Linden Lab announced yesterday that Premium members would begin receiving a few new benefits, effective immediately, with more to come in the future.  (The original announcement can be read at the Big Blog.) First, Premium members would get the chance to claim exclusive virtual goods from vendors set up for the purpose.  The first package [...]

Mercy, today seems to be a big day for news.  New World Notes reports that the lovely animated globe map Hamlet Au saw while visiting Linden Lab’s offices back in June, a map that reports concurrency of users, is being worked on for availability to Residents.  Rod Humble mentioned this to Daniel Voyager, according to [...]

For those who have downloaded the latest update to LL’s Viewer 2, you’ll notice a change straight off.  Instead of the traditional photograph, rotating from view to view with each sign on, we are now given a menu of pictures, destinations and events to examine in a browser when we click on them. Do you [...]

The day after I got back in business with a new desktop — in fact, less than 12 hours after getting it hooked up and running — news came in of the earthquake and tsunami in Sendai and nearby regions of Japan.  I have at least two SL acquaintances in Japan, and I can only [...]

New World Notes published an article an hour ago that Resident profiles are available, at least in part, on the open Web through their site and a special secure address.  The new page, attributed to Daniel Voyager, comes direct from your in-world profile with very little difference in content.   Mine is below, for instance: You [...]

New World Notes: Linden Lab Announces New CEO: Electronic Arts Executive and Game Developer Rod Humble This is an interesting move on Linden Lab’s part, as well as one that may fan the flames on whether Second Life is a game world, a business tool, or an alternate universe for us to build and explore.  [...]

Instead, it appears that the eminent Mr. Ballmer in Redmond has purchased Vivaty, another virtual world.  Hamlet Au speculates that this might be the source of the rumors which shot through the Plitterverse (that’s both Twitter and Plurk) a few days ago that Microsoft was bidding for the purchase of Linden Lab. So, it appears [...]

So far, it’s just unconfirmed rumors.  But Daniel Voyager plurked today that Microsoft has made a bid for purchase of Linden Lab, with the rumor apparently being spread by Lab employees.  Tateru Nino is also writing this up as a rumor. If this becomes truth, how will this work out, becoming another component in Everyone’s [...]

We’ve had about a day to mull over the news that Mark Kingdon has been given the axe as CEO of Linden Lab, and that Philip Rosedale has resumed the direct control of his brainchild, at least for the interim.  (New World Notes article; Rosedale statement)  As of publishing time, a New World Notes open [...]

This discussion is based upon reports from Hamlet Au at New World Notes. ===== I haven’t touched the recent news from Linden Lab until now, mainly because I haven’t been sure what to think about the entire thing.  I’m still not sure yet, even after the passage of a week of time.  But it’s part [...]