Something Awful writes about how all the Web 2.0 lusting PR firms jumping on Second Life are discovering the joys of… Something Awful, would be my guess. Or, as CNet put it,

Unfortunately, as the interview was commencing, the event was attacked by a “griefer,” someone intent on disrupting the proceedings. The griefer managed to assault the CNET theater for 15 minutes with–well, there’s no way to say this delicately–animated flying penises.

Chung refused to continue the interview in the CNET theater but agreed to go on in her own space.

Once restarted, the interview was attacked again, and the protester even managed to crash the entire server on which Chung’s theater is held.

So the takeaway: don’t hold press conferences in areas where people can, um, conjure virtual genitalia to rain from the heavens.

However, CNet managed to move beyond the VICIOUS PR0N ATTACK and actually ask a decent question of the former Shadowbane guildmaster:

There are plenty of skeptics about Second Life who simply can’t accept that someone could have a million dollars’ worth of virtual assets. So how do you come to that figure?

Graef: First, you need distinguish between three different things: real money in Ailin Graef’s bank account. There’s no million dollars in any bank account now. Second, the value of Anshe Chung Studios. That number was independently assessed in August by (some) investment firms and was already clearly more than $1 million.

The third thing is the value of what actually is owned by the avatar, which is 550 simulators–some unsold, some with profitable business tenants earning money every month–and the far more difficult, to assess value of content, content rights and stakes in other Second Life businesses.

To liquidate everything without leading to the price of Second Life land or the value of Linden dollars (the currency of Second Life) dropping by more than 10 percent would require up to eight weeks. I am very confident in saying this because in February and March, we cashed out $150,000 because of our investment in setting up shop in China, at the same time that IGE sold off about $100,000 Linden dollars.

At that time, the LindeX volume and the size of Second Life economy was much smaller. Yet even such large liquidations of Linden dollars did not lead to any serious issues. The Second Life economy is so large that I would not be surprised if, in two years, somebody has a net worth of $10 million.