---

A Different World

With online alternate realities, flourishing businesses are discovering a parallel (retail) universe.

---

Earlier this year, the hip clothier American Apparel - well known for its risqué ads and sweatshop-free T-shirts - opened its newest store on the island of Lerappa. As with its other store openings, American Apparel turned the event into a party, complete with festive music and refreshments as well as prizes and giveaways for shoppers who stopped by. There were, and are, a number of unique quirks to the Lerappa store, however. For one thing, T-shirts and other clothes are mind-numbingly cheap at $1. The clientele is also somewhat unusual. It's not uncommon to see well-dressed animals - as in foxes or birds - saunter into the shop, and a fair number of customers enjoy flying from rack to rack.

Before you make plans to visit, though, keep one thing in mind: American Apparel's Lerappa shop isn't real - at least physically.

See, Lerappa (apparel spelled backward) is actually an island in an online virtual world called Second Life. As its name implies, Second Life is a sort of alternate ­reality in which people, by downloading software to their computers and logging in, can create and participate in an entirely new existence for themselves on their computer screens. Just about anything that can be done on terra firma - and quite a bit that can't - is possible in Second Life, including starting a business and making money from it (this world's currency, the Linden dollar, is convertible to U.S. greenbacks), buying land, joining clubs, attending concerts and events, and on and on.