THE 2008 ADDRESS TO THE MARKET
Submitted by:
World Stock Exchange - WSE (Trade)
Date: November 30, 2008
Dear Market Participants,
I joined the virtual world of Second Life at the start of December 2006 and within the first week I was convinced that virtual worlds, in particular Second Life will provide an extended platform to the existing static website. This platform would provide users with a complete broadband entertainment and educational experience that included live and On-Demand audio and video along with allowing users to interact with each other, their favourite brands and organizations in a more dynamic, open and interactive way.
At the heart of every major economy is a Stock Exchange and therefore I felt it was the right time to establish a stock market for the Second Life economy.
The World Stock Exchange was established in March 2007 as an experimental fictional securities exchange and banking role playing game. This has allowed us to experiment by testing the markets response with different policies, features and services while developing and improving the underlying technology platform for its eventual intended use with a real and legally authorised Internet based securities exchange.
The market was initially based solely on businesses operating in the virtual world of Second Life and used the fictional currency of Second Life called the Linden Dollar.
The WSE has experienced tremendous growth and popularity with the first 6 months of operation a testament to its success achieving over 26000 users and exchange turnover exceeding the equivalent of W$500 million WICS, (World Internet Currency) at the current WIC license exchange rate this would be equivalent to around $1.8 million US Dollars.
As expected with such a new, experimental and emerging service such as WSE, the growth and development to date has not come without its challenges. Some of the challenges we experienced included false allegations and rumours distributed on blogs and in forums by banned users and ceo's with motives to try and prevent the WSE's progress, false details by CEO's about their business in the virtual world, banned users and CEO's hiding their identity by creating alternative accounts to re-establish themselves, disappearing CEOs, policy changes by the virtual world operator such as a ban on virtual gambling and banking which impacted the virtual economy and security vulnerabilities with the WSE platform that resulted in significant false deposits or trades by a small group of users.
In December 2007 the WSE closed due to existing security risks and immediately started development on a major upgrade to the entire technology platform. The new platform is called WSE 4.0 and is designed to remove previous security vulnerabilities, increase server performance, functionality, the user interface and last of all, to increase our potential audience.
The development of WSE 4.0 took longer than we had anticipated. The delay was due to the large scale, limited resources and unique nature of the development. It was also very difficult to estimate the time it would take to complete the project with any certainty however we did release aspirational goals in terms of time frames to have WSE 4.0 completed. These goals were not met due to the continued development delay.
On the 3rd of August 2008 we launched a beta version of WSE 4.0 which allowed us test the technology in a real time environment while also giving us the opportunity to receive feedback from users on how we can improve and build on the new platform. In terms of growth the WSE application on Facebook was a success achieving over 500 installations by Facebook users within the first few month without any advertising.
The data gathered during this period has allowed us to plan the next stage of our of growth and development strategy. The testing phase of WSE 4.0 is now complete and we have halted trading on the market while we begin the next phase which includes:
- Restructuring the simulated market environment to be based on the operations of businesses in the real world economy rather than the virtual economy.
- Removal of inactive user accounts
- Removal of all listings based on the operations of businesses in the virtual economy of Second Life.
- Consolidation of all listings into the WSE Traders Fund providing the ideal mechanism for tracking and managing all former shareholdings in virtual businesses listed on the WSE.
- Optimisation of the trading system, watchlist and listing process.
- Improved gateway between WIC Exchange and the WSE
- Develop a comprehensive backend administration and reporting system to ensure that the appropriate platform upgrades, changes and operational policies are implemented.
- Create an enhanced application on the Facebook platform with more dynamic content and less static content.
- Implement news updates to Facebook user profile pages along with a news email summarising any activity over a 24 hour period to each Facebook user.
- Repair and update the WSE Profile Box on Facebook.
Our current development team lacks the resources and time to complete these tasks in the short term and as a result we are in the process of commissioning the work to additional developers who specialise in the development framework called Ruby on Rails. The new development team will ensure that the WSE will be operational as soon as feasibly possible. We anticipate that this development process may keep the WSE offline until late January 2009, however once launched, the WSE will have cemented itself as the leading online securities exchange and banking role playing game.
We apologise for any inconvenience and ask for your patience during this important phase of our development.
Kind Regards,
Luke Connell,
CEO,
WORLD STOCK EXCHANGE (WSE)
I joined the virtual world of Second Life at the start of December 2006 and within the first week I was convinced that virtual worlds, in particular Second Life will provide an extended platform to the existing static website. This platform would provide users with a complete broadband entertainment and educational experience that included live and On-Demand audio and video along with allowing users to interact with each other, their favourite brands and organizations in a more dynamic, open and interactive way.
At the heart of every major economy is a Stock Exchange and therefore I felt it was the right time to establish a stock market for the Second Life economy.
The World Stock Exchange was established in March 2007 as an experimental fictional securities exchange and banking role playing game. This has allowed us to experiment by testing the markets response with different policies, features and services while developing and improving the underlying technology platform for its eventual intended use with a real and legally authorised Internet based securities exchange.
The market was initially based solely on businesses operating in the virtual world of Second Life and used the fictional currency of Second Life called the Linden Dollar.
The WSE has experienced tremendous growth and popularity with the first 6 months of operation a testament to its success achieving over 26000 users and exchange turnover exceeding the equivalent of W$500 million WICS, (World Internet Currency) at the current WIC license exchange rate this would be equivalent to around $1.8 million US Dollars.
As expected with such a new, experimental and emerging service such as WSE, the growth and development to date has not come without its challenges. Some of the challenges we experienced included false allegations and rumours distributed on blogs and in forums by banned users and ceo's with motives to try and prevent the WSE's progress, false details by CEO's about their business in the virtual world, banned users and CEO's hiding their identity by creating alternative accounts to re-establish themselves, disappearing CEOs, policy changes by the virtual world operator such as a ban on virtual gambling and banking which impacted the virtual economy and security vulnerabilities with the WSE platform that resulted in significant false deposits or trades by a small group of users.
In December 2007 the WSE closed due to existing security risks and immediately started development on a major upgrade to the entire technology platform. The new platform is called WSE 4.0 and is designed to remove previous security vulnerabilities, increase server performance, functionality, the user interface and last of all, to increase our potential audience.
The development of WSE 4.0 took longer than we had anticipated. The delay was due to the large scale, limited resources and unique nature of the development. It was also very difficult to estimate the time it would take to complete the project with any certainty however we did release aspirational goals in terms of time frames to have WSE 4.0 completed. These goals were not met due to the continued development delay.
On the 3rd of August 2008 we launched a beta version of WSE 4.0 which allowed us test the technology in a real time environment while also giving us the opportunity to receive feedback from users on how we can improve and build on the new platform. In terms of growth the WSE application on Facebook was a success achieving over 500 installations by Facebook users within the first few month without any advertising.
The data gathered during this period has allowed us to plan the next stage of our of growth and development strategy. The testing phase of WSE 4.0 is now complete and we have halted trading on the market while we begin the next phase which includes:
- Restructuring the simulated market environment to be based on the operations of businesses in the real world economy rather than the virtual economy.
- Removal of inactive user accounts
- Removal of all listings based on the operations of businesses in the virtual economy of Second Life.
- Consolidation of all listings into the WSE Traders Fund providing the ideal mechanism for tracking and managing all former shareholdings in virtual businesses listed on the WSE.
- Optimisation of the trading system, watchlist and listing process.
- Improved gateway between WIC Exchange and the WSE
- Develop a comprehensive backend administration and reporting system to ensure that the appropriate platform upgrades, changes and operational policies are implemented.
- Create an enhanced application on the Facebook platform with more dynamic content and less static content.
- Implement news updates to Facebook user profile pages along with a news email summarising any activity over a 24 hour period to each Facebook user.
- Repair and update the WSE Profile Box on Facebook.
Our current development team lacks the resources and time to complete these tasks in the short term and as a result we are in the process of commissioning the work to additional developers who specialise in the development framework called Ruby on Rails. The new development team will ensure that the WSE will be operational as soon as feasibly possible. We anticipate that this development process may keep the WSE offline until late January 2009, however once launched, the WSE will have cemented itself as the leading online securities exchange and banking role playing game.
We apologise for any inconvenience and ask for your patience during this important phase of our development.
Kind Regards,
Luke Connell,
CEO,
WORLD STOCK EXCHANGE (WSE)