The Independent is carrying an article today with the misleading title "Second Life rival seeks €1bn UK listing". In actual fact this refers to A World Of My Own (AWOMO), a 3D games platform, and bears absolutely no similarity to the virtual world of Second Life at all. The shame of it is that this is serving as a major distraction from a more interesting story.
The concept of AWOMO is a subscription-based 3D environment that integrates leaderboards and tournaments for a wide variety of games. They're not saying which games will be available, only that they will have "all the best AAA games", whatever that means. Jumping on the skill-based gambling bandwagon, they're also promising large cash prizes in certain tournaments. Even calling the service a 3D e-commerce platform for selling software downloads may be off the mark as they've been pushing the idea of a new fast download technology that would eliminate the need to store big games on your hard drive. They may be hinting here that only games that use their platform may be available, and you won't be purchasing and downloading stand-alone software at all.
This, according to Sir Richard Branson, is worth listing in London with a €1 Billion (£670 Million) valuation. Some might feel this is an over-valuation considering there's really no prescedent for this model beyond casual gaming sites, but in a previous press release Sir Branson was quoted as saying: "This is a really exciting development for us, as it gives us the opportunity to do for PC Games what iTunes has done for music."
For those of you unaware: iTunes isn't a virtual world.