Anshe Chung
Encyclopedia
Anshe Chung is the main avatar
(online personality) of Ailin Graef in the online world Second Life
. Referred to as the "Rockefeller of Second Life" by a CNN journalist, she has built an online business that engages in development, brokerage, and arbitrage of virtual land, items, and currencies, and has been featured in a number of prominent magazines such as Business Week, Fortune
and Red Herring
.
Ailin Graef originally roleplayed her Second Life character "Anshe Chung" similar to a character in a movie or novel, giving it certain traits and behaviours and not considering it an extension of her own personality. In 2005/2006 this distinction between "in character" and "out of character" became increasingly difficult for her when the roleplaying game evolved into a business with considerable real life impact. In late 2007 Ailin finally began to adopt "Anshe" as an artist name and accepted that people call her "Anshe" in real life. The name "Anshe" was originally coined in Asheron's Call
in December 1999.
Upon joining Second Life she first approached it as a role-playing game and experimented with several roles and gameplay styles. "I started small with nothing," writes Anshe Chung in an e-mail, "and worked my way through five distinct careers... I started as a private entertainer, somebody people who are bored or lonely could seek out for company. When more familiar with the creation tools in Second Life
, I began to design and sell my own fashion line."
According to Chung, she had already created fortunes in purely virtual currency on other MMORPG
s such as Asheron's Call
and Shadowbane
, but had never converted that to real tender. However, this changed when she entered Second Life, where the in-game currency, "Linden Dollars
" (L$), can be officially exchanged for real money.
In her early Second Life days, prior to founding the business that made her famous, Anshe Chung had a goal of using virtual wealth to support an orphaned boy in a developing country in the real world. With her first Linden dollars she was able to sponsor a boy named Geo from the Philippines
through a German church organization. She raised funds through event hosting, escorting, teaching and fashion design.
It has been reported that Ailin was originally introduced to the Internet in the early 1990s through her friendship with Prof. Wang Yu-Feng, the father of the Chinese Internet. In October 2007 she and her husband were found speaking at an official event commemorating the introduction of the Internet to China, which had been established 20 years earlier with German help.
. This is also considered the beginning of her business where, for the first time, she kept and reinvested funds instead of giving them away. Chung currently owns hundreds of servers' worth of land, most of which are sold or rented to other users as a part of her 'Dreamland' areas. Within Dreamland various levels of zoning
rules are enforced; most other land in Second Life is unzoned, where multiple different types of business or housing are located in adjacent areas. Philip Rosedale
, the CEO of Linden Lab
– the company that produces Second Life – has referred to Anshe as "the government" when referring to the role she plays managing her regions
.
According to Dr. James Cook of Linden Lab "Anshe adds significant value to Second Life".
In February 2006 Ailin Graef legally incorporated "Anshe Chung Studios, Ltd." in Hubei
, China with her husband and business partner, Guntram Graef, who goes by the pseudonym "Guni Greenstein" in Second Life.
In November 2006 Chung announced that she had "become the first online personality to achieve a net worth exceeding one million US dollars from profits entirely earned inside a virtual world"
Meanwhile Anshe Chung's business employs more than 80 people full time, most of them programmers and artists. She counts several Fortune 100 companies among her clients as well as high profile organizations such as the government of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Lifechurch.TV, whose Second Life entry her firm developed.
In January 2007 Anshe Chung Studios received venture capital investment from the Samwer brothers who purchased a stake in the Anshe Chung Studios.
In September 2007 the Gladwyne Partners, who had previously funded the Electric Sheep Company, also obtained stake in the Anshe Chung Studios.
Since 2006 Ailin and her company have been active in IMVU
, a 3D avatar chat. She has since been operating the largest currency exchange and content creation business for that platform with about half of the 100 top selling products in IMVU originating from her company in Wuhan
, while a considerable amount of the remaining top sellers are said to be coming from people who were originally trained in her company. During Ailin's involvement with IMVU, that service's userbase has increased 50-fold, outgrowing Second Life in late 2007.
In 2007 Ailin Graef and the Anshe Chung Studios were chosen as a "New Champion of the World Economy" by the World Economic Forum, describing her company as a business with a major technical or economic impact and the potential to become a Fortune 500 company within the next 5 years.
From 2005 until January 2009 Ailin Graef also owned a 30% share in Virtuatrade, a Pennsylvania based company operating the site XStreetSL.com, a virtual goods trading site similar to eBay but specialized in Second Life items. She and her partner finally sold the company to Linden Lab in what was Ailin's first successful company exit. XStreetSL has now become an integral part of Second Life.
In July 2008 a new portal site called AnsheX (Anshex.com) has become available, operated by her company in Wuhan. The new site is merging services, communities and currency exchanges of several monetized virtual worlds, attempting to bridge the gap between them.
Since 2007 Ailin has been reportedly involved in several successful real estate transactions in the real world in China and Germany.
According to several sources, including a title in the October 2009 issue of Avenue Magazine, Anshe Chung joined the founders of Skype
as key investor behind the new 3D avatar fashion site Frenzoo (Frenzoo.com).
on her economic assets, the virtual studio in which the interview took place was bombarded by flying animated penis
es and copies of a photo of Graef modified to show her holding a giant penis in her arms. The griefer
s managed to disrupt the interview sufficiently that Chung was forced to move to another location and ultimately crashed the simulator entirely. Video and images of the incident were posted on the Web Something Awful
, and the incident received notice in some blogs and online news sites. An attempt by Anshe's husband to convince newspapers and websites including YouTube to remove pornographic photos and videos of the incident stating DMCA and violation of copyright
in her avatar and other virtual creations was partly successful but drew criticism from some media rights activists and an attorney from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
.
The ensuing debate about fair use
in media convinced Anshe's husband to withdraw his DMCA claim explaining that he had originally tried to have the videos removed as a personal attack and infringement on rights, but being unaware of the censorship issue had later changed to a copyright claim when his original complaint didn't produce a response.
Avatar (virtual reality)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
(online personality) of Ailin Graef in the online world Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
. Referred to as the "Rockefeller of Second Life" by a CNN journalist, she has built an online business that engages in development, brokerage, and arbitrage of virtual land, items, and currencies, and has been featured in a number of prominent magazines such as Business Week, Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
and Red Herring
Red Herring (magazine)
Red Herring was a technology business magazine, which flourished during the dot com boom, with global distribution and bureaus in Bangalore, Beijing, and Paris. It also sponsored conferences designed to bring venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and technologists together. But the magazine went into...
.
Ailin Graef originally roleplayed her Second Life character "Anshe Chung" similar to a character in a movie or novel, giving it certain traits and behaviours and not considering it an extension of her own personality. In 2005/2006 this distinction between "in character" and "out of character" became increasingly difficult for her when the roleplaying game evolved into a business with considerable real life impact. In late 2007 Ailin finally began to adopt "Anshe" as an artist name and accepted that people call her "Anshe" in real life. The name "Anshe" was originally coined in Asheron's Call
Asheron's Call
Asheron's Call is a fantasy MMORPG for Microsoft Windows-based PCs developed and published by Turbine Entertainment. It was published by Microsoft until 2004. Asheron's Call is set on the continent of Dereth and its surrounding islands on the fictional planet of Auberean...
in December 1999.
Background
Before her Internet fame role-playing Anshe Chung, Ailin Graef worked as a school and college teacher.Upon joining Second Life she first approached it as a role-playing game and experimented with several roles and gameplay styles. "I started small with nothing," writes Anshe Chung in an e-mail, "and worked my way through five distinct careers... I started as a private entertainer, somebody people who are bored or lonely could seek out for company. When more familiar with the creation tools in Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
, I began to design and sell my own fashion line."
According to Chung, she had already created fortunes in purely virtual currency on other MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
s such as Asheron's Call
Asheron's Call
Asheron's Call is a fantasy MMORPG for Microsoft Windows-based PCs developed and published by Turbine Entertainment. It was published by Microsoft until 2004. Asheron's Call is set on the continent of Dereth and its surrounding islands on the fictional planet of Auberean...
and Shadowbane
Shadowbane
Shadowbane was a free fantasy computer role-playing game created by Wolfpack Studios and published on March 25, 2003 by Ubisoft for Windows and Mac platforms. Originally commercial and subscription-driven, Shadowbane was launched in March 2003, and was the creation of text-MUD veterans J...
, but had never converted that to real tender. However, this changed when she entered Second Life, where the in-game currency, "Linden Dollars
Economy of Second Life
The virtual world Second Life has its own economy and a currency referred to as Linden Dollars . This economy is independent of the Pricing, where users pay Linden Lab. In the SL economy, residents buy from and sell to one another directly, using the Linden, which is exchangeable for US dollars or...
" (L$), can be officially exchanged for real money.
In her early Second Life days, prior to founding the business that made her famous, Anshe Chung had a goal of using virtual wealth to support an orphaned boy in a developing country in the real world. With her first Linden dollars she was able to sponsor a boy named Geo from the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
through a German church organization. She raised funds through event hosting, escorting, teaching and fashion design.
It has been reported that Ailin was originally introduced to the Internet in the early 1990s through her friendship with Prof. Wang Yu-Feng, the father of the Chinese Internet. In October 2007 she and her husband were found speaking at an official event commemorating the introduction of the Internet to China, which had been established 20 years earlier with German help.
Business
According to Chung, in June 2004 she began selling and creating custom animations and then used this money to buy and develop virtual landReal estate (Second Life)
Virtual real estate on Second Life, an online world owned operated by Linden Lab since 2003,is used by residents when they require permanent in-world storage of the content they have created or otherwise own....
. This is also considered the beginning of her business where, for the first time, she kept and reinvested funds instead of giving them away. Chung currently owns hundreds of servers' worth of land, most of which are sold or rented to other users as a part of her 'Dreamland' areas. Within Dreamland various levels of zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
rules are enforced; most other land in Second Life is unzoned, where multiple different types of business or housing are located in adjacent areas. Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale is an American entrepreneur, best known as the creator of the virtual world Second Life. Within the Second Life metaverse, his avatar is known as Philip Linden....
, the CEO of Linden Lab
Linden Lab
Linden Research, Inc., d/b/a Linden Lab, is a privately held American Internet company that is best known as the creator of Second Life....
– the company that produces Second Life – has referred to Anshe as "the government" when referring to the role she plays managing her regions
Real estate (Second Life)
Virtual real estate on Second Life, an online world owned operated by Linden Lab since 2003,is used by residents when they require permanent in-world storage of the content they have created or otherwise own....
.
According to Dr. James Cook of Linden Lab "Anshe adds significant value to Second Life".
In February 2006 Ailin Graef legally incorporated "Anshe Chung Studios, Ltd." in Hubei
Hubei
' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...
, China with her husband and business partner, Guntram Graef, who goes by the pseudonym "Guni Greenstein" in Second Life.
In November 2006 Chung announced that she had "become the first online personality to achieve a net worth exceeding one million US dollars from profits entirely earned inside a virtual world"
Meanwhile Anshe Chung's business employs more than 80 people full time, most of them programmers and artists. She counts several Fortune 100 companies among her clients as well as high profile organizations such as the government of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Lifechurch.TV, whose Second Life entry her firm developed.
In January 2007 Anshe Chung Studios received venture capital investment from the Samwer brothers who purchased a stake in the Anshe Chung Studios.
In September 2007 the Gladwyne Partners, who had previously funded the Electric Sheep Company, also obtained stake in the Anshe Chung Studios.
Since 2006 Ailin and her company have been active in IMVU
IMVU
IMVU, Inc. is an online social entertainment destination in which members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create, and play games created by Fydor Guthenschlag. IMVU has over 50 million registered users, 10 million unique visitors per month and three million monthly active users...
, a 3D avatar chat. She has since been operating the largest currency exchange and content creation business for that platform with about half of the 100 top selling products in IMVU originating from her company in Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
, while a considerable amount of the remaining top sellers are said to be coming from people who were originally trained in her company. During Ailin's involvement with IMVU, that service's userbase has increased 50-fold, outgrowing Second Life in late 2007.
In 2007 Ailin Graef and the Anshe Chung Studios were chosen as a "New Champion of the World Economy" by the World Economic Forum, describing her company as a business with a major technical or economic impact and the potential to become a Fortune 500 company within the next 5 years.
From 2005 until January 2009 Ailin Graef also owned a 30% share in Virtuatrade, a Pennsylvania based company operating the site XStreetSL.com, a virtual goods trading site similar to eBay but specialized in Second Life items. She and her partner finally sold the company to Linden Lab in what was Ailin's first successful company exit. XStreetSL has now become an integral part of Second Life.
In July 2008 a new portal site called AnsheX (Anshex.com) has become available, operated by her company in Wuhan. The new site is merging services, communities and currency exchanges of several monetized virtual worlds, attempting to bridge the gap between them.
Since 2007 Ailin has been reportedly involved in several successful real estate transactions in the real world in China and Germany.
According to several sources, including a title in the October 2009 issue of Avenue Magazine, Anshe Chung joined the founders of Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
as key investor behind the new 3D avatar fashion site Frenzoo (Frenzoo.com).
Target of griefing
In December 2006, while conducting an interview for CNET with Daniel TerdimanDaniel Terdiman
Daniel Terdiman is a journalist, who has been published in both print and non-print media, including Time Magazine, The New York Times, Wired Magazine, CNET News.com, Wired News, Martha Stewart Weddings, Salon.com, Business 2.0, and the San Francisco Chronicle...
on her economic assets, the virtual studio in which the interview took place was bombarded by flying animated penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
es and copies of a photo of Graef modified to show her holding a giant penis in her arms. The griefer
Griefer
A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that deliberately irritates and harasses other players.-History:The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.-Overview:A...
s managed to disrupt the interview sufficiently that Chung was forced to move to another location and ultimately crashed the simulator entirely. Video and images of the incident were posted on the Web Something Awful
Something Awful
Something Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy website housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so...
, and the incident received notice in some blogs and online news sites. An attempt by Anshe's husband to convince newspapers and websites including YouTube to remove pornographic photos and videos of the incident stating DMCA and violation of copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
in her avatar and other virtual creations was partly successful but drew criticism from some media rights activists and an attorney from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
.
The ensuing debate about fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
in media convinced Anshe's husband to withdraw his DMCA claim explaining that he had originally tried to have the videos removed as a personal attack and infringement on rights, but being unaware of the censorship issue had later changed to a copyright claim when his original complaint didn't produce a response.
See also
- Second LifeSecond LifeSecond Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
- Resident (Second Life)Resident (Second Life)- Activities of residents :Residents engage in many activities, just as people do in real life. Unlike real life, there is no biological need to seek nourishment or shelter. Thus some activities that would be necessary in the real world are purely voluntary leisure pursuits...
- Linden LabLinden LabLinden Research, Inc., d/b/a Linden Lab, is a privately held American Internet company that is best known as the creator of Second Life....
- There (Internet service)There (internet service)There is a 3D online virtual world created by Will Harvey and Jeffrey Ventrella. There Inc. was founded in the spring of 1998. Closed beta began in July 2001, with various stages of beta following, and ending with an October 2003 launch date...
- IMVUIMVUIMVU, Inc. is an online social entertainment destination in which members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create, and play games created by Fydor Guthenschlag. IMVU has over 50 million registered users, 10 million unique visitors per month and three million monthly active users...
- TwinityTwinityTwinity is the first 3D online virtual world to build true-to-scale replicas of large cities from all over the world. Twinity is developed by Metaversum GmbH, a company based in Berlin, Germany. It offers its population, called Twinizens, to navigate around virtual versions of real-world cities,...
External links
- Anshe Chung Studios website
- BusinessWeek title story and magazine cover
- CNN: "Anshe Chung – First Virtual Millionaire"
- Second Life Safari – Room 101 v. Anshe Chung Something AwfulSomething AwfulSomething Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy website housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so...
's coverage of the griefing incident - Reuters Report on Anshe Chung
- Squat Magazine interview with Anshe Chung