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Linden Lab certainly showed signs of fear when Google's Lively kicked off its public beta. Now we're seeing signs more akin to terror, panic or desperation. 'Who wouldn't be concerned when Google comes after their business?' said new Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon to Bloomberg.

Given recent changes and marketing pushes, you can see Linden Lab's management showing a sheen of sweat. Curiously, it seems that Google isn't after Linden Lab's business -- Lively's certainly no competitor to the business that Linden Lab has. However, what Google represents seems to be a threat to the business that Linden Lab wants to have.

This week saw the hiring of Frank Ambrose (AOL's head of technology for infrastructure and network services for a decade) as Senior VP of global technology. While Ambrose has more tech knowledge than the average suit in his position, his primary competencies seem to be negotiations, coordination, contracts and costs -- which all marries up nicely with Linden Lab making a push into corporate, government and military sales, and hiring additional staff to do just that. We're not sure what they're going to be selling, exactly, but virtual environment meeting spaces are probably right at the top of the list.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

While the announcement of the Google Lively public beta may have taken many by surprise, apparently it did not take Linden Lab unawares -- their Second Life messages were already lined up and ready to go.

Indeed considering that information about Lively's launch was available to a number of people who were close to Linden Lab, either as partners or ex-staffers, it seems silly to suggest that Linden Lab might not have known Lively's public beta launch date, unless those contacts were aflame with considerable, searing resentment.

Wheezing, clanking and dripping oil from dark and unnameable apertures, one of Linden Lab's most neglected subsystems -- the marketing machine -- arose from it's years-long slumber and went about it's ponderous, mechanical business.

Weighing in at 1.5 billion square metres (579 square miles, plus change), Linden Lab's virtual world Second Life stacks up at the same size as Cedar County, Iowa, which we've chosen to give you a convenient physical world comparison for size. The figure comes from Linden Lab CFO John Zdanowski's (Zee Linden) quarterly metrics report for Q2 2008.

A sudden surge in land area was attributed to a drop in simulator prices earlier in the year, along with changes to purchasing conditions and capacity of Void simulators (also known as Openspace simulators).

Current TV viewer and contributor, Vasilis Siskos, created this look into the virtual economy of Second Life. Curious as to whether the real life recession trickled down into the virtual world, he asked some experts, including Robert Bloomfield, of Metanomics, John Zdanowski, or Zee Linden, the CFO of Linden Lab, and Alliez Mysterio, of d'Alliez Estates. They had some interesting insight on the situation, but ultimately felt that it wouldn't be a problem, as crafty residents would find what worked better next and adapt.

[Thanks, Kai!]

If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.

Some of you may have noticed that your billing for Second Life is no longer being done out of the United Kingdom but is now being done from the USA. Since there was no announcement of a change, we asked Linden Lab about that, back in the first week of January -- especially as it seemed that some users were still being billed from the UK, and others from the USA (and a few users with multiple accounts, from both countries). There seemed to be little consistency.

Within a week, we had a basic answer. Linden Lab's John Zdanowksi (Zee Linden) responded, "There was shift in billing, though the change only happened for new customers or existing customers who re-entered their billing information, so that there would be no chance of disruption."

On April 21st, Robert Bloomfield, better known as Beyers Sellers in Second Life, held his weekly show, Metanomics. His guests, Mitch Wagner, of Information Week, and Steve Prentice, of Gartner, called the future of SL dire. John Zdanowski, also known as Zee Linden, then came on to address the points that Mitch and Steve made.

In his two part response, he talks about premium accounts, the Lindex, and the recent lowering of land prices. Only time will tell if the situation is truly severe, but at least you can buy cheap* islands now!

* Excluding VAT and $295/mo USD tier fee.

If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.

Linden Lab's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), John Zdanowski (better known as Zee Linden) will be taking questions for one hour on Petunia Island in Second Life on Sunday, 4 November at 11AM SLT (US Pacific). If you've got questions about Linden Lab or Second Life that only the CFO can answer, prepare your questions and come along.

Be prepared, Zdanowski is apparently going to be present with video and voice, rather than in his avatar as usual - so there's not much point in showing if you don't have the network or equipment to support it.