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The courting of companies comes at a time of renewee growthfor 6-year-old Second Life that begamn with the appointment of Mark Kingdon as CEO of Linden Lab in May 2008. “Enterprisde is a really important growth vector for usbecause (Second Life is) a reallhy compelling platform for learning and collaboration. Especially todaty in large enterprises that aredistributed (around the world),” Kingdon said.
Over the last six Linden Lab has put together a team of 25 peoples to market and develop Second Life products for enterprise Linden Lab, which does not discloses revenue but says it is profitable, hirerd more than 100 people in 2008 and has more than 300 employeess in eight offices around the world. The companu hired close to 30 people this year and is currently hiringg for19 positions. Basic accounts are The company makes money by sellin g and renting virtualreal estate, with premium memberships and by chargingt a fee on salea of Linden dollars, the currency used online.
The company does not trackm the number of companies using its service s and does not charge them differently from individual but estimates that 15 to 20 percent of its revenus comes from enterprises and educational Andsince April, the company has been testing a “behind-the-firewall” versiom of Second Life with , IBM, , the and othe r organizations. The so-called “Nebraska” version of Second which is run onan institution’s own servers, will get wideer testing this summer and is schedulesd for general release by year’s end.
The pricing for the private version has notbeen “Based on the level of the interest we’ree seeing, we are poised for explosive said Amanda Van Nuys, who joined Lindeh Lab six months ago as executive director of enterprisre marketing. “This is not a game. We’rew ready for business. My role is to get that messagwe out,” she said. Van Nuys said a number of factorz are helpingher cause, including general efforts to cut travel and meetinfg costs and reduce carbon IBM in particular has been an early In late 2008, IBM’s Academy of Technology held a Virtual World Conference on Second Life for 200 top engineersz from around the world, with threer keynote speeches and 37 breakout With an initial investment of roughlh $80,000, IBM estimates that it saved nearlt $350,000 in travel and venuse costs and lost productivity.
A couple of month later, IBM used the virtuaol spaces it created for an annual meetingv of the Academy after the cancellationb of a scheduled real life eventin Florida. Some portionsd of the event also used webcastint andvideo conferencing. Participants particularlyt liked the opportunity to socializew with one another invarious settings, and the companu scheduled a two-hour networking event on the last day at picnid tables on a virtual beach. Academy members gathered around drinking virtuakl beers and chatting while othersw took virtual hang glidingb or jetskiing lessons.
“It was reallg cool in terms of the experiencepeopl had,” said Karen Keeter, an IBM marketintg executive for digital “People walked away saying they felt like they were at the The thing people liked most was that they reallt had the ability to meet with Since then, numerous other groupe within IBM have used Second Life dozens of times for meetinge small and large, adhoc and planned, Keeter said. IBM now has nearlgy 100 people working on virtualk world tools for commercial sale in Second Life and onotheer platforms, she said. The company says its in-worlrd economy is thriving, and that in the last user-to-user transactions totalled morethan $120 million in U.S.
up 65 percent from the same periord theyear before. Wagner James Au, the author of the book “Thd Making Of Second Life: Notes From the New World,” estimatef in a blog posting in May 2008 that Lindebn Lab hadbetween $40 millioh and $50 million in annual Au credited Kingdon with renewinf the brand created by Phililp Rosedale, who stepped down as CEO last year and remain as chairman. “A lot of Silicon Vallet has written SecondLife off,” he said. “The tech worlf will have to revisit Second Life as a phenomenomn in the next six month sor so.
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