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While the real-world markets take a nosedive, a virtual world's economy is on the up and up, and its parent company is reaping the rewards. Second Life, the user-generated virtual world, generates almost $100 million in revenue a year, according to a new report on LAUNCH. A "company insider" says that Linden Lab has grossed over $75 million per year for the past three years and the company is profitable.

But this isn't just another nine-digit number in the sea of Web business news. Linden Lab, the parent company of Second Life, simply charges fees on financial transactions. Its revenue comes from an entirely user-generated economy built on real estate, virtual goods and services. Yes, there's also a sex industry.

Today, PlaySpan, a subsidiary of Visa whose UltimatePay product provides global in-app payments for Facebook Credits and other gaming platforms, released a demographic breakdown of U.S. gamers who purchase virtual goods. The study finds that gamers are beginning to purchase more virtual content with real money, rather than credits given for free by advertisers. According to PlaySpan, nearly 31% of the gamer population has purchased virtual content with real money, and of those, 57% do it at least once a month.

But their profile of the average U.S. gamer varies noticeably from what the Entertainment Software Association found in their 2011 report. The two studies have markedly different measurements of the age and gender breakdown of U.S. gamers.

This morning's focus at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco was how developers can make money with their apps. Several high-profile developers and app publishers were on hand to provide their insights on the various ways they've successfully monetized their applications through mobile ads, game mechanics, virtual goods and scaling.

Mobile developers looking to monetize free applications should pay special attention to a new report from mobile analytics firm Flurry. According to this study, conducted using a sample of leading iOS applications with a combined reach of 2.2 million users, in-app purchases have taken over as the leading source of revenue for social networking and social gaming applications.

You'll soon have 20 new ways to buy your Facebook Credits today, as Facebook has selected PlaySpan's Ultimate Pay as an additional payment provider.

Before today, you could buy your virtual currency via PayPal, credit card or mobile phone, as well as earn Credits via certain games and apps. But the addition of UltimatePay will help power a variety of additional payment methods, aimed at expanding the global reach of the program.

Habbo Hotel, one of the world's largest virtual communities, turned 10 today. Starting as "Mobile Disco," an interactive chat for a friend's band, it has become a leading teen community and social game site.

In 1999 Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä started Mobile Disco in their native Finland. The next year, as it grew in popularity, they ginned up what has since become a popular element of online environments, the micro-payment model, and launched Habbo Hotel. Since then 172 million folks have churned out a character, grabbed a room, thrown up decorations, chatted, played games and whatever else it is kids get up to these days.

While many large communities continue to chase ad revenue and subscription models, I can't help thinking the real money is in virtual currency and goods. Yesterday we featured an article about Beijing and the fact that TenCent (one of the country's most successful social networks) makes 90% of its revenue from virtual goods. With China alone representing a $4 billion dollar market, many are looking to gaming and virtual goods as the next emerging space.

Mobile payments provider Zong has just announced a partnership with online gaming community Outspark. Zong will power Outspark's mobile payment processing services by allowing users to purchase SparkCash (the gaming company's currency) to buy goods in games like Fiesta, Secret of the Solstice, Wind Slayer and Project Powder.

Similar to Boku, Echovox's Zong offers publishers and app developers the opportunity to deliver fee-based mobile content to its users. Charges are then reflected on monthly cell phone bills. Given Outspark's current claim to more than 5 million users, this is a benchmark deal for Zong.

There are 4 billion mobile phones in the world, but only 2 billion bank accounts. That's not just a bit of trivia, but the very raison d'etre for the new mobile payment service called BOKU, launching out of stealth mode today. The service essentially turns your phone into a credit card, allowing you to pay for things "by mobile" with the charges showing up on your cell phone bill at the end of the month.

There's no shortage of music available on the Web. But finding that music and easily playing it? Another story entirely. Just Hear It hopes to solve that problem by allowing users to search for tunes, play those songs, and create temporary playlists based on the results they find - all from a Web interface that's simple and straightforward.