All this hype about Second Life is resulting in lots more competitors, it seems. There was another rumor today about Google turning Google Earth into a sort of Second Life competitor. This one comes from Michael Eisenberg, a partner at Benchmark Capital, which is one of the investors in Second Life. He says the rumor is “Google is working on turning Google Earth into a virtual world a la SecondLife.”

Last month Business 2.0 speculated on this as well, noting that Google’s SketchUp product has tools to create 3-D models and add them as a layer to Google Earth.

The only missing pieces are avatars and a functioning economy. As EirePreneur pointed out, Google’s already eyeing the right advertising platforms for a virtual world, too.