Linden Lab

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Linden Research, Inc.
Type Private
Founded San Francisco, California, USA (1999)
Headquarters San Francisco, California, USA
Key people Mark D. Kingdon, CEO
Philip Rosedale, Chair of the Board of Directors / founder
Industry Virtual worlds
Products Virtual worlds, Electronic commerce, software development
Employees 250 (Q4 2007)
Website www.lindenlab.com

Linden Lab is a privately held American Internet company that is best known as the creator of Second Life and the virtual world platform Second Life Grid.

According to its Web site, Linden Lab has over 200 employees worldwide. Although the company's main headquarters are based in San Francisco, it also has distributed offices in Brighton (UK), Boston, Seattle, Mountain View and Davis, CA. In addition, the company employs several remote workers that communicate and collaborate on projects using Second Life Grid technology.

The company, which was founded in 1999, employs numerous established high-tech veterans, including former executives from Electronic Arts, eBay, Disney, Adobe, and Apple. The company's founding CEO is Philip Rosedale, a former CTO of Real Networks, who was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2007.[1] On April 23, 2008, the company announced the selection of a new CEO, Mark Kingdon, who "will take control of day-to-day management and operations" from Rosedale as of May 15, 2008.[2] Rosedale will stay on as Chairman 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.[3] Philip Rosedale, President of Linden Labs, accepted the award.


Contents

[edit] History

Although Linden Lab's Second Life Grid 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.[4]

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.[5] 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.[6]

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."[7]

[edit] Corporate Affairs and 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. Rosedale details the guiding principles and philosophy behind the company's culture in "The Tao of Linden," a manifesto published on the Linden Lab Web site.

The company makes a strong effort to maintain transparency among its employees and to the general public. For example, employees at all levels are required to communicate weekly "Achievements and Objectives" (A&Os) to the company at large. Further, employees are encouraged to use positive reinforcement as an incentive using an internally-developed "Love Machine" application that enables employees to publicly reward and praise fellow employees for specific tasks completed. The "love" that is sent ultimately translates to a financial incentive at the end of each quarter and is used as part of an employee's evaluation.

"The Love Machine allows anyone who works here as a Linden employee to send anyone else a brief note that says 'Thank you for doing this for me.'," Rosedale told Inc. Magazine in 2008. "There is a little webpage where you can go to send an e-mail, and then you get a little e-mail that says 'Love From Philip' in the subject and it's got text in it. Now, you think, what's the big deal about that? Well, all of that stuff goes into a database. Your review carries that. Everybody is sending love to each other. It creates a positive collaborative environment."[8]

Linden Lab also 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.[9]

In May 2007, Linden Lab acquired Windward Mark Interactive, a small game development company of Waltham, Massachusetts. Windward Mark specialized in atmosphere and cloud simulation, and released their code as open source. Linden Lab intends to use this code and skill set in order to enhance graphics in Second Life.[10]

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.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Bragg v. Linden Lab

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Linden Lab was sued on May 2, 2006 by attorney Marc Bragg [11], claiming Linden Lab defrauded him of $8,000 worth of virtual property. Bragg allegedly exploited the land sales system by directly entering region IDs into the auction system URL using the Linden provided indices, and was then able to buy one region for around US$300 (They normally sell for $1600 or more). Bragg claims in his complaint that after only one region was sold to him in this way, Linden Lab reclaimed all the regions he acquired and permanently banned Bragg's account from the entire grid and that this constituted illegally depriving him of the products for which he had paid.[12]

However, on May 30, 2007, the Court issued an order[13] finding that the Second Life Arbitration Clause was unconscionable in the circumstances as written and therefore unenforceable.

In September 2007, Linden modified the arbitration provision in its Terms of Service Agreement.

In October 2007, the lawsuit was settled. Bragg's Second Life account and land were reinstated, but no further details were released to the public.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Vega, Suzanne (May 14, 2007). The Time 100: Philip Rosedale. Time Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-03-02.
  2. ^ Reuters/Second Life » Linden Lab picks online marketing executive as CEO
  3. ^ BusinessWire (January 8, 2008). Winners of 59th Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards Announced by National Television Academy at Consumer Electronics Show. Foxbusiness.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-02.
  4. ^ Dubner, Stephen (December 13, 2007). Philip Rosedale Answers Your Questions. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  5. ^ Au, Wagner James. The Making of Second Life, pg. 19. New York: Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-135320-8.
  6. ^ YouTube (November 22, 2006). The Origin of Second Life and its Relation to Real Life. YouTube. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  7. ^ Trudeau, Garry (September 9, 2007). Doonesbury. Doonesbury.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  8. ^ Inc.com (February, 2007). How I Did It: Philip Rosedale, CEO, Linden Lab. Inc.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  9. ^ WorldBlu (February 19, 2008). Lessons Learned and Best Practices from the WorldBlu Council Meeting in SF. WorldBlu. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  10. ^ Second Life gets a Bay State boost, The Boston Globe, May 21, 2007.
  11. ^ Craig, Kathleen (May 18, 2006). Second Life Land Deal Goes Sour. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  12. ^ Marc Bragg. Bragg v Linden Lab et al.. Retrieved on 2006-12-28.
  13. ^ Marc Bragg v. Linden Research, Inc. and Philip Rosedale.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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