Economics
The Oxford American Dictionary defines economics as the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The Virtual Nation produces, distributes, and consumes information as goods and services. This information is produced in digital forms and distributed in electronic mails, newsgroups, online conferences, or websites (Barbrook, 1998). The citizens of the Virtual Nation consume this distributed information. But what do the producers of information get in return?
Attention Economy
John Perry Barlow, the Thomas Jefferson of the Internet (Reiss, 1996), said that information wants to be free. If information wants to be and is free, information cannot provide a currency for the economy of the Virtual Nation. What is scarce and valuable in this economy is not information, but human attention (Lanham, 1994, Goldhabar, 1997). This scarcity creates the economy of human attention, not of information . Goldhabar states:
"The attention economy brings with it its own kind of wealth, its own class divisions - stars vs. fans - and its own forms of property ...."
According to Goldhabar, attention for individuals is valued more than attention for organizations. Property and wealth can come with attention by placing the individual in a position to get anything, from fame to monetary wealth. The surge in WWW development using animated gifts, interactive forms, and dynamically changed websites provides an effective way to get attention from the citizens of the Virtual Nation. Interestingly, these methods mimic the way traditional commercial advertisers get consumers' attention.
Reputation Economy
Why do hackers spend countless hours to break in to computer hosts and often leave fingerprints or signatures as their triumphant marks? Eric S. Raymond (1998), editor of The New Hacker's Dictionary, suggests that social status in hacker gift culture is determined by what one gives away. In this community, where there is no shortage of computer resources (such as disk space, bandwidth and computing power) there is lack in success measurement. This measurement can only be achieved by reputation among one's peers. Raymond parallels the culture of hackers and that of academics. In academia, new ideas and research are shared and added on through journals and other media. The success or failure of the academic is measured by contributions to these sources. In hacker society, new ideas and research are shared by code sharing. The success or failure of the hacker is measured by contributions to these sources. The reputation economy creates new academic theories or high-quality hacking codes, through peer evaluation.
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (1998), Managing Editor of First Monday, suggests that people produce ideas, the equivalent of goods and services in the Virtual Nation, to gain or improve reputation, the currency of the Virtual Nation. Numerous examples of code sharing for reputation exist. One example is Apache, a WWW server software used by more than 50% of websites (www.apache.org). Another example is Linux, an operating system that runs on low to high technology systems, and is increasingly embraced by commercial vendors (www.linux.org). Its creator, Linus Torvalds, made Linux source code freely available. Today, developers worldwide use Linux to develop applications. The attention and reputation that Torvalds received, earned him a prominent job. When asked about the job as a result of his reputation, he says "the good thing about reputations ... is that you still have them even though you traded them in. Have your cake and eat it too!" (Ghosh, 1998, p.12).