Five years ago, venture capitalist Bill Davidow and I together wrote a best-selling book entitled The Virtual Corporation.

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Guesses range from an online game to a digital comic book to a virtual Harry Potter encyclopedia to a new promotional effort for the final movie in the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, " which hits theaters July 15.

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But Gary McGraw, a security researcher and author of the virtual-world focused book Exploiting Online Games, says that Second Life won't be significantly affected by the ban.

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There, she was influenced by Howard Rheingold, who wrote The Virtual Community, a watershed book in the events leading to the current Conversational Age.

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That means Second Life is as susceptible to gambling laws as any other online casino, says Sean Kane, an attorney and author of the forthcoming book The Law of Video Games and the Virtual World.

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In the relentless drive to turn physical things into virtual ones, the purpose served by the coffee table book will soon be served by the coffee table itself, and for the same reasons.

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In the recently published book The Facebook Effect, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg makes some interesting comments about the importance of virtual goods as a new and growing source of income.

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