In-game virtual economies have been a subject of growing interest in recent years, with players of massively multiplayer worlds such as Second Life going so far as to hire accountants to manage their virtual accounts. Today, major worldwide news organization Reuters opened a news bureau located within Second Life, dedicated to covering business and entertainment news that develops in the virtual world itself. Reuters has purchased real estate within the game and constructed a Second Life headquarters, including a common area where residents can gather to discuss news and current events. The Reuters/Second Life website contains news, interviews, and even graphs of the current value of a Linden dollar (the game's currency) against the U.S. dollar as well as the amount of economic activity going on within the world.

"One thing that Reuters can do is bring its expertise and journalism, especially business and financial journalism, take it into Second Life, and help provide accurate information to the people that are running businesses," explained Reuters Second Life correspondant Adam Pasick. "[They are] making serious decisions, they have to know what's going on in the economy, what's happening with the currency, and so Reuters is, I think, pretty well suited to provide that service."

Second Life's most successful businessperson is real estate mogul Anshe Chung, who reportedly earns some several hundred thousand dollars a year from her in-game portfolio. Some seven thousand Second Life businesses have turned a real world profit, and according to Reuters, the game's population and GDP are reported to be growing 20% monthly.

Reuters' current top story covers an investigation by the United States Congress into how taxation should be approached in Second Life and other virtual economies. Second Life business owners are already expected to report real world Second Life earnings as income, but a hairier issue is determining how to treat entirely in-game transactions which do not leave the virtual world but do have a real world value. Joint Economic Committee senior economist Dan Miller is currently evaluating the economic situation and hopes to prepare a draft of a report on the issue by the end of the year.