Peering Inside: The Second Life year in review (part 10)
That was the year that was
On the whole, it has been a veritably tumultuous twelve months for Second Life. Rumors of an IPO abounded, but the then chairman Mitch Kapor basically nixed those, pointing out that he (one of the first people to know if there was) simply knew nothing of any move towards an IPO.
Linden Lab's marketing continues to cool, with little signs of any marketing efforts other than placing speakers at conferences and industry events. Any active marketing and promotion seems to have long-since ceased, and most of Linden Lab's PR (outside the aforementioned conferences) seems to have become merely reactive. We're not sure if it's possible for marketing to actually slow to the point that it's moving backwards, but that seems to be what has been happening.
Does Linden Lab need the marketing? Signs point to no. Well, John Zdanowski, Linden Lab's Chief Financial Officer does anyway. Earlier this year, many public discussions of issues of policy and stability were interrupted by Zdanowski's avatar, quick to point out just how well Linden Lab was doing financially on monies that were coming from the very people who were complaining about governance policies and platform stability. Zdanowski quickly became a rather unpopular figure among some groups of Second Life users as a result, and the butt of a few jokes.
Based on Zdanowski's statements in Second Life, his confidence of the financial prosperity of Linden Lab indicates one of two things. Either that Linden Lab is highly profitable in it's current operations or that it is not producing much actual profit, but generates sufficient revenues that it could survive a sudden cash-crunch by rapidly culling staff.
Linden Lab hints at a big announcement coming up, but while a big thing itself, we're expecting nothing more spectacular than the upcoming rollout of Mono on the grid, a project which is largely just about waiting on the anniversary celebrations to end before going ahead. Probably Dazzle as well, if Linden Lab can actually get that viewer to work properly (quite aside from anything to do with its looks).
It's possible that Linden Lab and IBM are past the kissing stages and awkwardly fumbling with each-other for a firmer and more intimate ... partnership, but if there's anything else big in the wind, we'll be surprised. It's okay, though. We're quite prepared to be surprised — it makes the business and the industry exciting.
We'd love to know more about what Rosedale and Kingdon have planned, but Linden Lab is doing a pretty good job of keeping us away from either of them.
With the first six months of the last year showing essentially declining stability and capacity for the Second Life grid and the last six six months of it exhibiting what is tantamount to daily woes (some internal, some external, and some apparently related to attempts to fix or prevent the first two kinds), well it promises to be an interesting year to come (that's interesting as in 'potentially chaotic and unsettling').
Meanwhile, Linden Lab nowadays is acting and communicating as if it is continuously on the defensive at every turn, from both customers and critics. If it isn't actually in full defensive-mode, it is definitely giving the very strong impression that it is.
Interesting times, certainly. We'll just have to wait and see, and see if we get any cease-and-desist letters in the post.