Patent ID: 8620730

Claim:
A computer program product including a simulation engine for implementing a virtual world, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to perform virtual world operations, the operations comprising: providing, for an advertising user, an association of product information for a product with a texture of an object assigned to the advertising user; rendering, by the simulation engine, the product information with the texture of the object to be observable by interacting users in the virtual world when the texture of the object presenting the product information is within an observable range of avatars of the interacting users; in response to the simulation engine rendering the product information with the texture of the object within the observable range of the avatars of the interacting users, updating tracking information for the advertising user by incrementing a number of observations for the product, wherein the texture of the object is within the observable range of the avatars of the interacting users when rendered in viewers of the users manipulating the avatars in the virtual world; and providing the tracking information including the number of observations of the product generated for the advertising user for use in determining rewards to assign to the advertising user for promoting the product.