Your2ndPlace

Well, that's what the Financial Times is reporting - it doesn't make it so, but yes, the indicators do seem to be there. There are some important points in the article:

...Second Life has faced growing competition from newer virtual worlds and its high profile as the early leader in the sector has seen it suffer a media backlash as flaws in its service have been exposed...

Yes, and no. The 'newer' virtual worlds - the only true competitors of Second Life at this time - come from the Open Sim endeavor. And that project has been done by a part of the Second Life community - creating an open source alternative even as Linden Lab has made gurgling sounds about its own open sourcing of the server code.

The next paragraph actually ties right in as far as commentary:

...Corey Ondrejka, chief technology officer and the fourth employee hired at the company, left in December in what was viewed as a sign of problems at Linden Lab...

Again, yes and no. The real reasons for Corey's leaving will never really be known, but quite a few people see Corey's advocacy of open sourcing the server code as the issue. Maybe. Linden Lab has said on more than one occasion that it has been preparing to open source the code. The talk of that has dwindled with the Open Sim project. Also, there seems to have been a priority shift after Corey left that has allowed rapid releasing of code for the client and rapid updates and testing of the functionality of the new server code.

Since I have no hookups with Linden Lab aside from a recipe for pineapple chicken and I don't abuse my hookups (and vice versa!), I have to write from the cheap seats. But in the cheap seats, having spent time in code mines eating flat foods myself, I'm willing to bet that Open Sim has been more of a solution than a problem for Linden Lab. Yes, there is open source code out there for servers - yes, it might be a technology competitor - but the majority of users of Second Life don't really care about technology. As Douglas Adams said in The Salmon of Doubt:

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.

What Linden Lab has been doing since Corey left has been pretty much focusing on 'stuff that works'. Whether Corey leaving is directly related to the change is anyone's guess, but either way: Linden Lab has suddenly seemed more agile. My take on it is that a lot of resources were being used on something that would have been redundant: open sourcing the server code. It makes so much more business sense to form a partnership with Open Sim at this point than wasting valuable resources - time and brain cells - reinventing a wheel.

As a sidenote - no, Open Sim isn't really a threat to Second Life at this point; it is still the realm of the techno-savvy. Time will change that, and inter-world issues will come up - but good relations and discussion now will make everything simpler later. The base may be technology, but the service that Second Life performs is not technology. It is about people. People are the core of any virtual world.

Back to the article.

...Corey Bridges, co-founder of virtual-world builder Multiverse, says the new chief executive will face the challenge of making Second Life more stable and appealing to the business world...

I'm sorry, but... what? This seems like an intentional red herring from a competitor. Second Life doesn't have to be appealing to the business world; it's user base is what is appealing to the business world. Because many businesses in the last few years didn't do their homework, they got their hands slammed in the door a few times (and their solutions developers seemed to help them). Second Life might be useful to businesses in some ways, but let's be frank: most of the businesses who have entered Second Life haven't even mastered the art of yesteryear's blog. The thought of interactivity is alien. Second Life's stability issues are not as much of a problem in this regard. Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Sing it with me.

So is Linden Lab going to go public? Yes? No? Maybe? I'll take maybe. Does it matter?

It shouldn't.

Technorati Tags: Linden Lab Metaverse Op/Ed SecondLife multiverse opensource opensim