Virtual currency is basically a digital medium of exchange. With a business dimension that already reaches half a trillion dollars in the world, we are facing a concept as difficult to understand today as the credit card was 40 years ago.
Reynolds, Wheeler, Corpus, Nusser and Higgins conducted a panel at SXSW today that is neither easy to follow nor easy to report. Organized by Tribal DDB, with Rogelio Umaña next door and the rest of the group in other rooms and conferences, try to follow me as I try to write.
Not all virtual currencies are really currency, though. They refer to ownership, and therefore, it is a topic that leaves the conventional idea behind, to open up spaces that include Second Life, Zynga or Farmville. For example, frequent flyer miles are virtual currency as are Credomatic points.
As in a country’s economy, in the gaming world, the strongest currencies are those that originate from the most successful games. In those who live in the Facebook realm, however, they must pay taxes to the king with which they convert no less than 30%.
Virtual currency drives social business, as is the case with Facebook credits. This is why we are facing an incremental trend towards a kind of social silver, which is already being exchanged for real goods and services as analogous as movie tickets or discounts at Subway.
Brand strategies are increasingly connected to virtual currencies, with the benefit of serving to drive sales and providing a new measure for the internal rate of return on investment. In fact, it is enough to look around the world and discover cases such as Monopoly, with millions of dollars moving from the virtual concept. Something important is happening in front of our eyes, and perhaps many of us are failing to see it.
Like everything we heard at SXSW, from the global vision we kept considering all the possibilities for local application in each country in Central America. We are starting with all these concepts, and regarding Facebook credits, frequently mentioned today in this panel, here is an invitation to pay close attention to them.
Let’s see it in simple terms. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world today, so we cannot ignore the reality that it will have its own powerful and influential currency. In the meantime, I invite you to search for “Credits coins cash”, “Social currency”, “Virtual Currency” and you will be able to go deeper into a concept that will undoubtedly lead us to Finance 3.0.
The panel has brought a key topic to the table, and by its influence directly to this blog. Now, what do we do with it? Like this one, dozens of stimuli keep piling up at SXSW, which as much as possible I’m happy to share with you.
