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Rosedale sparks speculations
Newly minted Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has recently been talking about somehow incorporating Teen Second Life into the broader Second Life environment, though no details or plans have yet emerged on how that would happen. At a Metanomics session on Monday, Lab chairman and founder Philip Rosedale sparked considerably more speculation, though his comments on the matter didn't actually provide any new information. The last time we asked Linden Lab about plans to bring adult and teen users together (more than a year ago now), the Lab said that it had no plans or intentions of doing so in the foreseeable future. That appears to be changing, though it isn't clear if the Lab has any ideas of how to bring it about.
Second Life November metrics: Nothing gained
November metrics for Linden Lab's virtual environment, Second Life are available for examination. September and October were relatively poor months, and November's results don't look great at all. In fact every one of Linden Lab's key metrics fell in November. Land size, user-hours, transactions, PMLF. The only gain is an infinitesimal increase in the Linden Dollar exchange rate of 0.3%.
Second Life October metrics: More falls
October metrics for Linden Lab's virtual environment, Second Life are not yet formally available, but Lab CFO John Zdanowski wound up giving out a link to the information in advance, so we have the figures to work with. September was not a good month by these metrics, and we were interested to see how October panned out. Your key takeaways for October are a continuing plunge in premium accounts, and a reduction in overall economic activity. User hours, however were up. A more detailed summary follows after the jump.
Premium accounts and the Second Life business model
Much has been made of a statement recently by Linden Lab's new CEO, Mark Kingdon, that 'Premium subscriptions are immaterial in our overall business.' You see, in a sense that's pretty much spot-on. Unless a premium account owns more than 512 square metres of the Linden Estate (colloquially known as the Second Life Mainland), that account is either only very small revenue for the Lab, or actually represents an ongoing cost to them. Linden Lab's CFO, John Zdanowski said, 'The revenue we generate from premium subscriptions is largely offset by the stipends we pay out to these account holders, so this decline doesn't have a material impact on our business.' Either you're on an older premium account with a 500 Linden Dollar per week stipend grandfathered in, or you're on a newer premium account with 300/week. There's also a choice of plans, ranging from monthly to annual. Let's take a look at the relative values.
Linden Lab's new Organic enterprise marketer
One of the latest additions to the Linden Lab team is Amanda van Nuys, now the director of Enterprise Marketing at Linden Lab. I don't think there's any prizes for guessing that van Nuys was hired by Mark Kingdon, the Lab's new CEO, as she spent five and a half years as vice-president of Corporate Marketing at Kingdon's old haunt at Organic Inc. 'I'm leading the marketing charge when it comes to how companies can use virtual world technologies -- powered by the Second Life Grid -- to communicate, collaborate, and learn,' said van Nuys, 'Needless to say, the possibilities are endless and the timing is perfect. With the current economic downturn, companies are going to be searching for ways to reduce costs (particularly travel), increase innovation, and conduct business in more eco-friendly ways.' Opinion is divided at the moment on whether the economic downturn pushes enterprises towards or away from virtual worlds. It might be another six months before we really start to see an indication of which. Nevertheless with the Enterprise Marketing team continuing to grow at the Lab, it doesn't seem like a stretch that Kingdon would poach someone with a skillset and record that he knows well. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Linden Lab introduces new land product, changes for void simulators
Linden Lab's new CEO, Mark Kingdon, has announced a new land product for Second Life, based on all the feedback, and vociferous protestation that all but exploded following the original announcement. Reactions to the new announcement are still a bit mixed, with many thinking that this is the announcement that should have taken place originally. After all, Linden Lab already had all of the information prior to the flood of feedback that they received. Nevertheless, the end result is that void simulators will be available in two flavors: the Openspaces product (now adjusted substantially) and the new Homesteads product. There's a knowledge-base article enumerating the changes, but we'll break it down for you.
A brief history of void simulators/openspaces
The context in which the Second Life issue of the void/openspaces price-rise exists is a rather complex one, going all the way back to 2006. So, in order to get the whole issue in perspective, we've rounded up the history of void simulators, costs and conditions, all the way back to the beginning. And it is a far more interesting progression of events than you might think. On with the show.
Linden Lab CEO on openspace/void price increases
Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab's shiny new CEO, made a statement to Wagner James Au at GigaOm about the announced openspace/void simulator price rises that have so many Second Life users up in arms, 'this price adjustment affects only a portion of land in Second Life; it does not apply to private islands or regular mainland property. We made this change to ensure an optimal Second Life experience for all Residents.' We're not sure if this gets points for being intentionally misleading, or unintentionally misleading. Either way, it scores a lot of points. Lets break it down a piece at a time.
The spirit of 1776: Second Life's second revolution?
Second Life users are already calling it Second Life's second revolution. Outside of Linden Lab's in-world Land Team offices, capacity crowds of users have been gathered through much of the day, though there's been nary a Linden Lab staffer in sight. People are cursing, newcomers are asking for protest signs, and there's angry chatter in over a dozen languages. There are a lot of Europeans here, which is not unexpected. They have to pay VAT on top of any additional costs. There is talk about switching the signs and banners for flaming torches and pitchforks, because, if nothing else Second Life users find value in tradition. There are even discussions about picketing Linden Lab's Battery Street office in San Francisco. All of this started yesterday at 6PM SLT (US Pacific time) when Jack Linden, head of Linden Lab's land team, announced a price-rise to void simulators (known to Linden Lab as Openspace sims). The reaction since then has been ... robust.
Linden Lab and Rivers Run Red launch Immersive Workspaces 2.0
Back in August, we talked about what we felt was an inevitability. A Second Life grid devoted to corporations and business collaboration, online 3D meetings and so forth. We figured that the agent-domain system that allows inter-grid teleportation would be a supporting factor in this effort. Also, earlier this week that the growing-yet-eternally-saturated Second Life economy would cause Linden Lab to announce a new revenue stream some day soon. That day is today. All these things, it seems, may have now come to pass. Rivers Run Red and Linden Lab (after a bit of a shaky time with their initial announcements for Immersive Workspaces 1.0), have launched Immersive Workspaces 2.0. The clean, sanitized, and focused leveraging of Second Life for your corporate collaboration needs.
Vectorform submits landmarks and navigation beta for Second Life
As you may already know from the buzz back in April when the project kicked off (just prior to Kingdon's hiring as freshly minted CEO of Linden Lab), the global interactive design firm Vectorform was contracted by Linden Lab to undertake the Landmarks and Navigation project, essentially completely reworking the way landmarks (a kind of virtual-environment version of Web bookmarks/favorites) are handled in Second Life. The project adds a new user-interface element to the screen that applies Web-style browsing semantics (forward/back/location) to virtual environment positions. Vectorform say that they recently submitted a beta of the modification to Linden Lab and are awaiting QA (Quality Assurance) feedback. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Kingdon's Second Life updates: What's missing?
New Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon is still making irregular postings to the official Second Life blog. It's all heady and exciting stuff, to be sure. Growth, focus on improvement of the new user experience, simplified registration, and so on. Yet something seems to be missing. What's missing is anything that excites you if you're already a Second Life user. There's plenty here to entice those who aren't already users, but if you're already one, there doesn't seem to be anything much in them for you to get excited about. Put together with some other pieces, however, it certainly creates an interesting picture about future direction for Second Life. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Linden Lab hires another from Adobe Systems
Tom Hale, formerly Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Knowledge Worker Business Unit at Adobe Systems has been hired to fill what is apparently a new role at Linden Lab: Chief Product Officer. Hale, as CPO will be reporting to new Lab CEO, Mark Kingdon. Hale isn't the actually first to be poached away from Adobe Systems to the Lab recently. Clare Rees, a Senior Group Manager there was recently hired as the Lab's new European Marketing Director. Marketing what and marketing to whom -- this is not yet clear. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Linden Lab responds to blog back-off
You may recall our coverage of the state of the main Second Life blog this week, which drew a very prompt response from virtual environment operator Linden Lab. The Second Life blog has been steadily transforming from a communications tool that conveys information to users into a marketing and promotional tool, whose target audience seems to be those who do not currently use Second Life, with an increasing number of posts that seem to be purely promotional. Lab CEO Mark Kingdon's post in July seemed to be little more than a brochure in the final analysis. Granted, Linden Lab seems to have no other prominent venue for publishing this sort of material, but the ongoing repurposing of the blog from communications tool to promotional tool is an interesting process to watch over time. Indeed, the Second Life blog seems to have now completely shuttered except for marketing and promotional purposes, though Linden Lab's response to our story indicates that they have other plans for it -- though quite what, is not made completely clear. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Linden Lab sets terror-alert level to 'Google'
Linden Lab certainly showed signs of fear when Google's Lively kicked off its public beta. Now we're seeing signs more akin to terror, panic or desperation. 'Who wouldn't be concerned when Google comes after their business?' said new Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon to Bloomberg. Given recent changes and marketing pushes, you can see Linden Lab's management showing a sheen of sweat. Curiously, it seems that Google isn't after Linden Lab's business -- Lively's certainly no competitor to the business that Linden Lab has. However, what Google represents seems to be a threat to the business that Linden Lab wants to have. This week saw the hiring of Frank Ambrose (AOL's head of technology for infrastructure and network services for a decade) as Senior VP of global technology. While Ambrose has more tech knowledge than the average suit in his position, his primary competencies seem to be negotiations, coordination, contracts and costs -- which all marries up nicely with Linden Lab making a push into corporate, government and military sales, and hiring additional staff to do just that. We're not sure what they're going to be selling, exactly, but virtual environment meeting spaces are probably right at the top of the list. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Peering Inside: A media campaign
While the announcement of the Google Lively public beta may have taken many by surprise, apparently it did not take Linden Lab unawares -- their Second Life messages were already lined up and ready to go. Indeed considering that information about Lively's launch was available to a number of people who were close to Linden Lab, either as partners or ex-staffers, it seems silly to suggest that Linden Lab might not have known Lively's public beta launch date, unless those contacts were aflame with considerable, searing resentment. Wheezing, clanking and dripping oil from dark and unnameable apertures, one of Linden Lab's most neglected subsystems -- the marketing machine -- arose from it's years-long slumber and went about it's ponderous, mechanical business.
Kingdon feels the fear
Linden Lab's newly-minted CEO, Mark Kingdon, has posted another communique to Second Life users, and it isn't hard to see a certain fear in the phrasing and timing. 'The possibilities of Virtual Worlds have attracted a slew of entrepreneurs and even some Internet giants,' writes Kingdon in his second paragraph, 'Some are offering a simple, visually appealing chat solution. Others are more ambitious. Second Life offers something no ones else does - an astoundingly rich array of user-created content and a large, diverse and ever-expanding virtual economy.' And it isn't hard to see which Internet giant and what visually appealing chat solution he might be referring to, especially considering the timing of the statement.
Rosedale: You can't do it
Linden Lab Chairman, Philip Rosedale and freshly-minted CEO Mark Kingdon gave an introductory speech at 10AM Pacific time to open Second Life's fifth anniversary for 23 June, 2008. While some have considered the speech to be somewhat bland and uninspired/uninspiring, it was pretty much what you'd expect, and you can still smell Rosedale's passion through his anecdotes. Interestingly, Rosedale referred (with characteristic Linden Lab not-actually-mentioning-it-directly obliqueness) to the troubles that arose from Linden Lab's takeover of the anniverary event from resident-organizers.
Kingdon's first week
New Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has reported on his first week at the Battery Street office of Linden Lab in San Francisco. Obviously, Kingdon is still in the immersive learning phase (which, depending on the person and the business can last up to a year) before getting down to brass tacks. "Inworld collaboration is going to be a killer application," observed Kingdon. We're inclined to agree with him. It is one area of Second Life that is notoriously weak, and we're certainly not going to begrudge him focus on that. From erratic group-systems to overly coarsely grained permissions, inworld collaboration is often frequently better handled out-of-band. We're looking forward to Kingdon's observations after a second week at the Lab.
Linden Lab lands Kingdon: new CEO
In the last couple of years, Linden Lab has grown from around 50 people to (we are told) around 250 people. It is a growth stage of companies that most do not survive, as usually they do something lethally boneheaded in the process. Another stage that many companies do not survive is their first change of CEO. It is a massive change for the company's table of organization, reporting chains and corporate culture. The first CEO change generally sees a large staff turnover. That's what usually happens, anyway. While we're not predicting sudden death for Linden Lab, they're getting their first new CEO today.
