Virtual communities

I saw this on B2Day:

It's official. The domainers have taken over the asylum. Next week, a new social network/ virtual world called Weblo will launch where members can buy digital real estate (including cities and states), manage celebrity fan pages, and own Weblo domains (that only exist within the social network). Each piece of real estate is tied to an actual property in the real world—Buckingham Palace, the Taj Mahal, your house. CEO Rocky Mirza came by my office today to explain:

The concept is very simple. We are recreating this world on the Internet. Weblo is a virtual world that gives people a second chance on something they missed before. It is social networking with commerce.

Anyone can buy and sell any building (they go for $1 to $2 each to start), or people can buy entire cities or states (New York City will be $300 or $400, and all of California wil go for $50,000). Mirza reports:

One guy has already sent in $25,000 to buy Ontario. We have three or four people waiting to purchase NY. Our first-day goal was to do $100,000. That is already done.

Its amazing what people will spend money on. Is this a competitor for Second Life?