Abstract
This article considers the meanings and implications of "avatar," "virtual goods," and "virtual money," which are found in constructed graphical net communities known as avatar sites. Many studies on net communities have considered text-based sites. We discuss avatar sites while using the logic of symbolic exchange. In avatar sites, values are formed through the exchange of any virtual goods; reification in the real world occurs in the same manner. We suggest the significance of marketing theory in studies of net communities and will show that the real world and virtual world operate on the basis of similar mechanisms.
