For about 15 years up until about a year ago, I was a prisoner in the corporate world. I was familiar with technology and the internet, but purely from a superficial standpoint. Then, one a year ago, I picked up a copy of Business 2.0 and have been in a time warp, since. If anyone has seen or visited Weblo.com , then they can identify with what I am about to say. This is truly the "Second Coming"...of the Web that is.

Weblo, as far as I can interpret, is attempting to establish a virtual world, in...you guessed it...a virtual world...a world that already exists...our beloved World Wide Web. What? Now you understand the seeming confusion in the title of this piece. Weblo intends to be the premier social networking site where "members have fun and make money as they create sites, trade assets and rate each other while connecting to friends and communities around the world. Sounds good so far?

Fair enough. The crazy part is that Weblo sells Domain names that have already been registered and owned by other parties. Do you understand where this is headed? Exactly...prime generics...virtual properties of all kinds are all been brought back in this virtual social network.

This is no joke: While some have a hard time even understanding the concept,  Weblo claims that since its launch, it has completed a number of sales: California $53,000 USD, New York State USD $18,433 and the Canadian province of Ontario for $16,900. So clearly there are believers...impossible!. Sounds like stuff straight out of the movies if you ask me. But its true!!

According to a press release  from the company"...a worldwide land grab is underway as people rush to purchase states and cities at Weblo.com, a first-of-its-kind virtual duplicate of the world based on real properties, cities, states and Internet domains...It's like Monopoly on steroids...every property, city and state from the real world is for sale at Weblo.com...this is social networking with commerce, where members finally get paid for their popularity".

According to the Weblo..."members attract traffic to their Weblo.com websites with compelling content including photo galleries, forums, polls and videos. Members profit from advertising revenue generated from their sites. City, State and airport owners earn a percentage of all transactions within their territories." Once the domain has been purchased, anything can be done with the traffic generated, either within the Weblo community or externally, where it can be redirected to another website. This is really the stuff of movies!

But not so fast: Many people...well...Domainers, are stomped. The battle has been joined. Technically, it is argued, the concept is flawed: If someone already owns the URL, what is the URL of the Domain that has been purchased from Weblo. Is this a virtual URL?

Many questions remain unanswered...the proof must be in the eating. Ironically though, without even partaking, the concept makes perfect sense to me...how it works technically is another. Right...somebody please pinch me!

Why would someone want to surf in a virtual world...Weblo's world, when they already have the real virtual world...the internet that we all know and have become addicted to? Good question...really good question!  But, as I wrote on the popular Domainers Forum - DomainState.com; I know people who virtually live on MySpace, much like how some other people live on the Net. So in effect, these MySpace "dwellers" are in a virtual world, which is a part of the much larger virtual world.

They are one and the same, much like a city within a country. By a stretch, it is foreseeable where the people in the city could interact, deal and trade so much with themselves, that it becomes self sufficient. I think that is the goal of Weblo...if they can create a large enough virtual community, then all of the surfer's needs can be met within that community...in Weblo.com. I really do believe it makes sense...except for one thing...TM issues: This is has to be a huge concern.

Unless we are all missing something, TM issues are all over this concept. it is impossible to envision a person or business entity that has "shelled" out real money to purchase a prized piece of virtual real estate, allowing someone else to infringe on the rights to the ownership of that property in an obviously unprecedented manner. Its just not going to happen. 

Bear in mind though: Weblo apparently has strong backers: It is "backed by Internet and social networking visionaries including Richard Rosenblatt the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Demand Media and the former Chairman of MySpace.com". Mr. Rosenblatt is seasoned investor and I am sure...100% certain that Weblo's legal team would have covered all angles of this very real and obviously explosive and contentious matter.

I can only say at this point that if the TM issues are just virtual concerns of Domainers and not so for the real world, then the reality is, Web 2.0 is about to shift into another gear...a completely new virtual world in Weblo.com. Wow!!