Nine Lives: As Second Life Changes Direction, Linden Lab CEO Steps Down

Mark Kingdon

Second Life creator Linden Lab on Thursday said Mark Kingdon was stepping down as CEO. The move comes at a difficult time for the company, which only weeks ago announced plans to cut 30% of its roughly 300 employees.

Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale has been named interim CEO, while CFO Bob Komin has assumed the additional role of COO.

Since its debut in 2003, the Second Life virtual experience has been heralded as the future of media engagement, and lambasted as a niche haven for the socially awkward and fantasy obsessed.

Rosedale on Thursday credited Kingdon with "growing our user base and revenue, increasing the stability of the platform, and nurturing and helping build a world class team."

In April, Linden Lab said virtual transactions -- of virtual real estate, goods, avatar attributes, and such -- totaled $160 million in the first quarter of the year, which represented a 30% increase year-over-year. In March, the number of Second Life users with repeat log-ins, excluding first-time users, reached 826,214 -- up 13% year-over-year.

Upon news of the reorganization earlier this month, however, Kingdon effectively admitted that Second Life was not sufficiently connected to consumers' broader online social activities.

According to Kingdon, the restructuring better aligned Linden Lab with its two longer-term goals, including the creation of a browser-based virtual world experience -- eliminating the need to download software -- and extending the Second Life experience into popular social networks. "Ultimately, we want to make Second Life more accessible and relevant to a wider population," Kingdon said in June.

"We've emerged from a two-year investment period during which, among other things, we've spent a considerable amount of time improving reliability and the overall user experience," Kingdon said.

The changes "will help us make Second Life even simpler, more enjoyable, relevant and engaging for consumers starting with their first experience," Kingdon added. "It will also enable us to invest in bringing 3D to the web and will strengthen our profitability."

In mid-2008, Kingdon decided to leave his position as CEO of Omnicom digital agency Organic for Linden Lab. The move came as a surprise to many given the popular perception that Second Life's prospects had begun to wane.

A year ago, Linden Lab was reportedly valued between $658 million and 700 million.

1 comment about "Nine Lives: As Second Life Changes Direction, Linden Lab CEO Steps Down".
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  1. Pooky Amsterdam from PookyMedia, June 25, 2010 at 11:19 a.m.

    Second Life is a remarkable platform for much. From every area of education to architectural development to business meetings to virtulization to medical simulations to performance arts, it is not only cost effective in it's delivery, but very engaging.
    We as residents of Second Life, have been extremely fortunate to have Mark Kingdon as our former CEO. He displayed tremendous strength in moving Second Life forward. Second Life is an incredibly vital place, and also very smart application for a variety of industries who can use the real time, 3D and media sharing capabilities for so much.
    I use Second Life as a Media platform and have thus created the future of Social TV. Highly interactive and participatory "TV" shows within Second Life, which are broadcast live and participated on the web. And PookyMedia is award winning in the field of Machinima, or animated cinema done on machine. This new genre of video is extremely important and Second Life is our graphical engine of choice for film making because it is so rich visually and so adept for story - telling.
    The stability of platform has improved greatly and that stability is going to be built upon by it's visionary founder, Philip Rosedale. Second Life is an incredible resource for our world today.

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