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On April 1st, Philip Rosedale appeared before the Congressional Subcommittee to discuss virtual worlds. Among those testifying was Susan Tenby, whose in-world name is Glitteractica Cookie. Once the Daily Show found out, it was open season for Second Life.

After John Stewart mocked poor Glitteractica, Robert Bloomfield, aka Beyers Sellers, had her on his show, Metanomics, on the SL Cable Network. While there, he issued a challenge to the man whom he felt was John's little brother, Stephen Colbert. You'll just have to watch to see the amusing incentives that he offers!

[Thanks, Beyers!]

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.

In the last couple of years, Linden Lab has grown from around 50 people to (we are told) around 250 people. It is a growth stage of companies that most do not survive, as usually they do something lethally boneheaded in the process.

Another stage that many companies do not survive is their first change of CEO. It is a massive change for the company's table of organization, reporting chains and corporate culture. The first CEO change generally sees a large staff turnover.

That's what usually happens, anyway. While we're not predicting sudden death for Linden Lab, they're getting their first new CEO today.

On Tuesday, 1 April at 9:30AM (US Eastern time), Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale will be appearing to testify before the Congressional Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. The topic will be "Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium" and this will be the first Congressional hearing to explore the ways in which virtual worlds are enhancing the means by which individuals can transcend space to communicate with each other.

You can catch the live webcast of the event when it takes place, and the session will be taking place in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC, if you are interested in attending in person. The facility should be wheelchair accessible.

Thanks to Linden Lab for sending us the notice on this event.

In the wake of the announcement that Philip Rosedale would be moving up to chairman of the Linden Lab board of directors, and that present chairman Mitch Kapor would be moving to a key (but as-yet-unnamed) role, Cornell University Professor Robert Bloomfield (Beyers Sellers in Second Life) will be hosting a special Metanomics session this Friday at 10:30AM SLT (US Pacific time). The session will feature a one-on-one discussion with Kapor, himself.

The topic? Bloomfield offers, "We will talk about his vision for virtual worlds technology and business strategy and, of course, the future of Linden Lab and Second Life."

Live coverage of this special edition of Metanomics on Friday, March 28, 2008 from the CMP sim, owned by United Business Media's Think Services division, will be broadcast exclusively on slcn.tv for those who cannot attend in person, or are unable to attend the sim in person.

No, you've not missed an announcement of an upcoming IPO. We're just looking at what it would mean if you did. There's been talk for years about Linden Lab taking the company through IPO (Initial Public Offering) and going public.

Given the vision and history of the company, and the overall direction of the business, an IPO would more or less signal an epic failure to deliver.

(Disclosure: Some of the raw footage in the background was commissioned by Linden Lab for news agencies. I was the machinimatographer on the project.)

Before Philip Rosedale announced his intention to resign as CEO of Linden Lab, he sat down with Chris Albrecht, of the GigaOM Show. Chris starts off with other news, so to tune in to Hamlet Au and Philip Linden, skip ahead to about 2:45. The duo discuss what SL was like back in the day, how large it has grown, and whether there's a backlash.

Proving that you can't believe everything you read on the internet, the show reports that, according to Wikipedia, Second Life has over 20 million accounts. However, if you check out the economic statistics page on the official site, SL is at just under 13 million. Again, they mention transparency. That word is starting to sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.

[Thanks, Melissa!]

With Friday's announcement of Rosedale stepping down from CEO of Linden Lab and stepping up as board chairman, things certainly start to look interesting for Second Life. You see, Rosedale was the one who really kicked off this latest generation of virtual worlds, much of it by imagination and force of will.

Unfortunately, for some years he's barely been involved. But wait -- he's CEO of Linden Lab, right? Yes, that's right; which means he's probably had about as much focus on the world itself as the person who orders the beef jerky and pencils. Maybe less.

After being literally stunned silent over Tateru's blog entry about Philip Rosedale stepping down, I've decided not to post a machinima today. Instead, I found a video of Philip at the Davos convention. He was asked the Davos Question, which involved what he would do to make the world a better place in 2008.

Given today's announcement, you may be surprised to hear that his answer was transparency. Considering that there is no blog entry yet on the Official Second Life Blog, I can tell they're already starting off 2008 with a bang! Does this news come as a surprise to you?

No, this isn't an April Fool's gag, before you ask. Philip Rosedale, founder and visionary of Linden Lab is stepping down as CEO and becoming board chairman as soon as a replacement can be found. Kapor, the current chairman and Linden Lab's largest investor will remain on Linden Lab's board of directors.

"It was not precipitated by a crisis," said current chairman Kapor, speaking to Reuters today. "We had always anticipated that there would be a time when he'd decide he no longer wanted to be a CEO."

We don't know about you, but we don't think that CEO is really where Rosedale wanted to be in the long run. Rosedale will remain on board at Linden Lab working on strategy and product development.

Update: Rosedale has put up a post on the Linden Lab blog, outlining the reasons for his departure from the CEO position. Essentially, Mr. Rosedale believes that the CEO position will increasingly be geared towards growing the Linden company. His best way of contributing, as he sees it, is from the sidelines offering vision for the future.

[via Reuters]

Linden Lab announces today that Cyn Skyberg (aka Cyn Linden) formerly Director of Customer Relations at Linden Lab has been promoted to Vice-President of Customer Relations.

Skyberg's new role will see her also overseeing Second Life billing, risk management, in-world support as well as "external sales and management" (we're not really sure what that part means).

It's hard to believe that golfing is over a year and a half old in SL. Second Life Insider covered the phenomenon that was sweeping the grid back in July 2006. Rumor has it that even Philip Linden enjoyed a game or two!

However, there is a bit of a learning curve to golfing. It requires a HUD, golf balls, a club, and a working knowledge of all three. It looks like MarkTwain White is aiming to solve that problem by releasing a series of tutorials on Second Life golf. Lesson one focuses on how to get started. If you dug the tutorial and think you might like to give it a try, you can check it out in Hollywood.

This is the second of two parts to the Fireside Chat between Second Life's Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden) and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at the New Globe Theater, a meeting held and sponsored by Millions of Us, a metaverse development company (MDC), with Reuben Millionsofus as moderator. This is the mp3 and transcript of part two of the chat. You can hear and read part 1 here. Enjoy!

[Mp3] Download the MP3 directly

[Thanks, Celebrity!]

Philip Rosedale has taken this lull in Second Life grid operations to post an update - partly as thanks for the award. It's nice to hear from The Old Man, of course, but there's nothing much new from previous messages.

2007 had growth - roughly the same statistics are put forward (hey, we're all looking forward to the December 2007 key metrics, actually), and challenges. 2007 had considerably more growth than 2006. Also the now-familiar, 'most business use of the platform is internal, not marketing'.

"We will focus intensely in 2008 on continuing to make SL more stable. We will keep opening the SL platform up to residents, developers, entrepreneurs, and partners. We will shift from our historical focus on relentless feature innovation to put making and keeping happy customers first on our list of priorities." (Rosedale's emphasis)

As reported here, today saw the meeting of minds between Second Life's Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden) and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at the New Globe Theater, a meeting held and sponsored by Millions of Us, a metaverse development company (MDC), with Reuben Millionsofus as moderator. This is the mp3 and transcript of part one of the chat. I have chosen to edit out of the transcript, for the most part, verbal tics that don't contribute to the content of the chat, but these elements remain in the mp3. If you're unfamiliar with Second Life, every now and then you'll hear what sounds like a Polaroid camera going off -- this is the sound of in-world snapshots being taken of the proceedings. You will also hear typing sounds from time to time -- this is the default typing animation sound.

Part two will go up tomorrow at this time. Enjoy!

[Mp3] Download the MP3 directly

[Thanks, Celebrity!]

Mayor Gavin Newsom's not completely a stranger to Second Life, having been interviewed by Reuters' Adam Pasick in Second Life at the WEF media event in Davos, twelve months ago.

Well, Newsom's back at the New Globe Theater in Second Life for an discussion with Philip Rosedale over the parallels, opportunities and challenges of managing two famously diverse, tech-savvy and dynamic communities with global profiles: the City of San Francisco, and Second Life. Newsom will also be discussing his priorities for his next term, and both Rosedale and Newsom will be taking questions.