SecondLife - How To Make Money In Second Life

I recently celebrated my fourth month at the Lab and it has been a terrific adventure so far. As the leader of this amazing company, what have I been focused on? Leading the company’s efforts to make Second Life more relevant, more usable and more reliable.

How are we doing?

We wrapped up a very busy and productive Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere with great results to report. First off, each week since August 31st has brought a concurrency high. Yesterday, the peak hit 71,232 – that’s an increase of 6% in less than a month. Year-over-year, peak concurrency has grown more than 38%. An even more impressive figure is the number of Residents who logged-in during the prior seven days. For the week ending September 19th, we had 505,839 unique log-ins – another Second Life record. Plus daily user-to-user transactions in Linden Dollars continue their steady climb.

What can we attribute this to? We simplified the registration process to make it easier for Residents to join, registrations are continuing at a healthy clip, existing Residents are spending more time inworld, viewer crash rates have declined, teleport failures have declined and database/network/simulator outages are down substantially (for the past three months, simulator outages were 24% of what they were the prior three months).

All are indications that Second Life is becoming more relevant, more usable and more reliable.

What’s next?

First Hour Experience: Shortly after I started, we kicked off a project to reinvent what we call the “first hour experience” (our web experience, the viewer, and the way we acclimate and acculturate users inworld) for new users. We’ve made great progress and will be working with an award-winning interactive design firm to help us complete the reinvention and bring it to life. Yes, we are creating a viewer that is new user friendly! Stay tuned for updates.

Mainland Improvement: Jack Linden has written several blog posts about what we are doing to make the mainland a better experience for Residents so I won’t go into much detail other than to say that we recently banned ad farming which was a blight on the landscape. Our Department of Public Works (DPW) is continuing to make the mainland more attractive by adding roads, parks, buildings and gardens and other great features. The mainland is a crucial part of the Second Life experience and we are taking a more active role than we have historically in ensuring the inworld experience is a great one.

Experience Localization: When I joined in May, I attended new hire orientation at Linden Lab. One of my classmates was the new Linden hired to lead the localization of our product (websites, viewer, support tools). She has made great progress. By the end of the year, the viewer will be fully localized for all our major markets.

Product Focus: Linden Lab, like many startups was born out of a fascination with complex technology. This focus brought innovation and allowed for the breakthrough thinking behind Second Life. We are now at a stage in our development where we need to add addition product strategy, product development and product management experience to help us better tailor our product offering for each of our key markets. We’ve found just the right person to lead this important transition in the company. His name is Tom Hale (he will be called T Linden) and he is a technology industry veteran, having spent the last 14 years at Macromedia and Adobe where he held a variety of product strategy, development and management roles. Tom joins Linden Lab as Senior Vice President, Chief of Product. Read more about T Linden here.

Linden Lab is buzzing with activity. We’ve just completed a major strategy project to define the areas of focus for the next 18 months and we are in the process of translating those strategies into tactical action plans. To support the strategic initiatives we’ve identified, we’ll be hiring 60-70 more people over the next several quarters. This is all part of our commitment ensure Second Life remains the largest and most successful virtual world.

Thank you for your attention. I will meet you in the forums later this afternoon (sorry, I have meetings all day!) if you have pressing questions or concerns.

Cheers,

M Linden

For years, Philip Linden has talked about the annual Burning Man Festival and the ways its open-ended nature, participant-created content and art contributed to his vision of what Second Life could be.

For those who aren’t familiar with the event, Burning Man is an annual week-long art, fire and community celebration in the Black Rock Desert – a 400 square mile expanse of barren landscape in Northern Nevada – focused on community values like immediacy and participation. Attendees are invited to be whoever they are, express themselves however they want without fear of judgment or social criticism. It’s a place controlled only by the limits of the imagination – a place where 50,000 individuals come together to form a peaceful, respectful community where all ideas have merit and everyone is invited to create, share, explore, learn and grow.

Sound vaguely familiar? It should. Many of the same principles that guide Burning Man form the core foundations of the Second Life community.

With the histories of Second Life and Burning Man so closely intertwined, it should come as no surprise that a virtual rendition of the event exists – and will be celebrating its 6th anniversary starting today. Burning Life, as it’s called inworld, has now grown into one of the larger, annual Second Life events. This year’s Burning Life – which runs until October 5 – will feature art and live performances, interactive theme camps, a fashion show and of course, the burning of the Man amid a fireworks display.

To help commemorate Burning Life’s anniversary, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey and Philip will be participating in a panel discussion on Tuesday, Sept. 30. They’ll be chatting about their experiences, inspirations, reflection, future goals and the roles that both Burning Man and Second Life play in enhancing the human condition.

For more information on the discussion or on the event in general, including schedules and to find out how you can contribute and participate visit the official Burning Life Web site.

When: Burning Life opens Saturday at 9 a.m. pacific time and runs to October 5th.

Center Camp stage kicks off at 11 a.m. pacific. See the performance schedule here.

Where: Burning Life

What: Art installations, live events, music, discussions and more.