U.S. Virtual Goods Spending To Reach $1 Billion This Year

US spending on virtual goods will reach $1 billion this year and $1.6 billion in 2010, according to Inside Virtual Goods. A lot of that spending is from teenage girls dressing up their avatars on sites like IMVU, Meez, and IAC's Zwinky's. But a good portion of it comes from players of social games, looking to make the games they are addicted to a little bit easier.There's a huge market for Zynga Poker chips, for example.

That's great news for Facebook, because those social games makers spend a lot of money advertising their new releases.

Source: webguild.org