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.