Linden Lab
Encyclopedia
Linden Research, Inc., d/b/a
Linden Lab, is a privately held
American
Internet
company that is best known as the creator of Second Life
.
The company's head office is in San Francisco, with additional offices in Boston
, Seattle, Reston, Virginia
and Davis, California
. Its offices in Mountain View
, Brighton
, Singapore
and Amsterdam
were closed in 2010. In addition, the company employs remote workers that communicate and collaborate on projects using Second Life technology.
, eBay
, Disney, Adobe
, and Apple. The company's founder and original CEO is Philip Rosedale
, a former CTO of Real Networks, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2007. In December of 2010, the company announced a new CEO, Rod Humble
, who controls day-to-day management and operations. Rosedale remains chairman of the board of Linden Lab, with a focus on product development and strategy.
In 2008, the company was awarded an Emmy for Second Life in the user-generated content and game modification category. The award was given at the 59th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. Philip Rosedale
, chairman of Linden Lab, accepted the award.
Although Linden Lab's Second Life platform was not the first online virtual world entry, it has gained a large amount of attention due to its expanding user base and unique policy that allows participants to own the intellectual property rights to the inworld content that they create. The company's name comes from Linden Street, the street it was originally based on. The company's transition from scrappy upstart to success is detailed in the book The Making of Second Life, written by former Linden Lab employee Wagner James Au.
Although many people have assumed that the inspiration for Second Life originated from Rosedale's exposure to Neil Stephenson's novel Snow Crash
, he has suggested that his vision of virtual worlds predates that book and that he conducted some early virtual world experiments during his college years at the University of California San Diego, where he studied physics.
Rosedale's strong coding skills eventually resulted in the creation of a video compression technology that would later be acquired by RealNetworks
, where he was made CTO at the young age of 27. While at RealNetworks, Rosedale's ambition to create a virtual world was resurrected and recharged by technological advances in computing and his attendance at the popular music and arts festival Burning Man
.
With the help of a financial windfall that he reaped from his time at RealNetworks, Rosedale formed Linden Lab in 1999. His initial focus was on the development of hardware that would enable computer users to be fully immersed in a 360 degree virtual world experience. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of "The Rig," which was realized in prototype form as a clunky steel contraption with several computer monitors that users could wear on their shoulders. That vision soon morphed into the software-based application Linden World, where computer users could participate in task-based games and socialization in a 3D online environment. That effort would eventually transform into the better-known, user-centered Second Life.
During a 2001 meeting with investors, Rosedale noticed that the participants were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of Second Life. As a result, the initial objective-driven, gaming focus of Second Life was shifted to a more user-created, community-driven experience.
As Second Life emerged into the mainstream, it has been the subject of numerous pop culture references. For example, it found prominent plot placement in 2007 episodes of "CSI: NY" and the U.S. version of "The Office," and has been referenced in the comic strip "Doonesbury."
Linden Lab utilizes another internal tool, known as the Distributor, that enables all employees to distribute "points" to projects that they deem to be worthy of development and resource support. Each point has a financial value that is based on each quarter's financial performance. As a result, key stakeholders in the projects with high point values receive a distributed monetary payoff at the end of the quarter for successfully completed projects.
In addition, each employee's quarterly performance review is published on a Wikipedia-like internal Web site for all other employees to see.
Employees of Linden Lab, who are easily identifiable inworld since their avatars bear the last name Linden, have been known to participate in several collaborative events with Second Life users. For example, the company holds an annual holiday "snowball fight" where users are encouraged to throw virtual snowballs at Linden Lab employees.
. Windward Mark specialized in atmosphere
and cloud
simulation, and released their code as open source. Linden Lab currently uses the code under the name 'Windlight' to enhance atmospheric effects in Second Life
.
On January 20, 2009, Linden Lab acquired XstreetSL and OnRez, two web-based marketplaces for Second Life virtual goods. Linden Lab subsequently closed OnRez and merged XstreetSL onto the secondlife.com website. XstreetSL's web forum and currency exchange service were closed. XstreetSL is formerly known as SLExchange. On September 10, 2008, the owner of SLExchange renamed the website under threat of Linden Lab enforcing a trademark on the letters "SL". XStreetSL was replaced in late 2010 with the new SecondLife Marketplace.
.
On January 30, 2010, Linden Lab acquired the avatar profile service Avatars United
and its creator, Enemy Unknown AB.
On June 9, 2010, Linden Lab announced a restructuring plan including a 30% reduction in workforce. The plan articulated a new renewed focus on development of browser-based 3D viewer for the Second Life Virtual World. The CEO Mark Kingdon
, aka "M Linden" stepped down at this time, and the founding CEO Philip Rosedale
stepped back up.
In September 2010, rumors citing unnamed "higher ups" in the Linden Lab hierarchy suggested that the company would be acquired by Microsoft
.
developer Linden Lab when his account was disabled by Second Life administrators. The case was eventually settled out of court.
Doing business as
The phrase "doing business as" is a legal term used in the United States, meaning that the trade name, or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world is not the legal name of the legal person who actually own it and are responsible for it...
Linden Lab, is a privately held
Privately held company
A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
company that is best known as the creator of Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
.
The company's head office is in San Francisco, with additional offices in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Seattle, Reston, Virginia
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...
and Davis, California
Davis, California
Davis is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. Its offices in Mountain View
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
, Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
were closed in 2010. In addition, the company employs remote workers that communicate and collaborate on projects using Second Life technology.
History
The company, founded in 1999, employs numerous established high-tech veterans, including former executives from Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
, eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, Disney, Adobe
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
, and Apple. The company's founder and original CEO is Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale is an American entrepreneur, best known as the creator of the virtual world Second Life. Within the Second Life metaverse, his avatar is known as Philip Linden....
, a former CTO of Real Networks, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2007. In December of 2010, the company announced a new CEO, Rod Humble
Rod Humble
Rod Humble is the Chief Executive Officer of Second Life creator Linden Lab, and former Executive Vice President for the EA Play label of the video game company Electronic Arts. He has been contributing to the development of games since 1990, and is recently best known for his work on the...
, who controls day-to-day management and operations. Rosedale remains chairman of the board of Linden Lab, with a focus on product development and strategy.
In 2008, the company was awarded an Emmy for Second Life in the user-generated content and game modification category. The award was given at the 59th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale is an American entrepreneur, best known as the creator of the virtual world Second Life. Within the Second Life metaverse, his avatar is known as Philip Linden....
, chairman of Linden Lab, accepted the award.
Although Linden Lab's Second Life platform was not the first online virtual world entry, it has gained a large amount of attention due to its expanding user base and unique policy that allows participants to own the intellectual property rights to the inworld content that they create. The company's name comes from Linden Street, the street it was originally based on. The company's transition from scrappy upstart to success is detailed in the book The Making of Second Life, written by former Linden Lab employee Wagner James Au.
Although many people have assumed that the inspiration for Second Life originated from Rosedale's exposure to Neil Stephenson's novel Snow Crash
Snow Crash
Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson's third novel, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's other novels it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy....
, he has suggested that his vision of virtual worlds predates that book and that he conducted some early virtual world experiments during his college years at the University of California San Diego, where he studied physics.
Rosedale's strong coding skills eventually resulted in the creation of a video compression technology that would later be acquired by RealNetworks
RealNetworks
RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...
, where he was made CTO at the young age of 27. While at RealNetworks, Rosedale's ambition to create a virtual world was resurrected and recharged by technological advances in computing and his attendance at the popular music and arts festival Burning Man
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
.
With the help of a financial windfall that he reaped from his time at RealNetworks, Rosedale formed Linden Lab in 1999. His initial focus was on the development of hardware that would enable computer users to be fully immersed in a 360 degree virtual world experience. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of "The Rig," which was realized in prototype form as a clunky steel contraption with several computer monitors that users could wear on their shoulders. That vision soon morphed into the software-based application Linden World, where computer users could participate in task-based games and socialization in a 3D online environment. That effort would eventually transform into the better-known, user-centered Second Life.
During a 2001 meeting with investors, Rosedale noticed that the participants were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of Second Life. As a result, the initial objective-driven, gaming focus of Second Life was shifted to a more user-created, community-driven experience.
As Second Life emerged into the mainstream, it has been the subject of numerous pop culture references. For example, it found prominent plot placement in 2007 episodes of "CSI: NY" and the U.S. version of "The Office," and has been referenced in the comic strip "Doonesbury."
Corporate Culture
Linden Lab has elicited both compliments and curiosity for its unconventional corporate culture, which is based on a non-hierarchical system where employees are unusually self-directed and transparent in their work. The company makes a strong effort to maintain transparency among its employees and to the general public.Linden Lab utilizes another internal tool, known as the Distributor, that enables all employees to distribute "points" to projects that they deem to be worthy of development and resource support. Each point has a financial value that is based on each quarter's financial performance. As a result, key stakeholders in the projects with high point values receive a distributed monetary payoff at the end of the quarter for successfully completed projects.
In addition, each employee's quarterly performance review is published on a Wikipedia-like internal Web site for all other employees to see.
Employees of Linden Lab, who are easily identifiable inworld since their avatars bear the last name Linden, have been known to participate in several collaborative events with Second Life users. For example, the company holds an annual holiday "snowball fight" where users are encouraged to throw virtual snowballs at Linden Lab employees.
Acquisitions and Restructuring
In May 2007, Linden Lab acquired Windward Mark Interactive, a small game development company of Waltham, MassachusettsWaltham, Massachusetts
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...
. Windward Mark specialized in atmosphere
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
and cloud
Cloud
A cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water and/or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. They are also known as aerosols. Clouds in Earth's atmosphere are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology...
simulation, and released their code as open source. Linden Lab currently uses the code under the name 'Windlight' to enhance atmospheric effects in Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
.
On January 20, 2009, Linden Lab acquired XstreetSL and OnRez, two web-based marketplaces for Second Life virtual goods. Linden Lab subsequently closed OnRez and merged XstreetSL onto the secondlife.com website. XstreetSL's web forum and currency exchange service were closed. XstreetSL is formerly known as SLExchange. On September 10, 2008, the owner of SLExchange renamed the website under threat of Linden Lab enforcing a trademark on the letters "SL". XStreetSL was replaced in late 2010 with the new SecondLife Marketplace.
.
On January 30, 2010, Linden Lab acquired the avatar profile service Avatars United
Avatars United
Avatars United was a web community for avatars of online games and virtual worlds. It was launched in March 2008 by Sweden-based Enemy Unknown and closed in October 2010...
and its creator, Enemy Unknown AB.
On June 9, 2010, Linden Lab announced a restructuring plan including a 30% reduction in workforce. The plan articulated a new renewed focus on development of browser-based 3D viewer for the Second Life Virtual World. The CEO Mark Kingdon
Mark Kingdon
Mark Kingdon may refer to:*Mark D. Kingdon, angel investor, former CEO of Linden Lab and Organic*Mark E. Kingdon, hedge fund manager and president of Kingdon Capital Management...
, aka "M Linden" stepped down at this time, and the founding CEO Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale is an American entrepreneur, best known as the creator of the virtual world Second Life. Within the Second Life metaverse, his avatar is known as Philip Linden....
stepped back up.
In September 2010, rumors citing unnamed "higher ups" in the Linden Lab hierarchy suggested that the company would be acquired by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
.
Litigation
In 2006, Pennsylvania lawyer Marc Bragg (“Marc Woebegone” in Second Life) brought a lawsuit against Second LifeSecond Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
developer Linden Lab when his account was disabled by Second Life administrators. The case was eventually settled out of court.
See also
- Simulated realitySimulated realitySimulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—perhaps by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation....
- Second Life GridSecond Life GridThe Second Life Grid is the platform and technology behind 3D online virtual world Second Life. In April 2008, IBM announced that it would explore future deployment of a portion of the Second Life Grid behind a corporate firewall.-Technical information:...
- Second LifeSecond LifeSecond Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
- Economy of Second LifeEconomy of Second LifeThe virtual world Second Life has its own economy and a currency referred to as Linden Dollars . This economy is independent of the Pricing, where users pay Linden Lab. In the SL economy, residents buy from and sell to one another directly, using the Linden, which is exchangeable for US dollars or...
- Criticism of Second LifeCriticism of Second LifeDue to constant development, and as an open environment accessible by almost anyone with access to the Internet, a number of difficult issues have arisen around Second Life. Issues range from the technical , to moral , to legal...
External links
- Linden Lab Official website
- list of Linden Lab Employees - hosted on the Official Second Life Wiki
- Analysis of court filings pertaining to the case of Bragg vs Linden Lab The analysis stopped mid way through the initial filings.
- Bragg v. Linden further analysis of proceedings and more accurate reporting. - Hosted at Virtuallyblind.com
- Collection of documents pertinent to Bragg v. Linden Lab