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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.

When Linden Lab chooses to shake things up, it doesn't do it by half-measures. Easter Monday saw an announcement by Linden Lab that they were introducing a new Second Life logo program, and changing the terms under which various words and images are presented.

Unfortunately, we technically can't show you the new logo, since by all rights we have to go through the application process first. Actually, after reading all the terms and conditions a bunch of times, we are not sure that we're even allowed to mention its name. It's inSL, anyway. We'll let the company lawyers sort through the paperwork.

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]

Reuters' Eric Krangel Adam Pasick will be interviewing a number of notable personalities in Second Life and simultaneously in Davos, Switzerland this year - the second annual set of Davos/Second Life interviews from our friends at Reuters.

Is it just us, or does it get a little weird specifying two places at once?

In a curious bit of international news, Reuters is reporting that China has issued a crackdown aimed at diminishing what the communist government believes to be the undesirable side effects of online games' explosive growth in popularity on the mainland. Most of the online gaming that takes place within China happens in popular "net bars," which are packed to the gills with PCs. The government watches over the proprietors of these net bars with a close eye, making sure they enforce recent laws passed that both ban children from playing altogether, and restrict the number of hours adult players can stay in one net bar.

The establishments on which the government brought down their hammer were operated illegally and didn't abide by the gameplay restrictions mandated by the government. In one southern border city alone, officials shut down over 500 illegal gaming cafes. They cited one case where there was as many as 30 computers packed into a 40 square meter room. If you're more an english standard kind of person, that would be a room about 16 feet by 26 feet. You have to hope they had a good air conditioning unit!

What I found interesting was one official's comment that, "Although China's online gaming industry had been hot in recent years, online games are regarded by many as a sort of spiritual opium and the whole industry is marginalized by mainstream society." While their description of these net cafes does conjure up an image not entirely unlike that of an opium den, you have to wonder whether they see the real problem underlying China's addiction to MMOs. If players are so desperate to escape the hopelessness of their everyday lives that they'll literally sit and play a game at a computer until they die, shouldn't it be the conditions they live in that are changed, and not their opiate of choice, whether real or in a fantasy?

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.

Keen followers of Second Life Insider, before we became Massively, will know we have, at various stages charted the reporting of Second Life in the media, as the media follows its own hype and backlash cycle. Now, MediaShift is reporting something we've been saying all along, although in their own way: the media cycle has missed the reality of the situation, virtual world and real world.

The whole article is well worth a read, as it contrasts various styles of (real world) reportage on Second Life, from Hamlet Linden as was, to Reuters, to Wired to CNN, and even has Wired's editor saying that both their hype and their over-the-top backlash were mistakes. The conclusion? A not very startling - it's better to, in the current terminology, embed your reporters or use local information than not, and particularly don't only listen to other journalists - but the steps along the way are well worth a read. They might be especially worth a read if you have to defend your engagement in Second Life to people that have only seen the backlash.

[Original lead via SLEd list]

Rase Kenzo (aka Thomas Simon) has rejected settlement with the parties represented by lawyer Frank Taney. The settlement offer involved $2,000USD compensation to each of the six plaintiffs, and $5,000USD in legal fees. It probably doesn't get much cheaper than that, in the USA.

Nevertheless, Kenzo has rejected the settlement, indicating that he thinks it's too much, and besides, he doesn't have the money. Instead, he's opting for a potentially much more expensive court case - though he is trying to find a lawyer who will take the case pro-bono.

World of Googlecraft? GoogleQuest? Pirates of the Google Sea? No, really. It could happen. Sort of.

Apparently Google isn't satisfied with how massive it is already; the tech juggernaut might be developing a virtual online world. Okay, so it probably won't really be an MMORPG per say, but it could be something similar to Second Life. Rumors of the project have been gaining momentum for a while now, and we here at Massively are laying out all the evidence right here for you to see.