Philip Rosedale Returns

On Monday 13th, January, Linden Research Inc, announced that High Fidelity owned by Second Life founder and original Lab CEO Philip Rosedale, has acquired and interest in Linden Lab.

High Fidelity originally began life as a VR platform in much the same vein as the Lab's own Sansar project.   In December 2019, Philip announced a new direction, concentrating on 3D sound, an immersive spatial audio, which offers depth and distance stereo. It has to be said, it is very impressive when sat side by side with Vivox for comparison.

Philip and other members of High Fidelity will re-join Linden Lab team, but it has yet to be announced whether or not Spatial Audio will become a replacement for the existing voice and sound systems.

I asked the long time friend of London City in 2019, if he would consider coming back to Linden Lab, to which he replied,  "Do you think they would have me?".    Apparently they will.

Philip Rosedale, now Philip Linden again, last visited London City just a week ago.  I wish we had managed to land the scoop!

It is very exciting that this extraordinary visionary has re-joined the team.  Philip, welcome home!

Here is a replay of Philip Linden visiting London City in 2018, exploring out loud, where Second Life might want to go next. It predates the migration to the AWS cloud system in 2020.

Linden Lab have blogged about Philip's new Role here

New Owner of Second Life as a New User in London City

The new owner of Linden Lab and Second Life, Brad Oberwager discusses his experience as a brand new user in Second Life.  He came to London City for assistance and here is how he got on.

You can see the full video on Second Life's YouTube channel here

Ebbe Altberg, CEO Linden Lab, has died.

It is with huge regret that we repost this story from the community pages in Second Life.

Linden Las has announced the untimely death of their CEO, Ebbe Altberg.

This is the message :

Hello, Community of Second Life

Second Life found new highs in 2020 between a worldwide pandemic taking grip, through the times of a tumultuous leadership change in the United States, and during movements of civil changes that will forever live in history books.  Second Life provides many with the comfort of a normal that continues to exist for all of us, where many use it to escape real life pressures, stressors and day to day challenges.  In Second Life we can be our ideal, our best, celebrate all that is good across the world together.  Sadly we have also seen some people go, and they will never be forgotten as they touched us, gave us their best from their hearts, minds and souls - this thing called real life sometimes knocks on our door and makes a call.   

This is one of those calls.

Ebbe Altberg started with Linden Lab as our CEO on February 5th, 2014.  He took the helm of the company and immediately went to work on reinvigorating our spirit and culture.  Ebbe brought a profound openness, and transparency in his operation which was key and that had many effects on all of us internally, and externally.  Lindens were encouraged to be part of the vibrant community in Second Life, to participate in and to cherish it as part of our daily duties.  Ebbe also worked internally on embracing all aspects of Second Life, learning about its many nuances to understand impacts of decisions we make; while being sensitive to those and utilizing all of our resources, which firstly included you, the community, and many of us who are deeply embedded in Second Life.  Ebbe’s goals for Second Life included promoting Second Life as the world’s best virtual world, community and platform.  He also sought new adventures in building next generation products.

As I am here before you today, it is with profound sadness that I share with you Ebbe passed away yesterday evening restfully and surrounded by the love of his family. 

I commit to all of you to carry forward with our mission of making Second Life the biggest, best, most vibrant virtual world that there ever can be.  Together, myself, Grumpity, and Brett, along with Oberwolf at the helm and the entire team, our mission is clear.  To grow Second Life and to ensure the Residents in Second Life continue to be respected and happy.

Rest in peace Ebbe, our fearless, kind, loving, gentle leader, and friend.

Patch Linden and The Linden Lab Team

You can see the post here

All of us at London City, send our sincerest condolences to his family, friends and team at Linden Lab.

Ebbe and Flow

I do think that Alt Berg would have been a much better name than Ebbe Linden.  However Ebbe Altberg, the latest pontiff of Linden Lab, sure is making an early mark on his territory and pissing on lots of lamp posts from the get-go.


Ebbe, not 'umble pie

We wrote to Ebbe a couple of weeks back explaining the insane Jira system, where all of us can report a bug but never ever be able to see if it was going to be fixed as all Jira's had become a secret under the lead of Rod Humble.

Turning around just about everything his predecessor Rod Humble did, which wasn't actually very much, except some rather odd Tetris style games marketed under the labs name and turning off the transparency of the Jira,  our latest saviour Ebbe is already gaining some popularity in the world.  The Jira will be visible to everyone once again next week.   Good on you Ebbe.

It is true that a lot of land barons are snapping up regions in large batches at vastly higher values than the usual quick sale price.  This raises speculation that there is a new price-break to be announced. Perhaps 300 regions costs the same as 200 in old money.  Maybe LL is raising some cash to spend on things.  Some advertising would be nice.

If Ebbe decides to lower tiers on us mortals, said barons could have more than a little egg on their faces after such a hefty land rush without any particular public pledges being made as to the way this ship will ultimately be steered.   That said, if tiers did fall, Land Barons would have a lot more regions to sell for profit.

Definitely some interesting times ahead and those with an extreme level of investment in Second Life are showing a vote of confidence in our new leader.  

We have also suggested to Ebbe, that since we are all in this together, that the economy metrics became transparent again, so that we can all see just how much growth there is, or how much trouble we are all collectively in.   If Ebbe was to turn on the metrics again, that really would prove that he thinks he has a sound battle plan to bring the grid back in to prosperity and some of us may trust his vision enough to grow our estates.

Good luck to you Ebbe, we're all counting on you.


cc: Ebbe Linden

London City - Most Popular Destination in Second Life