My Ebbe Loved My Tweet

This is big enough to temporarily break the "no more blogging"-rule. Ebbe Altberg, a.k.a. Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab, the creators of our beloved SecondLife, today absolutely loved my tweet below. I am ecstatic!

@ebbealtberg (of @LindenLab) called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “#SecondLife Avatar of the Year,”, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!

— Bock McMillan™ (@BockMcMillan) November 25, 2017

A Message From Our Dear Ebbe

I hope you all got this wonderful email from our darling Ebbe Linden.

Ebbe Altberg, aka Ebbe Linden, sexy as hell in scruff

Dear Second Life Residents,

It’s been an exciting summer at Linden Lab. Second Life celebrated its 14th anniversary, and shortly thereafter we also opened Sansar's creator beta to the world. In addition, we are 

thrilled to announce a set of investments into Second Life and its communities that will include enhancements to our engineering support, customer support, billing systems and upgrades, and customer acquisition outreach. In all, we’ve budgeted many millions (USD, not L$...) in the coming year to make SL even better, and we’ll keep everyone up to date on improvements as they roll out (or sooner).

This summer’s milestones have given us all another opportunity to reflect on just how strong the Second Life community is, what an incredible history SL has had so far, and what an amazing future lies ahead for the virtual world and its Residents.

For more than 14 years, you’ve created memorable experiences, diverse communities, close relationships, thriving economies, engaging art, exciting events, and amazing creations of all kinds. You’ve made the world, and we’re proud to provide the platform and tools that help you to do so. We at Linden continue to be impressed by what we witness from Residents every day, and we want you to know that we share that commitment to and love for Second Life.

Here are a few of the things you can look forward to soon:

• We are hard at work upgrading all of the SL infrastructure and moving it to the cloud, which will bring a wealth of opportunities to Residents near and far, and allow us, among many other things, to make SL more performant for Residents across the world from us. It may also allow us to introduce new products with more flexible pricing. 
• We’re working on several features to increase the value of Premium subscriptions. Most recently we gave Premium members priority access to near-full events, and shortly, we’ll be ready to unveil another bit of exciting news for subscribers. 
• We're building out a series of great extensions to Windlight (code name: EEP!), which will give value, flexibility, and new marketability to land, and will make Windlight settings tradeable assets. 
• We have an extension to the animation system in the works (code name: Animesh) that will allow non-avatar objects to use more powerful and efficient skeletal animations the way avatars can today, and even more changes planned for creators and merchants later in the year. 
• We’ve also got new experiences and events coming. An exciting new grid-wide gaming experience is coming soon! The team can’t wait to share the details with you in just a few days. Also in the works for this fall is an updated Halloween Haunted Tour, with new spooktacular events to celebrate. Not to mention, we’re turning 15 next year - SL15B, baby! That’s an incredible milestone and we are looking forward to collaborating with you to produce an amazing celebration. 

Long live Second Life and long live the creative process in the amazing worlds that you've trail-blazed! Thank you for filling SL with your creations and communities all of these past 14+ years, and here’s to many, many more together.

Best,

Ebbe Linden, CEO & the Second Life Team

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Well, what can one say after that breathtaking declaration of love, other than "We love you right back, Ebbe baby, and the SecondLife Team too!💗💗💗"

I hope you all noticed the remark about "amazing creations of all kinds", which we all know must certainly include my fashion-forward and spectacular "The Jester's Hat"! Nothing else comes to mind really so it must be Linden-lingo for Bock's creation.

It is also good to know that the Lab is going to keep on investing in, working with and improving SecondLife despite the doomsday prophets who for a long time have been crowing about how the Lab will lose all interest in SecondLife once Sansar is launched.

Goodbye Rodvik!

Yesterday the part of the metaverse which focuses on SecondLife exploded with the news that Rod Humble, formerly known also known as Rodvik Linden, is no longer CEO of Linden Lab (The Makers of SecondLife).

This change first became known through a private message Rod sent to blogger Jo Yardley (Jo Yardley's Second Life (url)) on Facebook yesterday, where he informed her that he had "left Linden Lab last week". A short while later he posted the following message on his timeline on Facebook.

My first reaction to this rather surprising news was to check Linden Lab's (url) webpage, and sure enough, Rod Humble was no longer listed as one of the company's management.

It seemed rather amateurish to me that no official announcement about the change had been made - and still hasn't, but then I remembered that no announcement has ever been made by the company concerning my Philip - to some of you better known as Philip Rosedale - stepping down as Chairman of the Board. Linden Lab seems to really need someone with skills in communication.

However, I would like to thank Rod for all the improvements that have been made during his three years as CEO and  like my darling Sergeant of Arms sirhc DeSantis in a comment concerning the news on New World Notes (url) I say "Best of luck to (you Rod). Now...who wants to step up to be vilified next (because we are so supportive are we not =^^= )"

What Has Happened To My Philip?

I came across this yesterday, but could not believe my eyes - so I thought I had better sleep on it and come back for another look today.

This snippet is from http://lindenlab.com/about on Linden Lab's webpage.

My wonderful Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab and my and your creator, (in-world a.k.a. Philip Linden) is nowhere to be found in the listings of the management or the board of Linden Lab.

Philip was the only person in the management or on the board that I felt some personal trust for when it comes to keep the original vision alive.

Did my beloved Philip leave? If so when and for what reason? Why has no one bothered to inform me? What will his removal from the board mean for the residents of SecondLife? And what is my Philip doing now?

Or is this old news to most of you, that I have missed foe some reason or other?