's sort of Monopoly for real money.

So why would a single parent and bookkeeper who freely admits she's technology challenged invest $10,000 in a scheme where no real property actually changes hands?

"I was looking for something different to invest in and my son Preston came across Weblo when he was on his computer.

"I have to look after myself and my financial adviser told me to diversify, and it sounded intriguing."

Montreal-based Weblo, which launched its virtual world last September, essentially sells web pages representing states, provinces, cities, and buildings in the real world.

You can also "buy" celebrities, airports and corporate domains. Latest celebs available include Princess Diana, with a reserve of $49.

Owners keep the click-through ad revenue generated by their pages but have to pay a slice of it in "taxes" to the owners of the city and state or province pages where their
properties are located.

Chisolm has already recovered some of her original investment by reselling properties. She bought Dallas for $40 and sold for $1,000, and also made money reselling Nashville and Berlin.

She still owns B.C., which cost $3,674, Alberta, $3,035, Melbourne, Anaheim, Cannes, France, and London, Ont.

Most of her properties were chosen based on how well-known they are, and how many visitors the pages would likely attract. But she picked Melbourne because she has relatives there.

"I can use my computer accounting programs, but after that I'm not much good," Chisholm said.

"So I got (16-year-old) Preston to set it up so I just have to point and click to buy or sell something."

She hasn't taken any cash out yet, and is not sure how much "tax" money she's generated. But she believes she will get a good return on her investment at some point. Latest figures from Weblo show Quebec has generated $859, Ontario $822, British Columbia $332 and Alberta $112.

However, some media analysts believe it's not a sustainable business model, especially for people buying in later.

Barry Parr, a media analyst with Jupiter Research, said Weblo is "an interesting experiment" as many people turn to virtual worlds for a sense of community eroded by cars, suburban sprawl and TV.

But the challenge is drawing enough users to make virtual properties scarce enough to create supply-and-demand pressures mirror reality.

"You can't value things simply on the ability to sell them to someone else. I don't know what's going to drive the audience. It doesn't feel like a sustainable business."

Others say Weblo could face copyright and trademark infringement challenges.

But Weblo marketing director Kelly Elkins said there is a huge audience for virtual worlds, fuelled by the gaming culture.

"Studies show that 80 per cent of active Internet users will have virtual lives by 2011.

Escaping to another world after a day at work is very attractive. And with Weblo they can look at piece of live property like the CN Tower and say 'I own that.' "

The nostalgia factor also comes into play, Elkins said, with people buying the towns or even the houses they grew up in, or a favourite sports stadium and setting up a fan page.

She said they've signed up 30,000 members since the September launch, and the goal is to generate $10 million in revenue by the end of the year.

Cost of membership ranges from free to $269 US, depending on which level you choose. The higher the level the more perks and potential revenue there is.

Weblo's still trailing far behind other, more high tech, virtual worlds such as Second Life and MySpace.com in numbers.

But founder Rocky Mirza likes to point out his investors include Richard Rosenblatt, former chairman of MySpace.com; Matt Hill, founder of eForce Media; and William Woodward, founder and managing Director of Anthem Venture Partners.

Elkins said more than 7,300 cities have sold worldwide, and most Canadian cities have virtual mayors. Edmonton is owned by someone in North Bay, Ont.

Ontario re-sold for $16,900 after the original buyer got it for $11,550.

Las Vegas, originally bought for $430, recently resold for $2,300, Elkins said.

The largest chunk of change came from a lawyer who bought California for $53,000.

New York sold for $19,350, Texas sold for $23,328 and Florida $18,000.

Premier Chisholm is not in those leagues -- yet.

"It's really fun right now. It's just like a game to me."

dfinlayson@thejournal.canwest.com

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

More People are Leading Virtual Lives - Miami Herald

More real people leading virtual lives
By JAMES H. BURNETT III
Jared Freedman is not a member of a Masonic lodge on Earth.

But in the metaverse, the rapidly expanding universe of virtual worlds springing up on the Internet, Freedman's avatar, a three-dimensional graphical representation of him named Ancient Shriner, is leader of a virtual Masonic lodge.

Gone are the days when the only people who hung out in computer-generated fantasy worlds were characters in The Matrix and lonely kids who couldn't get dates.

We're talking real people spending real money to lead alternate lives in Internet-based communities as avatars who move and talk in real time, like the real people they represent.

Among the most popular virtual worlds: Second Life (secondlife.com), which has about 6.2 million residents, There (There.com), which has about 750,000, Whyville (Whyville.com), with 2.27 million and Habbo Hotel (Habbo.com) which has about 50 million worldwide.

''There are tens of millions of people worldwide who live in virtual worlds and take them very seriously as a new means of entertainment, communication and social interaction,'' says Beth Coleman, a professor of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is writing a book on virtual worlds and their occupants.

``The biggest difference in this and the kids 10 or 15 years ago who played fantasy roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, and, later, the people who engaged in multiplayer online role-playing games, is you can't really characterize current users as geeks or loners. These are people with lives, real friends.''

Freedman, a 40-year-old software developer in Surfside, discovered Second Life in fall 2005.

After scrutinizing the site for a few months, he registered and moved in. His first order of business: create an avatar.

Freedman, bearded with short, curly black hair, is five-foot-eight and 180 pounds.Ancient Shriner stands a skinny six feet and has a long white beard.

''Different, huh?'' Freedman asks. ``You create avatars to represent a part of you, and that part might not have anything to do with your actual appearance. In my case, my grandfather was a 33rd-degree Mason. . . . He sort of looked like Uncle Sam. So I designed my avatar to look like them -- my grandfather and Uncle Sam -- and I came up with that handle of Ancient Shriner.''

While most of the other Second Lifers Freedman/Ancient Shriner met were building virtual homes and acquiring virtual clothes and accessories for their avatars, Freedman built Second Life's first Masonic lodge.

''The funny thing is I became known as a Mason,'' Freedman says. 'So I started this lodge, gave myself the made-up title of `Masterful Sage,' [and] began meeting other people.''

Michael Cai, a Web technology analyst with Parks Associates in Dallas, says the virtual world population has been booming for about two years.

Cai, who describes virtual worlds as the convergence of old-fashioned chatrooms, networking sites like MySpace.com and games like World of Warcraft, says their attraction is the ability to create an almost fully functional avatar.

''If you think about it, it's the next best thing to physically being in the same room with that other person,'' he says.

Still, as Freedman illustrates, avatars don't always look like their creators.

A recent survey of 9,529 Second Lifers by Seattle-based Global Market Insite found that 45 percent give their avatars more attractive bodies, 37 percent make them younger than themselves, and 23 percent give them another race.

The transformation isn't so drastic for Caridad Jorge, 24, a Miami real-estate coordinator, but she understands the temptation to alter one's look, because ''it's a game. You make yourself look the way you want.'' Jorge is five-foot-five and fair, with dark brown hair. In There.com, her avatar Coralline is tan, taller and slimmer.

Coralline plays virtual spades at other avatars' virtual houses and goes on scavenger hunts that take her inside virtual backyards and even to detailed virtual versions of such places as Paris or the Pyramids.

''I've never wanted to build a house in There,'' Jorge says. ``For me this was a way to really go somewhere else and do things and visit places I might never have time or money for in the real world.''

MIT's Coleman says that until a few years ago most virtual-world residents were the same folks playing fantasy games featuring knights, dragons and wizards, so their avatars were ``very fantastical.''

''But the trend has been toward more realistic representations,'' she says, ``because more people are now trying to escape not who they are -- what they look like, I mean -- but where they spend their time.''

Twenty-two percent of Second Lifers polled by GMI said they had more virtual-world than real-world friends, and 29 percent said their virtual lives interfered with their real lives.

And even though a meaningful virtual-world life requires a lot of time, Coleman says she doesn't believe it carries the addiction danger of virtual multiplayer games, because simply living online isn't competitive.

One newer benefit of virtual living is money.

''There is a great deal to be made,'' says Jay Yarbrough, who lives near Tampa. ``I joined There.com in February 2004. . . . My avatar Thumdar has made lots of friends and goes interesting places. We even started a website within the virtual world, Thumdar.com, that studies what goes on in There. But what I found was as many people were becoming interested in virtual worlds, not many had the technical savvy to fully develop the avatars they wanted.''

Yarbrough/Thumdar began meeting others who wanted their avatars not just to have dark hair, but long, wavy dark hair. They wanted 3D cars with all the trimmings and virtual hot tubs with virtual flat-screen TVs.

Thinking ''Pimp my avatar,'' Yarbrough offered his ''techspertise'' and was quickly making a nice side income, he says, adding he knows other techies who earn $100,000- plus giving avatar upgrades.

Surfside's Freedman, who owns Code4Software, developed such a reputation for the virtual lodge he built that in March, Coldwell Banker hired him to build its virtual headquarters.

And Rick Schwartz, an Internet entrepreneur in Boca Raton who made a fortune dealing in website domain names in the early days of the Internet, moved to a virtual world last fall strictly for the money.

''Honestly, I've made my living online for a lot of years,'' Schwartz says with a laugh.
``So I was not interested in making friends. I wanted income.''

Schwartz went to Montreal-based Weblo.com, which hosts a 2D virtual copy of Earth. He purchased the virtual state of Florida for $18,000, named himself governor and promptly bought more than 120 cities ranging in price from $20 to several hundred dollars.

Now, Schwartz, who is just starting to develop interactive features for visitors to his Florida, gets a cut from Weblo.com any time a virtual resident of that world pays for an upscale membership to live in virtual Florida.

Michael Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies and one of the creators of eBay, says the virtual world is a gold mine, but most residents don't want to make money.

``They just want something to do,''says Wilson, whose company created There.com and developed Virtual Hills and Virtual Laguna Beach for MTV for fans who wanted to sample life as seen on the reality shows The Hills and Laguna Beach.

''People simply want to meet each other and have their digital images, their avatars, be
able to do the same things they might in the real world,'' Wilson says.

Kansas Sells! - The Wichita Eagle

Kansas sells! By Carrie Rengers

You may not have heard the news, but Kansas has a new governor.

Oh, yeah, and the state recently sold for about $3,500, too.

Arkansas real estate agent Mike Carey is the new "governor" of Kansas in an online Monopoly-type game at Weblo.com.

"Well, I need to change a few things right off the bat," Carey jokes about his new reign.

He bought Kansas along with his home state of Arkansas, a couple of other states and numerous cities.

Players spend real money to buy real places without ever actually owning them. Carey says it's like buying stocks or bonds.

"You don't really get anything tangible other than the opportunity to make money," he says.

"If I can buy Kansas for $3,500 and sell it for $15,000 a year later... that's a pretty good return."

Each time players buy assets, they get dedicated Web sites to promote the state, city or landmark they've purchased.

"The purpose is to direct traffic to your Web site just like any other Web site," Carey says. "The more traffic you direct, the more money you generate."

Also, everyone who owns a city within a state has to pay the state's owner.

"So far, it hasn't really brought in the big bucks," Carey says.

But he's hopeful.

"It's a fun way to invest your money," Carey says. "It's a little quirky."

Virtual Research in Motion - The Record

By BILL BEAN RECORD STAFF Greg Baker owns Research In Motion. He also owns Coca-Cola, Starbucks, United Airlines and Air Canada. With a mere $150, he bought all this, and the City of Cambridge, too.

OK, Greg Baker is not part of a shadowy cabal that runs the world. Greg Baker is really a Grade 7/8 teacher living in Hamilton. The Cambridge he owns is a virtual city.

The Research In Motion he owns is a virtual company. His acquisitions were done inside a cyberworld set up by a Montreal firm, Weblo. Sean Moore is the enthusiastic director of marketing of Weblo.

On the phone from his office, he expounds on the potential of Weblo to be The Next Big Thing, by allowing "the average joe" to make money selling virtual realities. Selling cyber-objects is not new. In some online fantasy games, players can acquire computer-generated items that can be sold to other players for real money.

Think of Weblo as an online Monopoly board, where every address and every contract from the real world, has an online duplicate that is for sale. The headquarters for Manulife Financial, the province of Newfoundland, and the management rights for Pamela Anderson, can be bought.

If you buy Guelph or the head office of the Vancouver Canucks, you get the rights to a web page for you to develop as you see fit. Post some facts and figures, some photos or a video. Start a blog. Develop a site that draws traffic.

According to Moore, users can make money by making their site attractive for advertisers, by taking a percentage from other Weblo users who exist within their sphere of influence (the owner of Ontario would get a percentage of any transactions involving Ontario centres, for instance) or by selling the site. Is Weblo, which had its official launch in December, The Next Big Thing?

The jury is still out. Some of the sites look pretty sad. Moore says it's in the interest of the siteholders to improve their properties (just like in the real world). I'd suggest potential buyers learn how to post video or images to the web. You'd guess that Tokyo or Vancouver would have advertising potential.

Someone might have bought Kincardine as a conversation starter. Sites for models and celebs may be popular, but I noticed no one has bid on Margaret Atwood. Certainly, no one is going to retire on the income from site ad revenue.
For instance, the site for Cuban cover girl Vida Guerra may have 50,750 hits, but all those visits have generated only $34 in revenue. Weblo seems to suggest the big money is to be made on "flipping" properties: Las Vegas sold for $2,300, after being bought for $430. Guerra's site is offered for $500.

Then there's Cambridge, which Greg Baker bought for $7.57, becoming, as Weblo puts it, the "virtual Mayor of Cambridge." You could have had Kitchener for $24.85 (now owned by a man in Montreal).Waterloo went for $50 (belongs to a man in Queensland, Australia) and Guelph led the market at $60 (someone in Owen Sound bought it).

The prices will be higher for the next buyers, assuming there are any. Baker got in because he was amused by the idea of owning virtual property. "I went through a phase where I was kind of addicted."

He bought Cambridge because "it was local, available and affordable." (The same reason commuters to Toronto choose it.) Baker doesn't plan to expand his holdings beyond the 30 he has now (which include Oakville, Best Buy, Haliburton and the contract for Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys): "I can only afford to spend so much on nothing." Is it really nothing? Every fad has a bubble, and then the bubble bursts. "It's sort of like a trading card," said Baker. A card is "just a piece of paper . . . the value is what others believe it is." He's hoping that people will believe in the value of a cyber-shadow.

So, is Cambridge's virtual mayor planning any improvements? A bridge across the Grand? Extended GO Train service? "I suppose I should. Or I might make a deal (to sell) if the right offer came along . . ." You too, could be the Mayor of Cambridge. Bill Bean writes for etc. every Saturday. You can contact him at 519-894-2231, ext. 2618, or e-mail him at
bbean@therecord.com.

Reporter has Some Fun as Online Property Mogul - Okanagan Daily Courier

Reporter has some fun as online property mogul
The Daily Courier (Kelowna)
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Page: A4
Section: Okanagan
Byline: Chuck Poulsen
Source: The Daily Courier

I spent last weekend buying virtual property on Weblo.com.

My first priority was to buy the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers already had an owner - of course - and ownership of the team carried a hefty price tag of US$75. I bought them as a serious investment. I figure when people get up to speed with this website, some bigger idiot than me will come along with a profitable offer for the Packers.

Meanwhile, I'll be talking with my employee, Brett Favre, about my expectations for the coming season.

I thought I should also be a mayor of some place, but all but one city in the Okanagan was taken. I didn't want to get into a bidding war. Being a mayor isn't worth that much.

However, for $5 I now own and am the mayor of Lumby. I don't know if I've ever been in Lumby, but I'd better let them know I'm coming so they can plan the parade.

I fought against the Vintage Landing Development in McKinley Landing, which is now called Kinnikinnik. I hope Kinnikinnik does well, now that I own it.

I have a call into my employee, developer Grand Gaucher. I wish to speak to him about changing the name to something people can say, or spell.

I tried to buy The Daily Courier, but someone else already owned it. I bid $10, but was turned down. I then bid $20 with a note saying "final offer." I haven't had a response yet, but that's my limit. I'm not going to spend any more than $20 on a
company that would employ the likes of me.

I got the legislature in Victoria for $3. Someone already owns B.C., so I don't know how that will work. There will probably be a court fight.

I thought one of the most valuable properties in this area that was available for a first-time price of $3 was Mission Hill Family Estate. I'll be speaking with my employee, previous owner Anthony Von Mandl, about the lack of fruitiness in his
latest merlot. I also own Big White and will be speaking with my employee, Michael J. Ballingall, as soon as I can think of some orders to give him.

My biggest coup was to pick up ownership of the new William R. Bennett Bridge for $3. I now have a bridge to sell you. Maybe I'll make it a toll bridge.

I also own the Kelowna RCMP detachment and the Kelowna Law Courts, $3 each.

They will be for sale soon, but I have some changes to make at both places first. No one is in charge of the courthouse, so I don't know who to talk with there. But I'll be discussing the RCMP changes with my employee, Supt. Bill McKinnon.

Online Land Rush - St.Petersburg Times

Online land rush: So you want to manage
Oprah?
Weblo.com offers a virtual fiefdom for a price and a sense of fun, connection and power, even if the jury's still out on profitability.
By Christina Rexrode, Times Staff Writer
Published April 15, 2007
Rick Schwartz seems bullish on Florida's economy.
After all, he's the virtual governor.
Schwartz, a Boca Raton resident, recently dropped $18,047 to buy the state - and the accompanying gubernatorial title - on the nascent Weblo.com, a parallel e-world where virtual
ownership of every real city, state and property is up for sale. So far, there are 21,500 registered users, and almost 7,000 cities have been sold.
"Monopoly on steroids," says the Montreal company.
Except this game is played with real money.
Here's how it works: The first person to register a property, city or state can pay to be its rightful Weblo owner. If you buy a city or state, you're named the virtual mayor or governor.
Any place with an address is up for grabs: the Eiffel Tower, your old high school, your neighbor's house.
A property's initial price is determined by an index that considers its real-life population and economy, as well as its potential appeal as a Weblo profile. It's a game for the rich and the poor: Cities sell for as little as $5, but buying a state will cost thousands.
"You're thinking, '18,000 U.S. dollars, for real? It's a profile!' " said Sean Morrow, Weblo's director of marketing, referring to the sale of Florida. "But it's a significant return on investment."
Schwartz, who's in his 50s, is also the virtual mayor of St. Petersburg, for which he shelled out $11.72.
If property owners adhere to Weblo's game plan, they'll "develop" their sites with relevant information. Mike Jameson, a Connecticut resident who has bought properties throughout Florida, posted maps and photos of Disney World to his profiles for Lake Buena Vista and Celebration. He bought Treasure Island, as well, but hasn't done much for its profile.
There's a commercial incentive to create a good site: Weblo shares its ad revenue with site owners. The more visitors your site attracts, the more money you'll earn.
You can also make money by reselling your site. The Weblo member who bought Seattle for $40 resold it for $2,000, proving that flipping isn't limited to real property.
"Global domination has never been more fun," the company enthuses on its Web site.
- - -
Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities who tracks the video game
industry, expressed reservations about the odds of making money off Weblo.
"You can't sell ads without traffic, and if they make some schmo responsible for creating the content of Florida, he may do a terrible job, lowering overall traffic," Pachter wrote in an email to the St. Petersburg Times.
"Unless there is some quality control, consumers will tire quickly of visiting the site, and advertisers will lose interest. Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me."
Still, there's a NASDAQ-esque feeling to Weblo. The latest buys and the sales data can be set to scroll across the top of your computer screen. Jameson, who is 40, says he watches it constantly, as if it were the stock market.
Schwartz - or should we call him Florida's governor? - logs on to Weblo far less often. If you visit his sites expecting photos of the beach and the state flag, you'll be disappointed. He says he's waiting for Weblo to catch on before he develops his profiles.
Schwartz estimates that he has spent $50,000 to $70,000 on Weblo. But his friends don't question it, he said, given his success buying domain names.
"When you look at the ways you can throw your money away, if it's going to the stock market or going to the casino, you don't have any control over it," he said. "It's strictly a gamble. If it (Weblo) catches on, stranger things have happened." Weblo's Morrow wouldn't say what percentage of the Web site's profiles are profitable, or
whether the company has turned a profit. But Jameson says he thinks he'll make a 36 percent return on his investments ($5,000 or $6,000 so far) by the end of the year.
- - -
Even without the financial element, Weblo allures. Like a massive game of Risk, it plays on people's desire for power. "I love to be known as the virtual mayor of Lake Buena Vista," said Jameson, "because, as you know, Disney owns that town."
(Want to buy the main offices of the St. Petersburg Times? Too late. This reporter snapped them up for $2.38, though she'll entertain offers.)
Like a memory book, Weblo plays on sentimentality. Suzanne Calpas, a stay-at-home mom in Prince George, British Columbia, bought some cities in Turkey that she visited on her honeymoon.
And like any other networking site, it plays on the need for social interaction. "Mostly it's for fun," said Calpas, 39, who bought Pittsburgh for $300 and Lake City for $5. "People send you messages, you start to develop friendships."
Jameson, a real estate agent in real life as well as in Weblo Land, thinks he has found one more use for the site: He has registered dozens of cities in his home state of Connecticut, and plans to use those profiles to provide house hunters with information about different areas.
"When I do listings for houses, I will say, 'I am the virtual mayor of this town,' " he said.
Weblo, like Jameson, has big Web-based plans for the future. Morrow, the marketing director, said the company is formulating plans for a Weblo presidential election, probably to be held just before the real election next year.
The Canadian company has no similar plans to replicate the British throne. "Not yet," Morrow said. "Good idea."
Christina Rexrode can be reached at crexrode@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8318.
Analysis: Does Weblo have what it takes?
Weblo says it's on the brink of something big. Since its official launch in December, it has gained more than 21,500 members, about a quarter of whom joined this month alone. About 20 employees, mostly 20- and 30-somethings, run the young company from its Montreal headquarters.
Creativity? They've got it. Focus? That's another matter.
Weblo is very much a mishmash of Internet pastimes, and one is inclined to wonder if it could benefit from a narrower focus. In addition to its main appeal as a big, electronic game of Monopoly, it's also trying to take on social networking and pop culture functions. Members can now acquire profile rights for celebrities (not to mention friends, enemies, co-workers, and whoever else) as well as for properties.
Members also can build their own personal profiles, because part of Weblo's strategy is this: People who already use the Internet to blog, post pictures and keep up with friends can be lured to a new networking site by the possibility of simultaneously making money. A word of caution: Traditionally, there hasn't been much room on the World Wide Web for more than one or two social networking sites. (Heard of Bebo? Crushspot? FaceParty? Few have.)
Weblo isn't without precedent. In some ways, it's a distant cousin of popular computer games like the Sims and Sim City, because they let players create and manipulate virtual households and cities. And despite its lack of orcs and elves, Weblo is also reminiscent of World of Warcraft and other Web games that fall in the "Massively Multiplayer Online" genre because it uses a global network of players.
It will be interesting to see where Weblo goes from here: Will it become a footnote or a trendsetter? Sean Morrow, the company's marketing director, said Weblo will seek "a rather large round of investment" within the next year. He declined to elaborate.
What is Weblo?
A new Web site where the first person to register the full, correct address of a city, state or property can pay to own its profile.
How do you make money on it?
- You earn ad revenue based on the number of clicks your site receives from unique visitors.
- You can resell your Weblo property for profit.
- If you own a city or state, you earn a surcharge on every transaction that takes place there.
You're eligible to receive a surcharge on ad revenue earned by your residents and a surcharge on membership fees.
Is the money real?
Yes. Every member gets $5 in virtual money when signing up. The rest of the money is real, and can be withdrawn through PayPal or by check.
How big is Weblo?
It has about 21,500 registered users, about a quarter of whom joined this month alone.
Almost 7,000 cities have been sold on Weblo, including 3,500 in the United States. Arkansas, Kansas and Idaho sold in the past week.
Most expensive states
By initial Weblo price
California: $53,000
Texas: $23,328
New York: $19,354
Illinois: $18,830 (still for sale as of this week)
Florida: $18,047
Top 15 Florida city sale prices in no particular order.
Jacksonville - $38.63
Miami - $21.08
Tampa - $17.91
Orlando - re-sold for $95 original price $13.67
St. Petersburg - $11.72
Fort Lauderdale - $11.95
Hialeah - $10.71
Tallahassee - $ 8.40
Pembroke Pines - $7.63
Hollywood - $9.94
Cape Coral - $9.34
Port St. Lucie - $6.02
Coral Springs - $6.42
Clearwater - $5.14
Gainesville - $8.78
Most Florida cities beyond this list sold for minimum price of $5.
[Last modified April 13, 2007, 21:24:51

Virtually, the whole world is for sale

Weblo offers buying and selling of real-world cities, properties
By ANDRÉA MARIA CECIL
Daily Record/Sunday News
Article Launched: 04/15/2007 01:22:28 AM EDT
Apr 15, 2007 — City of York: $5.
York Airport: $1.
Harley-Davidson's Springettsbury Township plant: $2.
That's right, York County and all things within its outline are for sale - sort of- on the Internet.
Creators of Weblo.com have made a carbon copy of the real world - far beyond York County - and turned it into a real-life game similar to the Monopoly board game.
It's a place where everything from the Empire State Building to the city of London have sold and resold.
"A lot of people bought things they have a personal attachment to. ... One gentleman bought a bunch of Philly steakhouses," said Weblo spokesman Colin Trethewey.
Cities with a population of less than 40,000 people start at a selling price of $5 and all properties start out at no more than $2.
The most expensive city was New York, with an original selling price of $410. Philadelphia sold for $72.38.
"The prices aren't really crazy, it's just that people decide that there's value in these cities," Trethewey said.
Weblo determines the prices of cities by using a formula that includes population, the percent of population that has access to the Internet and the percent of the population that are Weblo members, he said.
Owners of cities, townships, villages and properties create their own Web sites and
get money when someone clicks on one of the advertisements Weblo has posted on their sites. How much money depends on their Weblo membership level.
"Even people that have free sites are earning money. Not a lot: $15 or $20," Trethewey said.
Unlike social networking sites, including MySpace.com, Weblo.com pays members when more people visit their sites, he said.
People can purchase cities, villages, baseball stadiums and steakhouses through PayPal, which is widely used by eBay buyers and sellers to transfer money. "Although one person tried to send cash to buy something," Trethewey added. "We sent it back."
And those who buy cities are considered their mayors in the Weblo world - an idea that did not bother York's real-world mayor, John Brenner.
"That's great. There's hundreds of mayors all over the United States," he said. "If they want to share some of the responsibility (of running a city) - now there's a Web site I'd like to visit."
Mayors of cities on Weblo also receive part of the profits when anything within their
city is sold. The same goes for owners of states.

There are more than 21,600 Weblo members.

"Some of them have thousands of properties and hundreds of cities," Trethewey said.
He added: "The idea is to just keep it growing. The goals are actually quite large - the goal is to be up to 10 million members by the end of 2008. And we're starting to see that growth now where it's doubling every month."
Brenner, for one, said although he only had just learned of the site, he was impressed.
"It's very creative, and anything that raises revenue should always be taken seriously."
Reach Andréa Maria Cecil at 771-2001 or acecil@ydr.com.
Weblo at a glance How do I find it?
Go to http://www.weblo.com. In the upper right-hand search bar, type "York," "Harley" or anything else you might be looking for. Remember to choose if you're searching for cities, states, celebrities, domains, properties, airports or Weblo.
RecentWeblo purchases:
—Arkansas: $3,779
—Idaho: $1,964
Kansas: $3,807

New Slant on Virtual Worlds - Scoble Show

Scoble Show- Robert Scoble with Geeks, Technologists & Developers

Talking about a new slant on virtual worlds

Video | Posted by Robert Scoble | April 4th, 2007 4:05 pm

Rocky Mirza, founder and CEO of Weblo.com, tells me about his new virtual world

where people can buy and sell real estate, corporations and domains: all virtually.

It's fun and you can make some dough (or spend it to buy other people's stuff).

Click this link below to watch the interview:

http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/1427/demo-build-your-own-virtualrealestate-

empire-with-weblo

Online Real Estate Boom - CNN Money.com

An (irrationally?) exuberant land grab

Business 2.0 Magazine looks at the booming market for online real estate and wonders if it's for real.

By Mary Jane Irwin, Business 2.0 Magazine
April 3 2007: 5:48 AM EDT

Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Online worlds like Second Life have made a successful business out of getting people to buy and sell 3-D virtual real estate.
But can the same business model be made to work on the regular old Internet, where the "real estate" being traded is nothing more than a webpage? A Montreal startup called Weblo thinks it can--and claims that its plan will pull in $2 million in the second quarter of 2007 alone.











Weblo's pages represent states, cities, and buildings in the real world--and are in finite supply. For example, there's a Weblo page for the Empire State Building (bought for $1 by city worker
Rick Bujold, who later flipped it for $250), a page for Seattle (bought for $2,000 by Seattle real estate loan analyst Padraic Slattery), and a page for California (bought for $53,000 by lawyer Michael Edelson).

The New Rules of Real Estate

All told, Weblo has attracted 10,000 speculators so far. Weblo CEO Rocky Mirza, who got $2.6 million in VC funding, expects to hit $10 million in revenue by the end of 2007. "It's Monopoly on steroids," Mirza says.
But is there any inherent value to Weblo pages, or are they as worthless as Monopoly properties? The pages are supposed to be mini travel guides to the locations they represent, with photos and starred reviews from users--though currently most pages offer very little content.
Owners keep the ad revenue generated by their pages but have to pay a slice of it in "taxes" to the owners of the city and state pages where their properties are located. For example, Chris Gingras, a network marketer in Toronto, spent $16,900 to acquire Ontario--and is making back $700 a month in ad revenue and taxes from the province's subsidiary properties.
All of which has analysts scratching their heads. "I don't see the economics," says Barry Parr, a media analyst with JupiterResearch. "You can't value things simply on the ability to sell them to someone else. I don't know what's going to drive the audience. It doesn't feel like a sustainable business."
But if Weblo has somehow managed to siphon off a bit of the irrational frenzy endemic to the realworld real estate market, it just might have found a profitable niche.

Carson City Sold - Nevada Appeal

Tasha Costa
Nevada Appeal News Service
April 1, 2007

When I got an e-mail forward from editor Barry Ginter the other day with the subject line"Carson City Sold," I thought it had to be a joke of some kind.
It's not. It was an e-mail about Weblo.com, a virtual site that sells virtual "plots" of land. The idea seemed kind of stupid, but I registered and took a look around. I got $5 in Weblo dollars for signing up.


The e-mail said that "Weblo is a giant online game that has been referred to as 'Monopoly on Steroids.' A virtual copy of every real city, state and property is up for sale."
According to what I've read, these kinds of sites are becoming more and more popular on the Internet. It's like a grown-up version of MySpace, where you can earn money and make friends.
Apparently, Weblo is not the first of these virtual-world games; you've got Second Life, Active Worlds, There and Entropia Universe, as well as several others. Second Life actually exists as a real virtual world, with "residents" using their Linden Dollars to buy things. Linden Dollars are apparently a real currency and have an exchange rate. What it is, I can't seem to discern.
To me, it sounded absurd, considering you were paying real money for something you
can't even build a house on. I like real life just fine, personally.
Registration is free for Weblo.com; however, you can "upgrade" to better levels. "Jeez, why would anyone do this?" I asked myself.
Well, it turns out that you can purchase plots of land or even landmarks and entire cities, states and countries for "the price of a cup of coffee." What kind of coffee are we talking about here? Army coffee? McDonald's coffee? Starbucks?
So I went to the "Own a Home" link and clicked on it. Interested, I plugged in my
parents' townhouse location (I could just imagine that conversation with my dad). This took a while because instead of just typing in the address, Weblo makes you wait while it loads a preset list of states within a country, and then cities within that state. I got to a page saying that my account balance was $5, and that my parents' townhouse was $2 plus 50 cents for a deed.
Well, heck, why don't I just buy the Appeal building instead? I went through the whole bother of plugging everything into the tedious Weblo "Register a property now" form.
Ah hah! No one's registered the Appeal building yet. Would I like to register it? Heck yes!
Oh. It wants something called a "transaction password." What's that? I plug in my user password to see if that works. It does. I now own the Nevada Appeal building, and am filled with a strange sense of power. And it only cost $2.62 in Weblo dollars (real dollars, mind you - I got $5 for signing up, but to add more I have to put some real money in from a PayPal account, a check or a credit card).
It takes me to a page congratulating me on my wise investment, and a few links. I click on "Edit Your Property Profile" to see what I can do. Once there, I click on "Edit site."
I'm not sure if the Appeal's network was being weird or if it really takes that long to load. I cry for those who want to play in Weblo's virtual world and have dial-up Internet service.
I fuss around for a while and save the profile. Now, how is it that I make "real-world money" off of this venture? Should I have bought something worth more than the Nevada
Appeal's building?
No clue. Maybe I'll go to the Frequently Asked Questions page. It turns out that every time someone clicks on an advertisement in my page, I get money. That seems unlikely to me - I never click on ads in pages. But hey, they say there's a sucker born every minute.
Also, that means I'd need to advertise my property or sell it to someone who wants to
advertise it. Honestly, I'm not interested in advertising a virtual property.
You can also set up a free celebrity fan gossip site, and every time someone clicks on an ad there you get money too. Well, celebrity gossip isn't my thing, so I'll stay away from that, too.
So I guess for someone like me, Weblo isn't a very good option. But hey, if you're into it, I've got a very nice piece of digital property I'd like to sell you.

Money for Nothing!

By Don Polec

Link to ABC6 News Story:
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=features&id=5152087

Now you can actually make money by selling the Brooklyn Bridge and NOT risk getting
arrested.

It's all part of an increasingly popular internet "game" found at http://www.weblo.com.

Simply put, it's like playing Monopoly using an unlimited number of real world
landmarks, cities, and states bought and sold using real money.

The owners construct web pages for their holdings (sort of like a "myspace" for real
estate) hoping to lure advertisements which can net them a monthly income. OK, so we're
talking maybe 20 cents a month, but the whole thing is in it's infancy.

A weblo tycoon named Robert Alferi recently "bought" the Philadelphia Museum of Art
for 5 bucks. If he sold it, he said he'd ask at least 50 bucks for it. Not a bad return on what
it would cost for a venti latte at Starbucks.
And I'm sitting here writing an informational blog about this site when I could be making
a killing selling the Liberty Bell? Cripes! I can't think of a reason why I should be
wasting my time pounding this out for another minute.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=features&id=5152087

Trading Un-Real Estate - Business 2.0 Magazine

BUSINESS 2.0 - April 2007
“What’s Next - Top Ten Products, Ideas and Trends”

Livingstone Shire is up for sale

Rockhampton Customs House - another local property that has emerged for sale on www.weblo.com - the internet's newest and perhaps most insane form of property investment.
Forget Amalgamation, Bill Ludwig has already lost control of Livingstone Shire - the mayor of that Shire goes by the name of Swidds.
Oh stop your giggling, Cr Strelow, for you’ve also been flicked from your throne at Rockhampton City Hall. The mayor of Rockhampton is a girl named, well, girl. What the blazes am I talking about? Well in case you haven’t heard there’s a new real estate boom sweeping the planet, and Central Queensland has got swept up right along with it.
It’s a real boom, involving real money, but the cities and individual properties (including your own home if you want to register it) and states are all virtual imitations of their real life counterparts.
That’s right, the internet is once again responsible for one of the most quirky but totally serious booms in history. I’m referring to www.weblo.com an online “game” in which people buy and sell virtual properties for real money. If the property exists in the real world, it is available for sale on weblo.com.
You purchase it with real money, and, like the real real estate market, hope its demand rises so you can sell it for more.
Scoffers might want to read a little further before pointing out the seemingly obvious absurdity of this concept. Since its Sept. 26, 2006 launch, Weblo.com has sparked a virtual real estate boom. California sold for $53,000 USD, New York State sold for $18,433 and the Canadian province of Ontario sold for $16,900.
Major cites and properties around the world have sold and resold. The virtual mayor of Washington D.C. sold his city for a 300 percent profit. The virtual Empire State Building, originally purchased for one dollar, recently sold for $250. Members flip virtual properties for profit just like in the real world.
Closer to home, a Canadian woman recently bought New South Wales for over $13 000 AUD.
“It’s like Monopoly on steroids. Every property, city and state from the real world is for sale at Weblo.com,” says Rocky Mirza, CEO and co-founder of Weblo.com.
But even closer to home, Swidds, the “mayor” of Livingstone Shire has put the city up for sale. That’s right, Livingstone Shire is currently up for auction on www.weblo.com, and the highest bidder gets to call him or herself mayor.
Another local landmark that can be found on the worldwide auction block is Rockhampton’s Customs House. Weblo is a game, because that’s what it feels like to me. But others would consider it a market, and indeed you can make real money here.
But thinking about the concept is like entering the Matrix.
The lines between reality and fantasy don’t blur, they entwine. It might seem like an insane venture, but given the cost of real property in the region, the prospect of getting in on this ‘game” in its earliest stages is incredibly tantalising.
If only the Queensland Government’s first home owners grant could be used here. $7000 could buy a person Western Australia.

It can be virtually yours

NORTH PLATTE - If you had the chance to own North Platte, would you take it? How about Lincoln, or even the entire state of Nebraska? A new website is giving laptop entrepreneurs a chance to own their own little piece of the world.



The site is called Weblo.com, and it offers up a virtual world to its members for a chance to earn real world profits. Described as “Monopoly on steroids,” members can lay claim to any property that they can imagine.

“It’s a new kind of economy,” said Sean Morrow, director of marketing for Weblo.com. “I don’t think anybody has ever done anything like this.”


Although Weblo members own properties, there are no bricks and mortar involved. Instead, the Weblo world consists entirely of webpages, with each site featuring a specific person, place or thing.

Weblo provides the framework for developing each site, so no advanced webpage design training is needed. However, Morrow said someone with programming experience can actually enhance the pages even more.

Weblo.com properties can include states, cities, airports, parks, monuments, landmarks, historical places, universities, buildings, hotels, streets, houses and more. Members can also develop free celebrity fan sites.

By developing the site, Weblo members hope to turn around and sell their property for a profit. While the ownership is virtual, the money is not. Weblo members receive actual money for selling properties.

“I think we are the first site online that started paying its members for their participation,” Marrow said.

Buying and selling virtual property can be profitable. The city of Lincoln recently sold for $800. A member who bought Las Vegas for $430 resold it last week for $2,300, a new record for the highest re-sale of a city.

The webpage for each location is ranked, based on popularity. Someone who is able to create a dynamic site that draws a lot of visitors can increase their ranking and earn a small portion of the advertising revenue.

“Every member that is a part of our virtual world actually receives a percentage of all the ad revenue that’s generated from their pages,” Marrow said, adding the percentage is between 10 to 50 percent depending on the level of membership.

When a person owns a city or state, they become the virtual mayor or governor. As such, Marrow said the mayor and governor also earn a commission for every property that is sold within their city or state.

“Which makes owning cities and states a little bit more like an online investment,” Marrow said.

Weblo was officially launched on Dec. 5, 2006, and already there are more than 13,000 members who are snatching up virtual properties. Some are buying for sentimental reasons while others buy for the investment.

“What’s happening is people actually are snatching up the bar that they met their girlfriend at or their favorite restaurant that they love to go to with their wife on their anniversary,” Marrow said.

You can buy the Louvre Museum in Paris for just $300. For more ambitious real estate tycoons, the Las Vegas Hilton is currently listed at $10,000, or you can snatch up the entire state of Nebraska for the low, low price of $4,890.

North Platte is not currently for sale, although the site says you can make an offer. As of Tuesday, the cities of Maxwell, Brady, Hershey and Sutherland are still available from Weblo for a simple $5 registration fee.

Marrow said before Weblo was launched, people spent a lot of time developing fan pages or online profiles. However, they didn’t earn any revenue for it unless they owned the site.

Now with Weblo, people are able to create their own blogs, post news and develop those fan sites about their favorite people or places and get paid for it.

“What’s neat about Weblo is that you don’t have to spend a lot to make a lot,” Marrow said.

Recently, Weblo made it possible for its members to purchase a property and give it to a friend or relative as a gift. Marrow credits the popularity of Weblo to people’s desire to claim ownership in something, even if it is virtual.

“Everybody wants to own the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty or be the mayor of New York,” Marrow said.