Metanomics 101

9/17/2007 Metanomics 101 set out Professor Robert Bloomfield's view of Metanomics, laying out all three major subfields (experimentalist, immersionist and augmentationist).

  Watch the Metanomics Archived Video Now!

Listen or download the audio. (MP3)
Read the transcript.
Read the backchat & local chat.
Subscribe to the Metanomics RSS Feed.



On September 17th 2007, Professor Robert Bloomfield presented "Metanomics 101" in Second Life. This serves as an overview of Metanomics and a preview of what is to come.

Here is a link to the video.

Click here for streaming audio
or
Download the MP3

Robert Bloomfield is Professor of Accounting at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, where he directs the Doctoral Program and the Business Simulation Laboratory. In Second Life, Professor Bloomfield is Beyers Sellers in Second Life, and is the host of the Metanomics series. Read more about Professor Bloomfield.

"Metanomics" refers to the study of the business and policy aspects of the "metaverse" of virtual worlds. Metanomics can focus on issues arising within virtual worlds, such as how developers manage the economy of a game world (like World of Warcraft), or how residents of virtual worlds manage and regulate business. Metanomics also includes the study of how real-world businesses can use virtual worlds as part of their strategy, and how real-world law and regulation might apply to virtual-world activities. Finally, metanomics includes the use of virtual worlds as laboratories in which to study real-world business or policy issues.

Metanomics can take an "immersionist," "augmentationist," or "experimentalist" perspective. Immersionist metanomics attempts to understand business and policy issues from entirely within the virtual world in question, with little reference to the outside world. Augmentationist metanomics views the metaverse as simple an addition (augmentation) to the real world, and examines how its appearance affects business practice and regulatory policy. Experimentalist metanomics uses the metaverse as a laboratory in which to conduct controlled experiments that can tell us something new about the real world (such as eliminating capital gains taxes actually does increase investment and productivity).

Here are some background readings to get you started in Metanomics. Readings are organized according to whether they take an "immersionist," "augmentationist," or "experimentalist" perspectives on Metanomics.

Immersionist Metanomics

Immersionist Metanomics attempts to understand business and policy issues from entirely within the virtual world in question, with little reference to the outside world. For one of the seminal examples of immersionist Metanomics, take a look at Edward Castronova's article, Virtual Worlds: A First Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. , which describes the economy of the online game Everquest.

Professor Bloomfield has engaged in some immersionist Metanomics by seeking to understand how residents of virtual worlds view, operate and regulate financial institutions. You can read his take on a Second Life financial market scandal here .

Augmentationist Metanomics

Augmentationist Metanomics views the metaverse as simple an addition (augmentation) to the real world, and examines how its appearance affects business practice and regulatory policy. After a long talk with a Congressional staff member, Prof. Bloomfield wrote this post about the extent to which tax or other real-world regulatory authorities might start expanding their scope to virtual worlds.

Experimentalist Metanomics

Experimentalist Metanomics uses the metaverse as a laboratory in which to conduct controlled experiments. Professor Bloomfield has proposed a long-term project for using virtual worlds to study regulatory policy in his working paper Worlds For Study . His first post on Terra Nova summarized the Worlds for Study project.

For those who don't know what virtual worlds are and want a quick introduction, see the comments to Prof. Bloomfield's post challenging Terra Nova readers to explain what virtual worlds are in 100 words or less.

Readers might also be interested in the recent New York Times article on consumer demand in Second Life.
--------------------
A post-event note from Professor Bloomfield:

I would view the Seriosity study as being a form of augmentationist metanomics, in that the authors are studying how people can and do use virtual worlds to learn new skills--that is, they are studying how people use the metaversed as augmentationists.

If people start taking the immersionist/augmentationist/experimentalist distinction seriously (which I find quite useful), then it might make sense to examine whether we should consider "experiments studying the metaverse" and "experiments using the metaverse to study the real world" as different subfields.

But first, we wil have to get people to stop snickering every time they hear the word "metaverse."

Rob

--------------------
Thanks to everyone for helping to pull off our first Metanomics event, Metanomics 101 . We had 78 people on Metaversed Island for our "live studio audience," and Craigster Hax of SAP was kind enough to set up a tv at SAP's place, so that people could watch the SLCN.tv live stream. We also had about 140+ simultaneous streams coming from SLCN, so a pretty successful opening all around.