So I contacted Alex and asked if he would share with us a little bit about his business and how he got started at such a young age.

Interview with Alex Frais

First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business?

Hey guys, I'm Alex Fraiser. I am a 16 year old (on the 12th) blogger, designer and entrepreneur. I am very passionate about what I do and I sincerely wish to turn all of this into a career for myself one day.

Offline, I am just a high school kid going into his Junior year. I love to go camping, hang out with my friends at the mall, and most of all - work out at the gym. I am a die hard New England Patriots fan, and am not afraid to admit it either!

I have started a freelance business for myself where I design and create fully functional themes built off of the Thesis framework. I have been trying to do this for months, and around the start of summer / the end of my sophomore year is when I stared to receive a steady flow of clients to keep me busy and earning money.

Besides freelancing, I also am a passionate blogger. My two blogs are Blogussion, a blog about blogging, and Asnio, a young entrepreneurs/web development blog.

How did you first get introduced to blogging?

Many events online led to my interest in blogging. I used to be a forum kind of guy, meaning I would build forums and try to create a successful one. I had a pretty good forum going on for a while and I liked it a lot, but that was until someone posted a thread about blogging onto it.

I was intrigued by it, and basically that user convinced me enough to start blogging. I sold that forum to give me a little pocket change to get my blogging career started, and ever since I have just been blogging my heart out.

When and why did you decide to turn blogging into a business?

When I designed Blogussion, the idea of that blog becoming more than just blogging, but for a possible business venture. After the redesign of the blog, I looked at in and fell in love with the design. Luckily, that's what many others out there thought too. So I realized that maybe I'm not that bad at designing, and maybe I should give it a go.

So I have built my freelancing career off of my blogs. I let both of my blogs represent my design skills and I work as hard as I can to make them look beautiful so people will be more interested in my services. Of course I make sure that my clients work is in tip top shape as well, I just feel like it was my own blog that started my freelance career.

What role do your parents or others play in your business?

My parents are the one with all of the money I have earned in the last few years! But I can't believe how lucky I am to have two parents who support me, and one who is a financier. I am not of age to have a PayPal account, so I have to conduct business through my step father. It may be a little odd for my clients to send payment to a name that is not my own, but I suppose a 16 year old designing websites for people twice or even three times his age is a little odd as well!

Besides keeping me up financially, they always motivate me to grow my business. Every night while I am doing work, my mom always asks me how business is going. I think, not just for financial reasons, but for motivational reasons - if my parents were not so supportive I don't know how far I would be.

Describe for us how your business makes money (e.g., affiliate income, consulting, other).

Right now I am only making money consulting. I have two blogs that I am still building a community of readers on. I am, however, working my way up to selling products on my blogs and studying affiliate marketing.

My oldest blog is about eight months old, and I think I still have some more work to do before I start making money from it. I have tried before through selling ads and paid reviews, but the income per month was very unbalanced. I had about $100 the first month then as interest died down, maybe $20 or lower per month.

I have only tried banner advertising on my blog once, and I don't think it will be back for a while. However, I believe that if you give more for free, then you will not just build an audience on your blog, but the capability to release things for money. That is what I am doing now, and that is how I plan to make money through my blogs.

What's your vision for your business 1 year from today? 3 years? 5 years?

In one year, I plan to at least have the website up live for my businesses web site, Kolakube. But I can see myself remaining as a Thesis freelancer and even having a larger client base.

In five years I will be on my own, and in five years I set a goal for myself. I want to turn freelancing and blogging into my career in life, so I really hope that I will still be in front of a Mac conducting business.

What advice would you give freelancers who are trying to build a business?

Freelancing isn't easy, and you have to be extremely committed to your work to get by. Managing time will be one of the largest and hardest tasks for you to overcome believe it or not, and without that skill you won't be a successful or happy freelancer.

Freelancing is the dream job because you can set your own hours and make your own salary. If you have the advantage of starting early as I do (with me being 16) then you may soon discover that this may be something for you. If you didn't get that head start age wise, then always work your hardest and have those excellent time management skills on your side to succeed.

To the extent you feel comfortable, do you mind sharing how much revenue your business generates?

I really started freelancing back in very late April. I started out selling pretty low and in March I earned about $250. In June, my inbox started to get more emails, so I completely restructured my pricing and started working for higher rates. Half way through June and about 1/3 through July, I have earned about $1,500 from freelancing.

I'd say that's not bad for a 16 year old guy, but I am finding potential to make money on my blogs, so I see that number increasing.

If a potential customer wants to hire you, what's the best way to contact you?

Right now, I get all of my emails from my blog, Asnio. As I have mentioned before, I have not yet setup my business's website and there is no functioning contact form setup there. So I did the next best thing and directed these people to my own blog.

Contact me at Asnio.

Can you point us to some examples of your work?

Blogussion
Asnio
In House Blog
The Marketing Park
Kolakube
Agent Solutions

Alex, thanks for taking the time to tell us about your business. Best of luck!

If you'd like more information on detecting business opportunity scams, check out www.ftc.gov/bizopps.

First prize in each category is $10,000, and $3,000 each for three overall runners-up in each category. Here are the details:

From June 1 through Aug. 12, people will be able to submit URLs for their entries at the contest Web site (click here). These Web-based applications must use the Live Search APIs (application programming interfaces), which are free, but can also use any other technology platform or programming language in order to accomplish their ultimate purpose:

* To help people deal with the worsening global economy (economy category).

* To help people improve the ecology of Earth (ecology category).

You can vote for your favorite Web applications at the contest Web site until Aug 12. Customer appeal is one of the key factors that will determine which five finalists go on to have their entries judged at the Gnomedex tech conference. The finalists will be chosen by a panel of Microsoft judges on or shortly before Aug. 19.

In the final round at Gnomedex, Aug. 20-22, conference participants will play with the applications and determine the winners in each category.

You can check out the Official Rules, and good luck.

There were some great money management carnivals and articles this past week. Be sure to check them out:

Money Management Articles

• Best iPhone apps for personal finance (@MSN's Smart Spending Blog)
• Debt as a Giffen Good (@Political Calculations)
• Save Money By Using Your Computer as a Phone(@Alpha Consumer)(Note: We use Vonage and love it, but Phone Power is the lowest cost internet phone option we've seen.)
• 3 keys to safe and successful investing (@ChristianPF)
• Introducing the Expensive Loan Option (@Bad Money Advice)
• Off The Waist and Into the Wallet: Save At Least $100/mo. By Fasting For Financial Fitness (@Money Energy)
• Free Book Download: Larry Burkett's Money Matters (@Keeping the Kingdom First)
• Larry Winget: ‘The Secret’ is a Total Load of Crap! (@All Financial Matters)
• USAA $100 Sign Up Bonus (@My Dollar Plan)
• Why Today is Quite Possibly the Best Time Ever for First Time Homebuyers (@Moolanomy)
• Credit CARD Act of 2009 - Good or Bad? (@Cash Money Life)
• 5 Great Reasons to Have Less Debt (@PT Money)

Carnivals

• Carnival of Personal Finance #205: Pay it Forward Edition
• Carnival of Money Stories: May Two-Four Edition
• Personal Finance News Carnival Volume 5
• Working at Home Blog Carnival-139th Edition
• Money Hacks Carnival - Otter Pop Edition

After the due diligence is done and you have decided to go forward as an entrepreneur it is time to line up the necessary financing. For some, there are a number of options available – for others there are next to none. Depending on your product or service, and a number of other factors, you may qualify for a new business grant or government guaranteed loan.

Grants

A variety of private foundations and governmental agencies offer these grants and loans, but finding one that you qualify for may be difficult. In fact, unless your product or service relates to development of a new technology or you are starting a non-profit organization, there is little to no value in looking for a grant from the federal government. State governments, on the other hand, do offer grant money to individuals. Click here for a list of each state’s economic development agency’s web site.

The private foundation avenue is another area that may be worth exploring. We found that Wachovia’s web site is a useful free resource to explore private foundation grants. While the state and private foundation grants are worth looking into, we recommend setting your expectations low. As with other chances of receiving free money, business grants are likely a long shot. We looked into a couple of these options without success.

Small Business Loans

Small business loans, on the other hand, are more readily available and may be a good option for you. These generally take the form of loans made by private institutions that are then guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), a federal agency that was established in the 1950s to assist small businesses. Click here to learn more about the SBA and its loan process.

Social Lending

Another less traditional financing avenue is peer to peer lending. We did not pursue this route, but it does offer a reasonable fixed interest rate for up to three years. One p2p lending option is LendingClub. To qualify, you must have a credit score of at least 660. The interest rate is based on several factors, including your credit score, loan amount, and amount of outstanding debt. One of the best benefits of peer to peer lending is that the interest rate is fixed (which provides security against interest rate increases) and amortized over three years (which forces you to discipline your spending)

Home Equity Line of Credit

If you need to obtain traditional financing and own your home, the best option is likely a home equity line. These loans usually offer relatively low interest rates and tax deductions. Despite the recent credit crisis we obtained, through our credit union, a $50,000 home equity line of credit with an APR below prime. If you do not own a home, discuss your options with at least three financial institutions. If you are a member of a credit union, or know of one that you could join, this could be your best option since credit unions are non-profit organizations.

Credit Cards

The many rewards offered by credit cards make them a viable option for funding a new small business. We used a business credit card to fund various start up costs, but we made sure to pick the right kind of card. We chose a card that offered an initial cash back and future cash rebates when we make business purchases from office supply stores and other retailers. Another option is to pick a card with a 0% APR introductory offer on purchases. There are many credit cards that have no interest for 12 months that are worth considering.

One note of caution. With revolving credit, some can be tempted to spend more than they should. Particularly with credit cards, it is important to make sure you can discipline yourself to spend only for what your business really needs.

DR: Here are a few credit cards worth considering for small businesses:
Advanta Net-90 Platinum BusinessCard (90 days interest free on all purchases)
Discover More Credit Card–A Consumer Reports Rewards Card Pick
Blue American Express Cards (Cash Back and Travel Rewards)

Regardless of the method used to finance your start-up business, consider using credit cards to purchase needed goods and services. As long as you pay off your monthly balance to avoid interest charges, there are substantial benefits to using credit cards. They provide up to a 30 day interest free float – this is of particular value if you are paying interest on borrowed money to fund your operations. Credit cards also provide cash back or valuable rewards.

Have you ever had an intriguing business idea?

How many times has an entrepreneurial idea come to you that for whatever reason you decided not to pursue it? This must have happened to us one hundred times before we decided to develop Er-u-di-tion, an educational board game to jump-start the road to reading through exposure to sight words. In this and a few subsequent posts we will share our experiences with developing a product and bringing it to market. We will also provide some tips and tools that we found useful in our entrepreneurial adventure.

Genesis of our sight words game

Our adventure began when our son, Connor, was in kindergarten and we were helping him learn sight words. Since recognizing these high frequency words was part of his school’s curriculum, we began using index cards, but Connor lost interest within a couple minutes. We started using “sight words for food,” where Connor needed to identify a sight word to earn his meal (don’t worry, we didn’t starve our child). We knew there had to be a better way to teach children these high frequency words. During a family game night the answer came to us; we would create a board game in a community setting and use sight word recognition for players to advance in the game.

Solicit Feedback early and often

Throughout our project, beginning within days of its inception, we solicited feedback and assistance from friends and family members. We found that people we knew were able to provide, or work with us so we could perform, many of the services we needed. This has been extremely beneficial in a variety of ways. By reaching out to our social network, we:

• Worked with our niece to illustrate the game board, cards and box – saving over $1,000. She did a great job, as you can see here:

  

• Worked with two friends (DR being one of them) to develop and optimize our website – saving hundreds of dollars
• Learned of a shipping company through our brother that gave us a significantly lower shipping quote than others we had received – saving over $2,000

We are not suggesting to wear out your welcome by asking for favors, but rather to ask for contacts, advice and guidance. We were able to perform many tasks that were foreign to us by drawing from others’ experience.

Make sure everybody involved is on-board

Before spending much time and money, honestly evaluate if you are committed and able to see your project through. In a perfect world, this assessment is a robust business plan (if you are obtaining 3rd party financing such a plan will likely be necessary). In reality though, some entrepreneurs lack the skills to create a detailed business plan and it may not be cost effective to pay for one.

If you decide to go without a formal business plan, you should still assess the resources needed. At a minimum, estimate both the time and money your project will require to give your product or service a chance to succeed. During this process, expect the unexpected and factor that into your analysis. You should come up with your best estimate and then add approximately 50%. Our initial estimates of both time and money were short by about 50%. Make sure that you could accept overruns like this.

Once you are comfortable with the estimate of time and money required consider how you will devote the time and where you will get the money. Also, think about what your life will be like if you go forward with your project. Will you be stressed out and strapped for cash? What toll will the project take on your family? Keep in mind that most successful entrepreneurs worked nights and weekends and pinched pennies for a while before they enjoyed a successful business.

Protect your personal assets

Once you decide you are “all in” on an entrepreneurial idea, it is time to protect your personal assets from the worst case scenario. While this step is more important for some, virtually every entrepreneur’s product or service carries some risk of legal liability. By forming a corporate shield, this potential legal liability and related obligation to pay damages is generally limited to the corporation and its assets. If you choose to operate without a “shield” many, if not all, of your assets are in potential jeopardy.

There are a variety of entity types that provide personal protection. When analyzing our options we found that a matrix of pros and cons of sole proprietorships, C-corporations, S-Corporations, and LLCs s was very useful. Weigh the options and choose the structure that is best for you. We chose to form a limited liability corporation (LLC).

You can check out their game and even buy it online by visiting their sight words game product page.

The value of a second income

Yesterday I was discussing with a friend the income I earn online, which now is about $1,500 per month. He asked why I get so excited about this income given that it is a lot less than I make from my job. So here are a couple of different ways to look at an extra $1,500 per month:

1. Savings account: To earn $1,500 a month ($18,000 per year) in a savings account at 4%, you would need to save $450,000!
2. Investment account: To earn $18,000 from investments at 10%, you would need to invest $180,000.
3. Employment: For many, to get $18,000 in raises could take several years of dedicated service to your employer.
4. Financial Freedom: Extra income of $1,500 per month could cover car payments, help pay down credit card debt, or cover some or even all of a mortgage payment.

The point is that even relatively small amounts of extra income can go a long way.

What makes for a great source of extra income

We could all go out and get a second job at Home Depot or Starbucks to earn some extra income. As you might imagine, however, that's not what I have in mind. When assessing how you can generate multiple income streams, consider these factors:

Flexible: The ideal source of extra income will allow you to call the shots when it comes to your time. Particularly if you have a full time job, the last thing you want is being tied down to working a set number of hours each week at a second job.

Scalable: Look for income sources that have at least the possibility of generating substantial amounts of income.

Sustainable: The ideal extra income source will continue to generate cash even when you're not working at it. The idea is to build something that can eventually function without you.

Enjoyable: Generating additional sources of income is a lot of work, so you might as well enjoy what you're doing.

Inexpensive: I don't like income generating ideas that require massive investment.

10 Extra Income Ideas

So now we get to some ideas on how to go about generating extra income. You want to choose something that fits your interests and personality. You may have certain skills, training and education that will dictate what's best for you. So while this is not one size fits all, here are 10 extra income ideas to consider:

1. Real estate investing: While real estate investing does require some cash up front, the potential is enormous. And the current down turn in the housing market is an ideal time to buy property. I write a separate real estate investing blog that describes my experience with buying and managing single family rental properties.
2. Ebay Store: It's now easier than ever to run an online Ebay store. You can of course acquire products to resell on Ebay. But you can also create an online store to market products that others are selling on Ebay and share in the commissions generated by the sales. To find more information, check out the Ebay Partner Network and the Build a Niche Store (BANS) site.
3. Realtor: This may seem like a crazy time to start selling real estate, but in a slow market a lot of the competition runs away. You'll need an initial investment to obtain your real estate license, but over the long term have the potential to make substantial income.
4. Website Design: With the continued growth of the Internet, website design has become a growing industry. Unless you already have the know-how, you'll need to spend some time learning the technology. But there are plenty of online resources available, and the best in the business can earn a great income.
5. Graphic Artist: There are a lot of ways to generate money through graphics. Just the logo business alone could keep you busy if you have the artistic skills necessary to develop cool graphics.
6. Virtual Assistant: Virtual assistances today can do just about anything for you that doesn't require their physical presence. Many virtual assistants from places like India are working full time for people in the U.S. The best VAs can earn $30 to $50 per hour. The starting place if you are interested is Elance.
7. Freelance writer: If you have a knack for writing, you can earn great money writing for others. Not sure how to start? Contact bloggers who are always looking for great writing. As blogs grow, they can afford to pay freelancers good money for quality articles. Websites looking to build links also hire freelancers to write guest posts to be published on blogs and websites.
8. Home business: The ideas and potential for a home business are limitless. I know folks who run creative memories stores, operate a video business, or sound studio from their home. One of the great benefits about running a home business is that it greatly reduces your initial investment.
9. Sell a product: I have good friends who have designed a children's game and is in the process of producing and marketing it. It's a lot of work, but they are passionate about the work, and the potential payoff is huge.
10. Blogging: Making money online requires very little cash investment and can be done on your schedule from home. This is one of the reasons I've started a weekend series on how to make money blogging. We are in the process of walking through how to set up a site, and then I'm going to use my Credit Card Offers IQ site as a working example to show step-by-step how to generate extra income online.

Generating income (along with minimizing expenses) is the foundation of smarter money management. While earning extra income does take work, its payoff can be huge. If you are interested to taking the leap, here are some additional resources to consider:

• 40+ Alternative Income Ideas and Resources at Moolanomy
• 40 Ways to Make Money on the Internet at Dumb Little Man
• Ten Ways to Translate Your Passion Into Additional Income

at The Simple Dollar

• 20+ Free Passive Income Resources

at Life Optimizer

If the title to this article mystifies you, please allow me to be the first to welcome you to middle age. As of two months ago, this middle-ager had never heard of Second Life, or SL as it's called. In fact, it's hard enough for me to keep my first life on track, never mind worrying about a second one. But if you're not familiar with the virtual world of SL, and even if you are, you need to keep reading. SL offers the potential (and I stress potential) to make a lot of real world money. Like blogging, the big bucks will go to a select few, though many more can still make a respectable amount of money in SL. I'll briefly describe what SL is, and then describe how some are making significant money in this virtual world.

What is Second Life?

Second Life is an online virtual world that is part game, part elaborate chat room, and part commerce. The initial account with Second Life is free. Once you download some software, you are given an avatar (3-D graphical figure that is a visual representation of you within SL) that you use to explore the SL world and interact and chat with other members of SL. I recently joined SL and named my avatar, Boogonie Bashly (I have a strict "don't ask don't tell" policy when it comes to naming conventions).

Now if you're like me (or my wife), at this point you're thinking something along these lines: "SL is the dumbest most pathetic thing I've ever heard of, and anybody spending any time in this virtual world must lead a very sad existence." Well, before you pass judgment, consider the following:

• As of the writing of this post, SL has more than 11 million residents
• There are over 800 million square meters of developed virtual land (areas to explore)
• About $7 million (that's actual U.S. dollars) are exchanged between residents each month (more about this below)
• Reuters has a full time reporter, covering Second Life. The reporter has his own Avatar and interacts within the virtual world (no, I'm not joking. Click here if you're still doubtful.)
• Real world companies are developing a presence in Second Life, including General Motors, and IBM.
• Second Life has already produced its first real world millionaire, Anshe Chung.

Linden dollars--virtual currency

SL residents buy and sell goods and services using a currency called Linden Dollars (L$). Linden Labs, the creator of Second Life, implemented L$ to facilitate the exchange of goods and services within the virtual world. Residents can obtain L$ in several ways:

• With a Premium Membership Plan ($9.95/month), residents receive a stipend of L$300 per week.
• Residents can buy L$ with real world money at the LindenX, Second Life's currency exchange. Currently, $1 buys about L$250
• Residents can work for money within Second Life for other residents (more about this below)
• Residents can start their own business selling goods or services (more about this below, too)

So what would you do with all these L$ you earn? You can buy clothes for your Avatar. You can rent or buy land from other Residents and build a home or a store. You can buy virtual cars and boats, furniture and jewelry. You can subscribe to magazines published by other residents. You can hire an architect to help you design your virtual (or "in-world" as Residents say) home. You can partake of in-world entertainment such as amusement parks (yes, some residents have built virtual amusement parks). And you can also sell L$ for real money, which brings us to the focus of this article.

How can Second Life residents earn real money?

Making real money in Second Life is simple, in concept. Simply offer goods or services that Residents want to buy. Accumulate L$ and then exchange them for real money. Before describing how Residents have actually gone about doing this, you should understand two important facts.

First, There is a significant spread in the price for buying versus selling L$. As of the date of this article, buying L$1000 costs about $4.05. Selling L$1000, however, nets just $3.51. The buy/sell prices of L$ do fluctuate depending on supply and demand. Much like a central bank, Linden Labs has several mechanisms with which to control the price of the L$. You can read more about this function The Second Life Economy article posted on Second Life blog.

Second, making money on Second Life is a lot like making money with a blog. While a select few will make significant money, most will not. Linden Labs publishes statistics on the amount of money Residents make, and in October 2007, 157 Residents made in excess of $5,000. Just under 2,000 Residents made between $200 and $500. Here is the chart showing all of the available data through October 2007:

So how is this money being made? This is where your imagination is just about your only limitation. I've spent considerable time researching just how Residents make money in Second Life, and what follows is a list of money-making ideas some Residents are pursuing:

Working for others: You (i.e., your avatar) can work for other Residents in-World. For example, some entrepreneurs will pay you to simply hang out at their business. Why? They want to show a lot of activity around their establishment to build interest and a community. Called camping, wages are miserable at just a few L$ per 20 minutes. I mention this aspect of making money because, if you start a business, you may need to hire campers to generate interest in your new venture.

Develop real estate: Real estate in SL has the potential to generate substantial income. It requires the ability to design and build structures within the SL environment, or you can pay someone to do the design and construction work. You can develop property for resale or for rent. Here are links to some SL real estate developer websites to give you an idea of some are already doing:

• Anshe Chung Studios: Perhaps the best know SL real estate mogul, Anshe Chung is purportedly the first SL Resident to reach real life millionaire status. Anshe Chung Studios now employs 80 people full time and builds entire communities.
• Livingston Properties: Sells prefabricated homes ranging in price from L$400 to L$900.

Become a real estate agent: The SL world can be a bit overwhelming at first. Like moving to a new town, you don't know the up and coming neighborhoods from all the rest. To find out where the best properties are and whether the asking price is reasonable, some are hiring in-World realtors. Realtors can also help you sell your property. Here are few already providing this service:

• Livingston Properties: They charge the seller 5% of the transaction price.
• SL Real Estate Rentals: This site provides listings of available rental properties.

Publish a newsletter: There are several newsletters in print, but more are sure to follow. Some charge for the newsletter while others generate revenue through advertising.

• Metaverse Messenger: The newsletter is free and comes as a pdf file.
• SLNN: An online SL news site.
• The Avastar: Another pdf formatted magazine geared described as a "professional tabloid newspaper."

These newsletters may provide an effective avenue to advertise your new business venture, too.

Start a credit card company: Believe it or not, SL already has its first virtual credit card, called the Metacard. Offered by FirstMeta, it allows its card holders to charge in-world purchases. In three flavors, basic, gold and corporate, the Metacard works much like a real world credit card. Interest is charged at 0.13% per day (for the gold card), there is a credit limit, minimum payment requirements and over-limit fees. To qualify, you must have a real world credit card that can be charged in the event you don't pay your Metacard bill.

Open a boutique: There are countless boutiques throughout SL that cater to every imaginable taste. One aspect of marketing that is important to understand is that many of these stores have a presence in both SL and on the web. Here are a few websites to give you an idea of the competition:

• Onrez: This shop not only sells clothing, but will also help you customize your avatar and sells home furnishings.
• Giorgio Armani: Yes, you will have to compete with the real world of high fashion. Armani opened its SL store just last month.
• House of Nyla: A real world fashion designer seeks brand awareness through an in-world boutique.

Banking: Several virtual banks have opened in Second Life that accept L$ deposits and make L$ loans. At the moment, these banks are not regulated like real world banks, and some banks have already collapsed (see below).

• SL Investor's Bank: According to its website, it has 760 depositors with over L$12 million on deposit.
• L&L Bank and Trust: As of this writing, L&L banking activity had been halted because its in-world ATMs had been hacked. The latest report suggests that L&L will be back online shortly. This underscores an important point about doing business in a virtual world--treat it like a real world business. The virtual world can make you real money, but it can also create real headaches and real legal issues.
• Ginko Financial: Ginko was another SL bank, but its activities have been halted due to a run on the bank. This is another cautionary tale worth taking to heart.

Run a stock exchange: Second Life now has an exchange called the World Stock Exchange. The WSE has listing rules, IPOs, analysts and a trading room. The dollars being traded on a daily basis are relatively small, but the potential for growth is significant. As an aside, I suspect that real world regulation of the exchange (and banking) will become a reality if Second Life continues to grow in popularity. Although it has the feel of a game, real money is at stake, which eventually will attract regulators. One fascinating issue, though, is which regulators. The virtual world of Second Life spans the real world globe.

Wedding planner: Avatars can get married in SL. Never mind if the people behind the avatars are married in real life to real spouses who have real problems with this. And where there's a wedding, there's a wedding planner. One such planner is Kande Knox, and you can read an interview with her here.

Tattooist: Many want tattoos for their avatars. While you can create a tattoo for yourself (here's a how-to guide), you just may want to hire a professional. One such establishment is Gina F Designs, which can be found in world at Jernberg (238,90) (main store) and Paradise (155,57), which are coordinates used to travel to specific locations within SL.

The list of money-making ideas could go on forever, but the above list gives you a good idea of the range of opportunities. As I noted at the start, making large amounts of money in SL is, like the real world, unlikely. But it is possible, as is making enough money each month to make it worth your effort.

If you've tried to make money in SL, whether successful or not, let us know what business you pursued. And for those interested in SL, here are some books you may find helpful: