When Linden Lab announced that Philip Rosedale would be stepping down as CEO, they painted an optimistic parting -- the founding visionary now stepping aside to make room for someone with more business experience. Rumors have abounded that Linden may even be set for an IPO.
Worlds in Motion spoke to Multiverse founder Corey Bridges on the heels of the announcement, and though he notes he has no inside information, Bridges sees the Rosedale departure somewhat differently. "Certainly Second Life has, in many ways, plateaued in some of their more important metrics and they're still not revealing a lot of the really key data on user behavior," he told us.
Added Bridges, "I think the fact that they had to push Cory out and then Philip is being excused from the CEO spot... I think that's because the investors have got their eye on their investment and are making hard choices that investors generally do. It's a very common thing for founding staff to be pushed out of the way when things get rocky."
Moreover, Bridges feels the idea of a Linden Lab IPO might be a paper tiger: "They can't go public," he states. "I think they would have difficulty if they tried to go public, because they would have to disclose a lot of the real numbers. They have a huge abandonment rate."
In other words, in Bridges' opinion, Rosedale's resignation is "an acknowledgment that [Second Life] is not suitable for mainstream users and corporate customers -- neither the culture within Second Life, nor the tech underpinning it, is suitable for either."
Bridges also reflected with us on the progression of the Second Life juggernaut. "On the subject of Philip himself, he's a creative, charismatic guy who has done a lot of good for the virtual worlds industry -- as sort of nascent as the virtual worlds industry is," he said.
Continues Bridges, "I think with Second Life, he and Cory Ondrejka built something that got a lot of attention. It didn't ever quite go mainstream, but certainly it got a lot of companies -- big consumer brands, enterprise companies, to sort of examine this new phenomenon of virtual worlds, and got them to dip their toe in the water, which has been great. To some degree, I guess -- to mix water metaphors -- 'the rising tide lifts all boats,' and that's been true for the past couple years."
"That turned a corner last year, however, as the sort of completely wild, inappropriate expectations got way too far past what that particular world could actually deliver," notes Bridges. "What a lot of these big companies have found is that yeah, this is a useful new medium, or at least a method to engage with folks. But then, after they got that experience, they said, 'OK, what we really need is to build a virtual space where we have more control, where there are no flying penises, where our brand is not underneath somebody else's brand.'"
Bridges says Second Life was never built to be a virtual worlds platform -- notably, Multiverse provides one such platform in The Multiverse Network for online worlds. He says that what he sees as a new understanding on the part of companies working in virtual spaces benefits companies like his who now realize that "the industry is bigger than a single destination."
"I do honestly sincerely think we all owe Philip a thank you for bringing attention to the industry. Now it's just time for the real technology to step in," Bridges says.
Comments (7)
Wow. Talk about a self-serving attempt to capitalize on the Linden Lab shake-up. Bridges did this a few months ago when Cory Ondrejka stepped down, and he escalated his rhetoric in this most recent piece.
Bridges criticizes Linden Lab's numbers, but does not share any of his own data for Multiverse. How many users have found community and accessible tools for content creation on the Multiverse platform?
Even when one takes exaggerated population figures into account, more than 600,000 people have logged on to Second Life during the past month. The concurrency rates continue to grow logarithmically, as do all key indicators.
Cory's criticisms about instability and inappropriate content are the same arguments that people once made about the world-wide web.
Could we please put an end to the "We built Netscape and now we're going to do the same thing for virtual worlds" mantra constantly peddled by the Multiverse team?
In the pitched battle to determine the platform standards for the virtual world industry, Second Life may not emerge the winner. It might be Croquet, or perhaps something that emerges from the open source initiatives to extend the SL tools on both the client and server side. Nobody knows which technology will win, but I can promise you one thing: It is *not* going to be Multiverse.
Posted by Snakeoil and Vaporware | March 17, 2008 4:56 PM
Posted on March 17, 2008 16:56
Second Life's user retention is a little below MMORPGs like WoW, but it's not particularly low. Most companies simply don't publish any kind of retention data, so you can't see their stats. And if 60K concurrent users and 1M active residents aren't mainstream, what is Multiverse? Nonexistent? Multiverse has no abandonment rate because it has no users.
Bridges hasn't had to hire a CEO to manage a large company, because there's nothing there for a CEO to manage.
This is just a fourth-rater with some vaporware in the VW space trash-talking one of the dominant companies. It's childish and stupid on his part, and it's irresponsible journalism to give his bitter blog-rantings any "air time".
Posted by Kami Harbinger | March 17, 2008 5:02 PM
Posted on March 17, 2008 17:02
I think Corey's angling for the Linden CEO position? what do you think?
Posted by chris sherman | March 17, 2008 5:35 PM
Posted on March 17, 2008 17:35
Thanks for posting this. I've had strong reservations about most of Linden's implementation of Second Life. Having gone down the same path years ago working on the Adobe Atmosphere project, it's a bit saddening watching them go through all the same realizations we did.
If anyone's interested, I've posted my own off-the-cuff suggestions for what SL or any other emerging world builder might consider as a modern foundation of immersive worlds.
http://www.urbeingrecorded.com/news/?p=110
Posted by chris | March 19, 2008 8:59 PM
Posted on March 19, 2008 20:59
Corey Bridges is attention-starved and psychologically manipulative. It's easy to see he's doing this to get more attention for himself, so please don't fall for it. Flat outright, he needs to eat some watermelons.
Just know: Philip has grace and style, and isn't one to bash our competitors. Good to learn from what's out there, no need to trash talk.
I do honestly sincerely think we all owe Corey a thank you for showing what a jerk he is compared to the humility and niceness of Philip. :)
Posted by Guess who buggaboo | March 20, 2008 3:37 PM
Posted on March 20, 2008 15:37
Wow, is this how SL users react to being criticized? No wonder the platform fails to make any relevant advances whatsoever.
Posted by Anonymous | March 21, 2008 12:19 PM
Posted on March 21, 2008 12:19
The most recent anonymous poster says "Is this how SL users react to being criticized? No wonder the platform fails to make an relevant advances whatsoever."
What makes you so sure that the people posting here are necessarily Second Life users? Many of them seem quite willing to concede the platform's limitations and several mention the likelihood that something else will emerge to take its place.
Really, these comments struck me as relatively substantive rebuttals of the self-serving, vulture-like behavior of the Multiverse CEO.
Posted by Anonymous | March 25, 2008 3:20 PM
Posted on March 25, 2008 15:20