Announcing the $10,000 (USD) Linden Prize

I am very excited to announce the inaugural Linden Prize.

The Linden Prize will award one Second Life Resident or team with $10,000 USD, paid in Lindens, for an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world. The award is intended to align with Linden Lab’s company mission--to connect all people to an online world that advances the human condition.

Since the very beginning, Residents have recognized the potential for their work in the virtual world to have significant value that extends into the real world. Second Life Residents have developed virtual philanthropy and medical research, innovated and explored new business opportunities, and educated others using the virtual world to create experiences that teach complex topics with revolutionary simulations.

We know so many projects inside of Second Life have already enhanced and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and we want to recognize those accomplishments.

We invite all Residents to consider applying for the award. A panel of judges will choose finalists, and ultimately a winner, based on the following criteria:

* Work in Second Life that also achieves tangible, compelling results outside of Second Life.

* Distinctive, original work using Second Life that clearly demonstrates high quality, execution, function, aesthetics and technical sophistication.

* Work that has the capacity for inspiring and influencing future development, knowledge, creativity, and collaboration both inside and outside of Second Life.

Key Dates

* Applications open today.
* Applications close January 15, 2009
* Finalists and the Winner announced no later than April 30, 2009

The Linden Prize site contains details on eligibility, requirements, the application form, and an FAQ, so please use that site as a reference. Everett Linden will be available to answer questions in the forum. We're extremely excited about this award and the opportunity to support your tremendous accomplishments.

Thank you,
Robin Linden

Linden Prize Web Site http://lindenlab.com/lindenprize
Linden Prize FAQ http://lindenlab.com/lindenprize/faq

Everett will be here to read and respond.

Great discussion!

"for an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives *outside* of the virtual world."

Surely you should be promoting how to communicate inside the virtual world?

Or is that a stupid thing to suggest to LL?

Edit: Actually I guess it would be more correct to say '…in their daily lives inside and outside of the virtual world'.

Hey everyone! I'll be attending this forum and replying to questions 10-10.30am PST, 2-3pm PST. I will try to reply to questions intermittently the rest of the day and evening.

Tomorrow, answering questions from 9-10am PST.

The FAQ answered my question, but the FAQ also says applications close Jan 2008.

thanks--it says 2009 everywhere except the FAQ. thanks for the catch!!

click. done. 2009. thanks!

Ooh! A very important announcement!

Is it ok to be realistic now?

Because SL won't survive that much longer in 2009 due to lack of support in Second Life's Marketing ground.

Placing a deadline on January and then announce it on April? Why 4 months?
Are you hoping people would forget and then maybe use their ideas into your profit for Second Life and Linden Lab alone?

Did M Linden and Philip Linden ran out of ideas?

Of course, I may be asking "Prokofy Neva" type of questions, but can we be realistic and serious for now?

Why award it in Linden$? Whoever may win would just exchange it for USD... but that would take a long while to process it because of your LindeX rate limit. By the time it's over, the value of Linden$ would drop dramatically. Thus, making that 10,000 USD much less than it should be.

Focus on the marketing ground, otherwise it's just a waste of time.

Define "Account in good standing" please?

Thanx for giving content creators the chance to be recognised, and vincent, it often makes me wonder why you are still here, everywere i go i see only negative comments regarding anything anyone does in our virtual world.

We're talking about less than a US$40 prize. Why would you expect someone to bother taking such a small prize out of world? The real prize here is the recognition, not the money.

Is this a different prize to the one about improving the human condition?

That's the one.

From the Linden Prize site:

"...This annual award is intended to align with Linden Lab’s company mission, which is *to connect all people to an online world that advances the human condition.* Many projects inside of Second Life have already enhanced and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and the company wants to recognize the users’ accomplishments...."

Are contestants expected to be available for press releases/interviews? If so, I assume that revealing RL identities would be at the discretion of the contestant?

I imagine LL will hear of many press-worthy projects, even though there is only one winner. In fact, I would think that a film featuring a selection of the projects would be a very nice thing for LL to have. Will there be any sort of cash award for all projects selected for LL promotional material, even though there is only one overall winner?
.

Excellent.

More like this, please.

The Annenberg Public Good prize really worked out well, and now Lindens want in on the action. I say yay!

Payment in L$ is kind of funny, but also good in so many different ways.

This also amuses me because it makes it clear that the SL economy generally does not reward the development of projects that make life better for everyone. If you can make sex beds or neko ears, you can succeed in SL economy, but you're probably not going to be able to document a public good in the real world.

Annenberg Public Good: http://networkculture.usc.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35

Ok so this is the prize Mitch Kapor talked about during his keynote speech. Nice to see some clarity on what is being looked for but you could have mentioned it in the initial blog We haven't all got Goldfish memories!

That's what dwell and the reputation bonus were supposed to be for, but they never bothered making sure all the internal feedback loops were negative, nor did they listen to suggestions for removing the positive feedback loops that made them so easily gameable.

They're only allowed to do one thing at a time? Should the coders stop coding too, and man the phones? Honestly, this is getting stupid.

Feel free to move all this offtopic BS somewhere else.

Not to be picky but.. 10,000L is like $40.00 USD (give or take). I mean you guys were giving away macs to people who were contributing patches to the viewer, why are you being so skimpy on what seems to be an infinitely more important issue?

Off Topic.

It's USD$10,000 worth of Linden Dollars, not L$10,000.

So will Linden Labs be buying this prize back? Or if they are cashed out, will the residents be buying them? If it is the last, then LL isn't doing much of anything here. Other than making some money on currency transfers.

No... it's a prize of US$10,000, paid in L$. At current exchange rates, a bit over 2.6 million L$.

As somebody pointed out, it would take a while for most residents to cash out that much money, as it would exceed their currency trading limit. Though perhaps LL would expedite a currency limit change for the winner...