We are not alone...

Researchers at the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at the University of California, Riverside are developing a Second Life academic research facility and platform called "eLab City". It combines a panel of Second Life users, experimental research capabilities and tools for unobtrusively tracking and studying virtual user behavior.

Those of you interested in the subject can learn more about their work and I suggest, if you think you will be pursuing this field in the future, to join their efforts at eLab City. I will send everyone you an invite shortly. Don't feel obliged to join:=)

Just be careful not to be too influenced from what you learn there but rather take it as a departing point to go even further.