Metanomics 101 Suggested Reading

The first Metanomics program and related materials are now compiled here.

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.

Help us build a suggested reading list

Use the comment thread below to suggest additional readings, or comment on the readings above.