Commentary: Rod Humble / Rodvik Linden as CEO of Linden Lab

When it was announced in late December 2010 that Rod Humble would be Linden Lab's new CEO, the reaction from Second Life residents was overall positive, from some even enthusiastic. The year before had seen a number of setbacks for Linden Lab and the Grid. A third of the company's staff had been laid off in it's "restructuring." Popular personnel such as Blue, Teegan, Pathfinder, Qarl Linden and others were shown the door. Overseas offices were closed down, rerouting all calls for technical help to America, which gave some residents from outside the US the Lab was turning its back on them. The fifty percent discount for nonprofit and educational areas was suddenly ended, despite Philip Linden and Linden Lab long touting Second Life as a place for learning. It was announced the Teen Grid would be closing down, and people worried that this would soon mean censorship or residents getting arrested in real life due to angry parents. These and other moves caused the morale of residents to sink. Rumors floated around Linden Labs was looking for a buyer. Some thought Second Life was headed for collapse, one publication saying the virtual world was on it's "death throes."

Rod Humble's resume was an impressive one, having worked for over twenty years in the computer gaming industry. Among his roles were his work on the Everquest multiplayer online game, and working on "The Sims." In 2009, Edge Magazine listed him as #2 of its “Hot 100 Game Developers.” Philip Rosedale / Philip Linden, whom had been acting as interim CEO after the unpopular M Linden stepped down, stated, “Rod is a great new leader for Linden Lab. ... With Rod's fresh insights and deep experience in creating and leading the development of fun, intuitive, immersive entertainment experiences that have attracted massive audiences of loyal users, he's the right leader to understand what makes us special and bring the next level of growth to Second Life."

Rod Humble looked forward to the job, "Joining Linden Lab is a very exciting opportunity, ... . Second Life is unique: it sits at the intersection of virtual worlds, avatars, and human contact. The Residents and developers of Second Life have built something very special, I am honored to join the talented team at Linden Lab to help expand this new frontier." A few residents questioned if someone from the gaming industry was truly the right choice, Second Life being a "sandbox" which was open ended and most games having fixed parameters on what one could do. But most were happy with the Linden's choice for new CEO, feeling he could deliver Second Life a shot in the arm and not only halt it's decline, but set it on course to growth again.

Rod Humble, who became known as Rodvik Linden, gave the impression of wanting to connect with the residents. He spent some time inworld, building a little, and on some occasions interacted with residents, such as his appearance at the Second Life Eighth Birthday, and more recently his trips to Bay City and 1920s Berlin. He also strived to "put the Lab back into Linden Lab," and Second Life's grid would see a number of developments with the goal of improving user experiences, such as "Project Shinning." He also had Linden Lab both acquire and develop several products, such as the Minecraft-like "Patterns" and the kid-friendly "Blocksworld." Probably their most important acquisition was "Desura," a distribution platform with a focus on smaller games from independent companies, or "indie" games. For better or worse, Second Life would no longer be the only product in Linden Lab's line-up. While residents on the whole understood how a diverse platform would mean a more stable financial footing, some worried this was a sign of the Lab leaving them behind.

Residents were generally happy during Rodvik's first year, although some felt the Lab was slow to act on the Redzone controversy. But in 2012, some actions (and non-actions) began to raise a few eyebrows. Official Linden events such as the "Kiss a Linden" on Valentines Day and the "Winterfest" with its "Linden Snowball Fight" were gone. Even the Second Life Birthday was no longer being sponsored by Linden Lab, the statement from the company suggesting the various communities should hold their own celebrations. To residents, it seemed like the Lab was distancing itself from the residents, only occasionally emerging from it's "bunker" to make reports with no name attached. Third-party viewers found themselves under pressure from Linden Lab, ordering them not to include features not on the official viewer, even if it was being researched in beta, what some viewer developers saw as the Lab saying "screw you" and people worried some teams would leave Second Life. Indeed at one meeting when one viewer team member hinted about leaving, a Linden answered "don't let the door hit you on the way out." Project Shinning, while approved by those with newer computers, those with older machines often complained their inworld experiences were becoming slower and laggier, not better.

In 2013 came two changes to the terms of service that raised not just concern but alarm. In spring, Linden Lab ordered third party Linden exchange services to cease operations, saying only their Lindex could buy and sell its virtual currency. Residents expressed alarm, some saying the Lindex often took a long time to make its transactions, and some overseas would not or could not use it, and there was some talk among some people leaving. Linden Lab would partially reverse course, saying third party exchangers could sell Lindens, but only Lindex could buy them back. Then in the Fall, with no other announcement than residents being asked to sign the Terms of Service upon logging in, it was noticed that the ToS had changed in regards to content creators, some interpreting them as to say the Lab could sell residents' content at any time without any input from the makers or offer a cent in compensation. At least two texture websites stated their goods could no longer be used in Second Life. Some content creators stopped creating and stated they would make no more until the terms would change. A few would move to other virtual worlds, such as InWorldz, which between Project Shinning and the ToS controversy saw people from Second Life getting accounts, and raising it's membership to 90,000 on paper. Second Life now now had small but growing competition from other virtual worlds. Residents repeatedly asked Linden Lab to change this part of the ToS back, but although Linden Lab issued a statement saying they regretted the confusion, they would not alter the few lines that had caused so much trouble. At least one resident commented Rodvik was partially to blame, saying his experience in the gaming industry made him inflexible in dealing with a product in which his company did not own most of the content.

It seemed the man whose arrival was greeted with cheers was now being seen, at least by some, as part of the problem.

In the midst of this were stories going around of some henious griefing incidents, such as the sim-crasher attacks on the Junkyard Blues club, with Linden Lab doing next to nothing about them. Indeed there were rumors that the dismissal of one Linden was because a griefer had complained, and so others were afraid to act. Fortunatetly later in the year, the Lab appeared to be doing more about griefers.

In contrast to M. Linden's departure, Rodvik's announcement was greeted with surprise, and maybe a little sadness. That there was no announcement for a week until Rod Humble himself told others did raise a few eyebrows, but the big news was that the head of Linden Labs for three years was gone. On a thread in the official forums, residents time and time again wished him well with whatever endeavor he was headed to. Of his performance, some thought he did great, a few thought he did poorly, the plurality seemed to feel he did an overall good job with some setbacks.

I think he did a good enough job considering the circumstances and the state of SL when he took over. When he was hired I would not have believed he would take the company as far as 2014. For a while there he seemed to breathe a bit of life and drive back into LL even if it was partially focused on products other than SL. Unfortunately LL and SL in particular needed someone to do more than just a "good enough" job. SL needed a visionary that would revitalise, if not revolutionise the whole product in order to regain the mass appeal we experienced during the boom years. Rod completely failed to deliver there. I wish him the best of luck.

And so Linden Lab's third CEO heads off into the sunset, leaving behind a virtual world no longer on the brink, but whose long term problems remain.

Other Comments: Daniel Voyager, Inara Pey. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Interview with Rod Humble in SF Gate

SF Gate has an article with pictures of Second Life throughout the years, with a link to an interview with Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble by Benny Evangelista. Humble answered a number of questions. When asked about the hype surrounding the Grid several years ago, he admitted, "it probably had too much publicity at it's peak," and added it was now overlooked too much. Among his goals for Second Life was to reach out to those who tried Second Life but didn't stay and get them to return. When asked "Is there going to be a Second Life2?," he seemed to be saying there would be in the future, "it's not going to be for a few years, but it'll be something next gen."

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

SL Video: "The Drax Files - Episode 7: Rod Humble"

Click Here if the video fails to load.

In the latest of Draxtor Despres "Drax Files,"he interviews Rod Humble, the CEO of Linden Labs.

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"I have no idea why it's magic but it is!" Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble says about his company's core product - the vast digital sandbox known as Second Life which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.

With over 1 million active monthly users and annual user-to-user transactions of 500 million US$ in virtual goods and services Second Life has outlived many prestigious game titles and once relevant social networks in a highly competitive market.

In this special episode of the Drax Files Mr. Humble theorizes on the secret to SL's longevity, marvels at the beauty of community driven markets and ponders the empowering properties of avatar-based interaction.

Many thanks to all the wonderful extras who helped populate and color the crowd scenes. Please identify yourself via the comments and let us know who you are by including the timestamp. Special thanks to Marianne McCann, Elicio Ember, Kayle Mazerath, Pygar Bu, Scott Rolfe and Rynn Verwood who created a lasting image in fascinating impromptu fashion: "My Avatar is Me!" - download the music here https://soundcloud.com/draxtor/little... AND please support the show by grabbing the official SL merch https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/... - transcript of the interview/outtakes are here http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2013/0... & some more words by yours truly in re why what and where is here http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/...

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Rodvik had a number of things to say. Among them, He gets fewer death threats than some gaming communities, saying only one Resident made a threat against him.

*Addition*  For a transcript of what Rod Humble was saying, check  out Jo Yardley's blog.

Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble Visits Bay City, 1920s Berlin

Daniel Voyager was on the scene when Bay City had an unusual guest: The head of Linden Lab Rod Humble, also known as Rodvik Linden.

Rodvik Humble who is CEO of Linden Lab today came inworld for about half an hour to hang out with SL residents in the Weston region in Bay City. A large crowd formed around Rodvik within minutes and had a interesting discussion. The reason that Rodvik Humble came inworld will be revealed soon. Wooooot!!!!

Bay City wasn't the only place Rodvik stopped by. Jo Yardley of the 1920s Berlin Project documented his dropping over there as well.

I had invited Herr Humble for a free tour of the sim a while back and was told he would be dropping in today. It was great to finally meet his avatar in person. The welcoming community of 1920s Berlin was very excited to have him as a guest and we all hope his avatar will come more often.

Rodvik Linden is not known to visit the Grid often, at least not recently. Earlier in 2011 not long after becoming CEO, he did make an effort in "getting immersed in Second Life" and he did make an appearance at SL8B. Since then however, Rod hadn't been noticed. Do these visits mean the head of the Lab will take the time to visit inworld more often. Time will tell.

Sources: Daniel Voyager, Jo Yardley.

BREAKING NEWS: Disney Buys Second Life

* Update - April Fools *

Late Sunday, March 31st, Linden Lab made a stunning announcement. In a press release, they stated that they had sold controlling ownership of Second Life to the Walt Disney Company. It is believed the negotiations were conducted behind the scenes over several months.


"Linden Lab is pleased to have Second Life in the hands of such a prestigious company," Rod Humble stated, "We were happy to run the virtual world we created a decade ago. But as a maker of shared creative spaces, we need to be able to focus on new products. With Second Life being run by Disney, we can devote more time and effort to applications and platforms for today's market."

Disney has been active with online virtual worlds before. It's Internet division, the Disney Interactive Media Group has produced the "Virtual Magic Kingdom" and "The World of Cars Online." Both efforts were considered less than successful and were closed down.

There has been no official statement from Disney, although former president of Disney Online Jake Winebaum, who was involved in the negotiations, wrote on his blog that Disney plans "sweeping changes" to the virtual world, "The company is determined that Second Life and its residents are properly Disneyfied." All sims will be given General/PG status, and all adult content is to be removed from both the land and personal accounts. All human avatars are required to have underwear permanently fixed to them. While nonhuman avatars can still be nude, they must be completely covered in fur, feathers, scales, etc. with no "bits" showing. Adult animations will also banned.

Winebaum stated that there were some concerns about copyright violations. So Disney planned to suspend content creation "temporarily" until a new system could be developed that would ensure "no resident could expose Disney to a lawsuit." Of music and other media broadcasted inworld, "Only those owned by Disney and it's associated companies will be permitted." DJs and theater owners will need a license to continue to play.


For more on this stunning development, Click Here.

"Direct Delivery" Marketplace Troubles and Rodvik's Response

Direct Delivery for the Second Life Marketplace hasn't gone the way Linden Labs intended. At first, it seemed to be a simple bug of gifts to others not always reaching the recipient. But apparently, it's much more.

Inara Pey noted a number of other problems, including, "Listings on Marketplace do not match the actual items," incorrect merchant information (products from one seller listed as belonging to another), "products from one merchant appearing in stores belonging to other merchants, items incorrectly priced," and "incorrect ratings assigned to products (G-rated items appearing as Adult, etc)" She also stated she was beginning to observe "rising accusations of 'theft' among merchants as they come across what appears to be their own goods being listed by others." Tateru Nino called the source of the problem a "unicode bungle," listed in the JIRA as "WEB-4587."

The initial response from Linden Labs was largely silence. Then a few days ago, Rodvik Linden gave a few answers on his Twitter account, pointing out an update on the commerce forum, "team has been crunching non stop to get those issues addressed. We will update as soon as we have a fix." Calling it "not an acceptable quality of roll out," Tateru Nino deadpanned, "perhaps is wasn't an acceptable quality of rollout, but it was the level of quality that we have become used to all these years."

The commerce forum update was further updated the next day, saying "two of the top three outstanding issues" were addressed

• WEB-4580: purchases are now delivered to recipients with the inventory name (which does not allow unicode characters). This will prevent future orders from getting stuck in the Being Delivered state due to this issue. In addition, all orders affected by this problem have been pushed through.
• WEB-4587: updates have been made to support updating store search results, which we will process over the next week; we continue to work on the issue related to mismatched data on listings. We do know that this issue has existed since September 2010 (during the migration from Xstreet to the Second Life Marketplace).


Hamlet's article on Rodvik's response drew some positive feedback from readers, mixed in with cautionary notes, "Wow, a straightforward acknowledgment, with no BS, no spin. … Kudos to Rodvik, may this act serve as an example for all of LL. This kind of forthcoming communication can make all the difference in the world in making SL live up to its full potential." the same resident also stated, "Whether it's truly accompanied by the promised action is a different issue … everyone should hold LL's feet to the fire on this regardless until it's fixed."

On the Linden forums, residents seemed a bit more critical, "And yet he can't even manage to post this timely info on his company's official website?" "Although it is refreshing to see a CEO like Rodvik use some of the other social media to communicate with the community, the flaw with Rodvik is that he seems to ONLY use non-LL official tools to interact with his customer base. "

Second Life Newser has yet to hear whether or not things have improved on Marketplace or not. But judging by some of the comments observed, some merchants and shoppers will be relying less on it.

Sources: Living in a Modem World, Tateru Nino, New World Notes, Twitter, Linden Forums,

Image Credit: Emilly Orr, Sera Lok

Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: Linden Lab Is Destroying It's Newfound Trust

Longtime users of Second Life are all too familiar with the days of M Linden. Before him, Second Life was truly seen as "Your World, Your Imagination." But then, Linden Lab began making a number of questionable moves that didn't seem to make any sense, except possibly for short term profits at the expense of long term, or just made no sense at all. People began to have less and less faith in the Lab to run the virtual world in a competent manner. The doubt was to the point among some as to question any new move Linden Lab would make out of fear they'd just screw it up and end up making the Grid worse off.

Following the layoffs in 2010, people could be forgiven for saying Second Life was going downhill and headed for shutdown. The return of founder Philip Linden briefly raised hopes, but they soon fell again with more questionable decisions such as the Teen Grid merger and the end to nonprofit discounts. Residents were less eager to invest as before. People began to check out the alternative worlds and in a few cases move and all but leave their former virtual home behind.

Then came Rod Humble, and with his competent record, residents began to think maybe just maybe the Lab was starting to get serious. In contrast to many Lindens who seldom used their own product, Rodvik Linden as he came to be known, was willing to spend time inworld and see what he could do with it as a run-of-the-mill resident. Things were far less than perfect, as the decisions about the teens and nonprofits were not reversed, but residents began to feel the Lab was starting to get it's act back together. The Lab began to work on viewer developments, and work on ways to entertain new and old residents alike such as the Linden Worlds game areas. And with bringing in "gaming god" Will Wright, people began to think Second Life had a bright future after all.

When Linden Lab announced in December it would soon be working on new products besides Second Life in December, a few people expressed worry that it was about to all but ignore the Grid or even close it down altogether. Had the announcement been made a year earlier, that might have been the general consensus. But people were more confident, beginning to invest more despite the bad economic times in real life, and some of the people whom had left to other virtual worlds were supposedly coming back under new account names. The Linden's move was instead seen as no big worry at worst, and at best an opportunity to attract new people through publicity if the new product turned out to be a hit. As the end of February neared, residents in general were fairly confident.

What a difference a week makes.

First the Lab announced changes to their third-party viewer policy. The biggest change was that no longer would they allow them to make features they didn't have. Rightly or wrongly, the official viewers have a poor reputation among many residents, and this was seen by some as basically a power grab. Linden Lab, they charged, was willing to kill further innovations of the viewing experience out of embarrassment of most residents using viewers other than their own.

While this news was still fresh in people's minds came two more developments. First, despite committing itself to do so earlier, Linden Lab stated they would not be giving newer accounts last names after all. The responses were of disappointment and grumbling, people not buying the Lab's explanation that this was too difficult to pull off. As newer residents have reported feeling left out because their single name marks them as "newbs," Linden Lab's claim of concerns over "bulling" by official viewer users by third party viewers are probably looking pretty hollow to more than a few.

Then came word about Linden Lab's quarterly economic reports of Second Life. There would be no more. As Hamlet Au, the one time imbedded reporter of Linden Lab put it, "This is bad." When most companies stop doing so, this is a sign of trouble. And as Tateru Nino reminded, they have been cutting back on their reports for some time.

Linden Lab, what is going on?

For businesses, trust is a valuable commodity. Trust that you will honor your commitments. Trust that you have the competence to run your business and manage your product well. It cannot be gained quickly or bought, only slowly earned over time.

The trust people had, it took a year for you to rebuild. And now in a week, you've wrecked it.

Once again, residents are distrusting your competence and your intentions.

Once again, residents are having doubts about the future of Second Life.

Once again, residents are hesitating about committing their time and effort into the Grid.

Once again, people are using your name as a curse: "to pull a Linden" meaning to take a great product and drag it into mediocrity.

And don't think what goes on here won't haunt you. When you try to sell your new products, people will ask what else you've made, and then ask, "Second Life? How has that been doing lately?"

How will you answer them?

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: No Return for Last Names

Some sad news for Second Life's more recent residents hoping to have their accounts get a last name like those who came earlier. Linden Labs won't be bringing back surnames for new accounts after all.

The news was posted by Linden Lab CEO Rodvik Linden in the Second Life forums, "when it comes to last names, I have spent a lot of time going through all your comments and chatting with the team here. I learnt a lot. Firstly, as I already knew identity is very important, and the last name issue is extremely polarizing. What I didn’t know was how big a negative impact it used to have on new users signing up (the data is startling at how much friction it added). Folks just wanted to create their own name; they became even more annoyed if there was a pre-done last name that could fit but that had already been taken. The namespace hijacking issue was not solved by pre done last names."

"...if we couldn’t figure out a way that was a win/win for folks who want complete freedom vs. a list of last names, we wouldn’t do it. We couldn’t, so we wont."

"Thanks again for all these comments and discussion. It’s a pity that the first one couldn’t come up with a clean solution that solved all the world’s problems (or cats’ problems) but it was valuable nevertheless."

The forum post didn't allow for comments, but there was a link to Rodvik's profile posts, where residents posted a large number of replies. Naturally, there were many disappointed people. Rodvik had suggested the possibility of adding the option of a hyphen, but residents commented that was a poor substitute.

Prim Perfect already has an article on the matter, "the Lab has just blown off one way that could have given a greater degree of engagement and building community – without costing residents money."

*Addition* In Hamlet Au's article, he supports Linden Lab's decision. But most of those commenting on it were either outright opposed or skeptical, which seems to be the general feeling.

Update on Last Names

New World Notes recently had some new information about Linden Labs' plans to reintroduce last names to Second Life accounts. Rodvik Linden/Rod Humble made a post on his profile page about the issue.

Quick update on last names. Just fyi the team here has been working on solutions for this and it is taking longer than we thought. identity is important so we want the ability to have that wonderful shared experience the old last name system had but also not lose sight of the fact that many people really do not want a name given to them, they want freedom to define their identity, finally we want to consider adding meaningful things like titles etc that can be awarded by the community or some other methods. Anyway bit more complicated than initially thought but progress is being made. Will have a baked plan sometime in February we think.

Hours later, there were close to a hundred comments. Many had praise Rodvik for keeping up on the issue, "Thank you for the update." But others were wondering about what might go wrong, "Just to be clear: Whatever you do, it does NOT mean that old residents with last names will loose them, correct?"

Hamlet couldn't think of another recent peep from Rodvik, saying he had "a month long absence from social media." He also noted that the Linden blogs were quiet in the month of January. He did get the impression from "insiders" that there should be some important news soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

Rod Humble’s 2012 Outlook: Better NPCs for the Grid, Linden Labs to Launch “Products Next Year Not Related to Second Life”

In the latest Linden Blog post, Rod Humble looked back at what he considered Linden Labs best accomplishments for 2011, and had some announcements for what lay ahead in 2012.

Most of what Humble had to say was about noted accomplishments of Linden Lab. Considering his roots in the gaming industry, it was perhaps no surprise the first he mentioned was the making and launching of “Linden Realms, the Lab's first-ever game prototype.” For new residents, it was a chance to earn a few Lindens. For the Lab, Humble called it a way for the Lab to “learn more about what tools Residents could use to develop richer experiences in Second Life — and boy, did we learn a lot!” Humble states Linden Realms would continue to be worked on, with new tools released. There would be one catch: “to prevent abuse of these tools,” only “verified members” would have access to them.

Rod Humble also mentioned the development of Mesh, which he claimed had “more than a 16 percent adoption rate.” He stated he expected for it to continue at a strong pace (though many residents would probably be highly skeptical of this claim). He also talked about new versions of the official Viewer, which included features for newcomers, and the increase in Premium account benefits, notably Linden Homes. He told readers to expect additional “features and content” for Premium members.

For 2012, Humble stated “the primary engineering focus of” the first quarter “will be server side performance and fixing bugs. In fact, you may have noticed one upgrade deployed this week which should reduce the number of restarts and increase performance for all regions.” My observation for the latter is that it hasn’t. He also promised that land tiers would not increase in 2012. He went on to state, “For creators our first new feature for 2012 will be pathfinding,” what the Lab calls it’s new artificial intelligence programs for “artificial life and artificial people,” one example being NPCs for game areas.

The last thing Rod Humble stated was especially interesting: “we will be launching some completely different products next year not related to Second Life.” In short, Linden Labs will no longer have Second Life as it’s only product. This is not unexpected as Second Life is currently Linden Lab’s sole source of income, and open-ended virtual worlds haven’t really caught on with the public.

The question is, what will this mean for Second Life? Hamlet Au wrote this was Linden Lab’s best chance to stay profitable, predicting land sales would eventually crash, and with it the Linden’s source of money. “... a successful second or third product besides Second Life would help keep SL alive, since it can then be cross-promoted to this large new audience, while new revenue sources can help finance whatever changes are needed to keep SL stable.”

Any1 Gynoid, however, had a more dismal prediction. This she felt was a sign Linden Labs was giving up on Second Life, and looking for greener pastures, planning to close it down once they found something more profitable. She advised people to head on to alternative virtual worlds like OpenSim.

My opinion is closer to Hamlet’s on this matter. Unlike him, I feel Second Life could easily survive as a niche product (as does Tateru Nino). Diversifying from a single product is good business sense, and doesn’t mean the doom of the original. Blizzard for instance is known for “World of Warcraft,” but continues to market It’s earlier games, Diablo and Starcraft. This might not be the best comparison as we have no idea how successful these other goods the Lab will offer may be. But it does illustrate just because someone’s new product hits the jackpot doesn’t mean they’ll abandon what was selling before.

My Second Life friends have expressed differing viewpoints about these alternative virtual worlds. A few have set up a place there, in one case a man wanting to set up a casino where it would be outside Linden Lab’s restriction. Others I’ve heard balk at the idea of moving there, saying the graphics there aren’t as good, the choice of appearances is poorer, and leaving friends behind.

On one last note, it’s been a year since Rod Humble became the CEO of Linden Lab. His appointment was greeted with cautious optimism then. A year later, although not all is well with the Grid, on the whole things are looking better than back them. His first year has been a success.

Sources: New World Notes, CNN

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: Last Names for New Accounts to Return

In Rodvik Linden's comment feed, or social network page, the Linden Lab CEO posted that plans were under discussion on how to bring back surnames for accounts.


Last names under active discussion. We are trying to figure out how to do it in a way which would be excellent rather than just ok. We want it intuitive with extra features. Hopefully we will roll out what we are thinking early January latest.

Identity is very important so as we touch it we need to make sure we are adding something great.

So far, responses, such as on the Linden blog, have been overwhelmingly positive. There have been some voices expresses skepticism, wondering just how easily can Linden Lab correct it's decision. But for now, most are cheering, and looking forward to the option for newer residents to have a last name like those before them.

Click Here for the Linden Blog thread.

Source: Daniel Voyager's Blog

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: “CEO Rodvik Humble Shares What's New in Second Life”

On Monday, Linden Lab’s CEO Rod Humble/Rodvik Linden personally posted on the official blog, “It’s been a little while since I last updated folks on Second Life. Earlier this year, I noted several areas we would be focusing on. Let me update you on each area and share with you our plans for the remainder of the year. But first, we’d like to give a warm welcome to our newbies! August was the biggest growth month for Second Life in nearly four years! I hope you all take the time to try out the many different activities in Second Life — there’s everything from clubbing to boating. You might even to want to try your hand at making something new. As a side note, one of the easiest ways to find new things is to check out the Destination Guide in the log-in screen of the viewer.”

Rod then brought up Viewer 2’s Basic mode, which he called really helpful in “getting newbies up and running.“ But recognizing its limits, such as being unable to buy & sell and build, stated the Lab would soon “merge the Basic and Advanced modes.” He also stated there would be “continued investment and focus” in response times to problems including more support staffing.

Rod also mentioned “over the next few months,” there would be new advanced features that would allow for easier and better “creation of artificial life and artificial people.” Among other things, the creatures and beings would be able to navigate about more intelligently, “Imagine being able to create advanced pets, creatures or even a living town where non-player characters are walking about. Combined with the experience tools I mentioned above, it should soon be possible to create more advanced MMORPG’s or interactive experiences which use AI right within Second Life.”

Hamlet Au wrote some about the last set of improvements. He felt they would soon lead to “upheavals” in the virtual pet industry as old scripting systems are taken offline and the companies rush to keep their creatures and other goods updated. He also predicted Second Life’s gaming areas, or “mini MMOs” ae he called them, would both become more advanced and more popular. Finally, he called these upcoming developments a solution to the Grid’s “crowded empty” problem, lots of residents inworld, but most sims empty or nearly so, “Adding NPC features will be an easy way to fix that problem, giving land owners easy tools to make their place seem less empty.”

Checking the thread on the forums, many people posting were looking forward to these developments. This included Jo Yardley of “The 1920’s Berlin Project,” who felt the use of these “robots” would make a lot of difference in making her sim more lifelike, “Yes I'd rather have 100 real avatars running around my city 24 hours a day, but it won't happen and if it did the server would blow up with lag overdose.” There were however some dissenting opinions, “So one CEO gets rid of the bots, numbers plummet, lag doesn't get any better, and the next CEO decides to bring the things back.”

Sources: Linden Blog, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

SLCC 2011: Game Mechanics, and Rod Humble’s Speech

Events last weekend, real life and in Second Life, kept me away from the Second Life Community Convention inworld. Daniel Voyager described attendance as “around 15 – 50+ at any given time during the weekend and i’m sure at Oakland there was a good attendance number.“ Daniel wrote several in-depth articles and posts on the event, such as this one for videos and pictures.

New World Notes also had a few articles. Among them, that it was announced in a keynote panel that game mechanics would be introduced as part of the experience for new users. Hamlet Au called this announcement “easily the most important of the panel, because the lack of a game-like structure is a key part of the confusion that causes almost all new SL users to feel frustrated and aimless, and subsequently, quit shortly after installing the client.”

"Second Life is not a game," spoke Executive Producer Michael "Gez Linden" Gesner during the panel, "However... you can use game mechanics and game systems to help people become more comfortable in Second Life... we're trying to get people over that initial hurdle."

The Linden team “now has specialty roles for specific varieties of SL content.”

Art - Durian Linden - durian@lindenlab.com
Gaming & Breedables - Gez Linden - gez@lindenlab.com
Roleplaying - Esbee Linden - esbee@lindenlab.com
Adult - Charlar Linden - charlar@lindenlab.com
Education - Geo Linden - geo@lindenlab.com
Music - Nya Linden - nya@lindenlab.com
Fashion- Cassanda Linden - cassandra@lindenlab.com

Hamlet Au also noted that ironically enough, people at the convention weren’t on Second Life that much while there,”this is the first one where I noticed a serious lack of SLCC attendees logged into SL.” Instead they were using social media sites such as Facebook. His readers responded that iPhones were easier to carry than the computers they felt logging onto the Grid needed, plus “not being able to plug into power means your battery is dead fairly quickly.”

The highlight was Linden Labs’ CEO Rod Humble (Rodnik Linden) giving his keynote address. Last year, Philip Linden dropped a bombshell when he announced the Teen Grid would be merged with the main one. Nothing so dramatic was announced this time, though there were a few subjects of interest.


A recording of Linden Lab's CEO Rod Humble/Rodvik Linden, giving his keynote address, taken last weekend at 1PM Aug 13th.

Rod committed himself to becoming more experienced with getting around on the grid, “this first time addressing you, (it’s) as a relative newb. Hopefully this time next year ... I’ll be a little more experienced.” He noted Second Life was getting 16,000 new sign-ups every day, “something that many games would kill for.” Talking about the “why people go in” Second Life, he admitted he couldn’t really put a finger on it. He felt this mystery was part of it’s charm. He went on to say that when he first came to Linden Lab, he had the impression Second Life was much like “the Sims.” He quickly found out it wasn’t like that at all, “everything created by others. ... everyone creates, even if it’s just relationships.” On the issue of “the point” of Second Life, he felt it was the need for people to create, “the creativity is what makes us human.”

He talked about such creativity being shared, and another important role being identity and being about to “segregate” the different roles one has. He commented he was “disturbed” by the rise of certain social networks which did not recognize any right to privacy of any of these roles. He commented that people act differently when they go to church from when they go to a sporting event, and admitted being part of an online soccer forum where he expressed a very different side of himself with his “obscenity-laden rants.”

Rod also expressed the goal for the company to give the family members of each a Second Life account, “right now, we’re about halfway through that project.”

Rod stated that Linden Lab planned to work more on region crashes in the Grid, “less features, more on fixes.”For the rest of the year, they would put a little more focus on costumer service, addressing concerns, and the lag. He talked about the quality of service. He also brought of the subject of griefers, wanting to “make life unpleasant for griefers, in an inhumane way.” Rod also mentioned improvements to Premium accounts, with new features added.

He also took questions via 3x5 notecards from the audience, and answered some. One of the first was about protecting content creators. Rod answered that “we have several plans.” He mentioned some new products, involving tablets, saying “sales of desktop (computers) had fallen flat.” Linden Lab would be working on products besides Second Life.

He mentioned Second Life was getting more new users these days. But they were not showing up on the Grid like before. They were different in that they were spending less time logged on, and spending more time socializing. He mentioned tools on the horizon, such as facial recognition and voice recognition. He commented at one point about “Second Life a killer ap for education. ... Best we can do is support. ... It is not for Linden Lab or me to push it’s users into a direction.”

Of Viewer 2, Rod commented that the Lindens didn’t want to annoy their customers, and if some residents didn’t want to use Viewer 2, that was “fair enough.” But they had worked a lot on the viewer, with new features in the codebase, and just couldn’t give it up. But Rod was willing to work on further improvements, adding more features from Viewer 1.

He mentioned getting a Twitter account, saying the only reason he got one was because residents has asked him to, “the best way to get in touch with me is through my profile ... or message me on Twitter.”

Of clothes being affected by long rezz times and lag, Rod seemed to be saying the improvements being worked on would be through Mesh.

A few times, Rod was asked about land pricing. Each time, he refused to answer, “I’m not going to be talking about that.”

He talked about the “new user experience,” saying the destination guide had been a big help, and the Lab would work on further improvements. He talked of setting up some newbie areas where they could go to chat.

One interesting point was when one of the audience asked about if the Lindens would bring back Community Gateways. Rod, admitting his unfamiliarity, asked, “what are those?” Someone explained they were branded web portals from a few years ago. Rod responded, “That’s a great idea. What happened to them?” The audience enjoyed a few chuckles of the CEO’s “noob status.”

Rod stated at one point that no other major companies had tried to duplicate what Second Life has, “except maybe Google.” Someone asked if Linden Lab was planing to “once again go overseas.” Rod answered they would. He talked about “localizing in languages,” such as Russian and Thai.

Daniel Voyager and Hamlet Au also have articles about Rod Humble's address. Others whom have posted about the SLCC include Modem World by Inara Pey, Ciaran Laval, and the Betterverse.

Sources: Daniel Voyager, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

New SL Viewer with Optional Basic Mode Launches After Eleven Days as Beta, Now Default Viewer For New Users

This week after a short tryout peroid, the new beta Version 2 viewer with an optional simpler basic mode was not only made official, it was made the default download for new users.

Since the initial launch last week, we’ve also deployed an additional beta version with fewer bugs and more stability and performance improvements. ... we are releasing the SL Viewer into general availability and it is now the default download for new users. A few new features that are included are the destinations guide which allows rapid access to selected areas around SL for new users by interest, the ability to change avatars quickly and “click to walk.” Just click on a point ahead of you and your avatar will automatically start walking there. Additionally, we encourage you to fill in your “Interests” in the Edit Profile tab of your Profile page. Eventually, you’ll see that we are going to do some fun things with Interests once more people fill them in. Keep in mind, that we’re just at the beginning of developing the Basic experience for new customers and that we will continue to improve it, and add features, as time goes on.


To me, the new viewer seems to have a rather rapid approval process. And I wasn’t alone. Tateru Nino on her blog stated it went from beta to official in eleven days, “Mind you, only seven of those eleven days were working days.” From alpha to beta was even faster, one day. She questioned if the Lindens actually took the time to listen to residents, pointing out that the new viewer “does not actually work – at least not from where I’m sitting. It’s the only viewer that Linden Lab has put out in my memory that fell at the starting gate.” She later stated she was messaged by Rod Humble himself, saying they were working on the problem, and it would be fixed soon.

Hamlet Au’s article reminded readers of the basic viewer’s “point and click” movement and “instant avatar selection” from a number of newbie avs. His attention was also drawn to the “Profile Completeness” progress bar, “To reach 100% completion in your Second Life profile, you have to add some interesting details: Specially, your Real Life Biography.” Hamlet Au called this a “necessary nudge” to make Second Life more appealing to the mass market, feeling “avatar-only identities have made Second Life niche.” Personally I disagree for a number of reasons, but this is for another column.

Much to my surprise, Hamlet Au personally showed me he’d been having troubles too with the new viewer. During the fundraiser for the Japanese Red Cross at Madpea, I teleported in to see how it was going. I soon noticed an Asian schoolgirl av appear next to me with an anime “meatball” hairdo. Then I saw the name: “she” was Hamlet! After both of us recovered from our mutual surprise at seeing each other like this, Hamlet told me while checking out the basic viewer, he had gotten stuck in the girl avie, and couldn’t change out of this embarrassing gender-bender that got chuckles from both the Madpea audience and competing online newspaper editor alike. It was an "only in Second Life" moment that I'll be thinking of for a while.

Checking the feedback on the forum, comments were mixed, probably mostly negative. One wondered if this was an attempt to keep griefers from making alt accounts too quickly. One of the minority who approved thought a newcomer could learn the basics of Second Life in ten minutes.

And for myself, like other versions of Viewer 2 in recent months, this won’t work for me at all. This made looking to see what others found my only source of information besides the official Linden statements.

Sources: Linden Blog, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Latest SL Beta Viewer has Basic and Advanced Modes

In the Linden blog entry on March 18, Rodvik Linden talked about Linden Lab making efforts in customer service, lag, and usability. The latter was the main point of the post:

Many of you have noted that Second Life is difficult to use, both for yourself and when inviting friends inworld. This usability issue is more complex than the user interface as it not only includes finding people and places, but it is also is dependent on some of the items above. We want to make an experience that helps you overcome some of the big usability hurdles that you’ve shared with me.

Today, we’re launching a new version of Second Life Viewer Beta which introduces two modes that are available to everyone who downloads it--Basic and Advanced.

Basic mode is an easier, simplified experience designed to introduce users to Second Life. It includes simple communication and navigation tools such as click to move and hold to move the camera, a choice of 24 pre-configured avatars, and an integrated Destination Guide to help you connect to friends and interesting places quickly and easily. Certain functionality, such as voice capability, building tools, and the ability to purchase virtual goods, is not available in Basic mode.

Advanced mode is for those already familiar with Second Life who use the full feature set of the SL Viewer.

There were numerous comments in the feedback forum. Among them was Shockwave Yareach, “Click to move comes right out of Blue Mars. I hated it then and I hate it now.” Opinion was mixed, some feeling it was useful for newcomers, others feeling it was flawed one way or another, or overall too stripped down.

Yours truly downloaded the beta viewer, but was unable to run it. Looking for reviews elsewhere, Daniel Voyager’s Blog had a Youtube of the Beta Viewer’s Basic Mode.



In “Dwell on It,” Tateru Nino wrote she liked it overall, though thought it was difficult to move around, “the click-to-move feature gets tangled up with the rest of the UI, causing a lot of unexpected frog-hopping, plus that feature’s tendency to jam the avatar through walls and other intervening obstacles.” Still, in her opinion it was good for someone coming to Second Life for the first time. But wrote that the idea that all that was needed to attract and retain newcomers was a better viewer was "dead wrong."

Hamlet Au in New World Notes commented on the feature in which one could change the avatar’s appearance in a single click, “This will likely change a new Second Life user's understanding of an SL avatar, making it seem less like a concrete persona that represents important aspects of your real life self or personality. (Which is how most long-term Second Life users see their avatar.)” He saw a resemblance to “The Sims,” which Rod Humble worked on before coming to Linden Lab, “So it's a very significant change. And, in my opinion, a good one: The Sims franchise is many times larger than Second Life ... But as The Sims begins to show its age, it's a safe bet than some Sims fans will look to a revived SL to take their imagination to another level.”

At the end, Hamlet joked one might expect to find new residents from “The Sims” to ask where the bathroom was.

Sources: Linden Blog, Daniel Voyager's Blog, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: Let's help our new CEO!

Rod Humble was recently hired as the new CEO of Linden Lab. I know of his work from past personal experience and I am enthusiastic about his ability to affect positive change for Second Life. Having had some recent dialog with him and reflecting on the nature of Second Life I quickly came to the conclusion that he will need the assistance of communities of people within to help provide information and ideas. As a representative of the Surreal communities, I would like to ask for input on ideas for proposed changes, thoughts, concerns, features and general thoughts regarding Second Life from anyone who wishes to provide input. I will be compiling and organizing this information to present it on our behalf, making it available for review and finally submitting it to him. Anyone who wishes to get involved send information to me via notecard with a naming convention of "CEO - my name".

Thanks :) -Cerze Ophelia

CEO Rod Humble/Rodvik Linden “Getting Immersed in Second Life”

Some of you may remember when Paisley Bebee observed many Lindens didn’t seem to have much of a clue how to go about Second Life, not knowing how to change their avatar’s clothes or shop for them, let alone build something. Taking a look at the recent blog post by CEO Rod Humble, or Rodvik Linden as he’s known in-avatar, he is determined not to be part of that problem.


One of my highest priorities, over the last few weeks, was spending as much time as possible exploring inworld (with an alt and now Rodvik Linden) to better understand the product experience, your needs, and the culture of Second Life. I have discovered so much. I am amazed on a daily basis by what you have created. Over the holidays, I enjoyed many winter landscapes and seasonal activities. And, more recently, I have been playing around with vehicles and animals.


He’s also been doing a little landscaping, and building, the blog pictures showing a simple log cabin, and a river raft, “Getting immersed in Second Life is the fun part of the job and I can see why you love the world that you’ve created.”

Considering that Linden Labs has so often appeared without a clue, especially in the past several months, it’s refreshing to see the new boss not just cheering the new product, but being shown using it and getting to know it's users, whom he recognized as "customers." Hopefully this is an example of times to come, not just with Rodvik, but other Lindens.

Another thing I noticed, his choice of clothes. He was wearing a toga. Perhaps he had been visiting a Roman-themed sim, such as SPQR. Or maybe as Hamlet Au wondered, dropping in on a fraternity party. ;-)

Welcome to the Grid, Rodvik. We hope you keep on coming back.

To see Rodvik's post, and the comments below, Click Here.


Bixyl Shuftan