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Virtual money means real windfall
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2006-09-29 09:28
In an era of omnipresent cyber-space, the possession of a great deal of Internet virtual currency can be a real boon.

It can be used not only to buy virtual stuff in cyber-space, but also be traded into real money and could well decide a person's destiny.

That's something the organizers of the TV show "Super Girl," the Chinese version of "American Idol," have just realized.

The ongoing star-making show, which has changed several girls' lives over the past two years with fame and popularity, is facing a threat from a kind of online virtual currency to make the singing contest a fair game.

The Q money, chosen by the TV show as a new way for audiences to vote for their favorite candidate since the beginning of this month, has seen explosive trading volumes on the Internet as fans try to get as many votes as they can to push their players to go further in the show.

Audience votes play a key role in determining a participant's destiny. Li Yuchun, the champion of last year's "Super Girl," won the contest by more than 3.5 million short message votes.

Q money is part of the service offered by Tencent Inc, China's largest instant messaging service provider, for its online community and instant messenger QQ users to buy virtual items and service on its site like cyber-images and electronic greeting cards.

On taobao.com, China's most popular online auction site that accounts for 67 percent of consumer-to-consumer trading on the Internet, more than 500,000 yuan (US$62,500) worth of Q money is traded each day.

The average price is 0.6 yuan per Q money, down from the official price of 1 yuan apiece, with the lowest offer at 0.4 yuan, according to taobao.com. It means that nearly 900,000 votes can be produced from the traded Q money each day on the site alone if all the traded Q money is used for voting in the show.

"One buyer purchased a lot of Q money from me and I asked what he used it for," said a Q money seller on taobao.com with the screen name wenzhou855600. "He said a contestant's family paid him to vote for their girl."

The new voting method makes it cheaper to give out thousands of votes for a player at a lower price than the other two voting methods (China Mobile's mobile data service platform Monternet and fixed-line telephone), and it's also cheaper than the previous voting method of mobile short message, which was abandoned by organizers this month, ostensibly to prevent manipulated votes.

Andrew Lu, an official of taobao.com, said they are aware that Q money trading could be used for cheating on the TV show, but they have no legal basis to set special limits on the trading.

For others, it provides a great opportunity to make money from sales of the virtual currency, though its price has gone down in a buyer's market.

The "diamond" sellers on taobao.com, the highest-ranking traders for their good credit, can sell around 2,000 units of Q money a week. One seller with the screen name sunboy100 traded 30,000 yuan worth of Q money a week, according to taobao.com.

Some Q money traders are also seizing the opportunity to stock up the virtual currency at the today's low price, waiting for "Super Girl" to end and then sell it at a good price.

In fact, before the show accepted Q money as a voting channel, it had already been a popular trading item on the Internet, especially with students, who use it to buy fancy "clothes", head portrait, cool expressions, raise electronic pets for their virtual online image from the Website system or gain admission to online social networking service.

It is more widely used than other virtual currencies in China these days, such as the online in-game money created by game operators like Shanda and 9.com and those created by Internet portals like Sina, Sohu and Netease.

To get Q money, Web users have to pay in real money through their bank cards, purchase Q money cards issued by the company and order through phone. The "exchange rate" is 1 to 1. Tencent also offers Q money for free for users who try out its new services. But Tencent won't buy back the Q money already sold.

There are easy ways to make Q money at a lower cost, such as using a mobile number to purchase a large number of Q money and then giving up the number, and there are a lot of tips on the Internet on how to cheat the system with a certain fixed-line phone number to get Q money for free.

Of course, Q money is also subject to hackers. There are also softwares with tips telling people how to steal others' QQ accounts and thus gain their Q money. The QQ account itself can also be traded. Special numbers, such as those with six or fewer digits that are hard to get, can sell at a good price.

Though Tencent has said it will work out technical measures to prevent vote manipulation through its Q money, the fact is that it has benefited from the trading of its currency.

Its second quarter financial report shows that income from Internet value-added service like virtual image and community, including the QQ show, rose by 181 percent from a year earlier to 898.8 million yuan (US$113.8 million), accounting for 65.6 percent of its total revenue in the period.

Meanwhile, Tencent is working with some companies to make Q money qualified to buy their products or services, such as downloading movies and softwares. Some small Websites are also pricing their services with Q money together with other virtual currencies or real money.

Maybe it's time to get ourselves some Q money before the price rises?
Source:Shanghai Daily