That ranges from Habbos creating their own pretend shops to IMVU's emphasis on user-created content--Rosenzweig says that almost 100% of its 1.6 million items are user-created, seeing its top ten developers raking in $100,000 over the last year--to Three Rings' Whirled, which encourages users to build their own games from the ground up.
The big question, of course, is how to monetize that content. In IMVU, said Rosenzweig, creators "do what they do because it's cool, but they like making credits" by selling the items in world. That can then be cashed out through IMVU, which leads to 90% of its revenue, taking a cut while transfering IMVU credits to real world dollars. That user attitude is true of Dogster and Catster as well--users don't get a cut of the money generated by creating games around their items and boosting activity. They just enjoy creating and sharing. For Whirled, Three Rings is still experimenting with its business model for sharing and creating content.
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