Linden Lab Names David Fleck Vice President of Marketing

Here is the press release.

Sounds like good news

BLADE RUNNER, I salute you!

Congrats... this must be DAVID LINDEN.

Yes it sounds good.

I hope the "developer relations program" is more than the current dwell awards

While conclusions are no more than conjecture, this is very interesting.

Rather than hiring a marketing head with pure consumer credbility (a la Meg Whitman from Hasbro into eBay), they have hired someone who has worked to convert developers to a mobile platform. (He also has enterprise sw experience... LL is probably striking while the iron is hot getting Macromedia talent in the wake of the Adobe deal)


Blaze, I wonder if this speaks to your questions about whether LL is appropriately focused on higher-powered entertainment and in-game killer apps, no?

There is no question that before LL needs anyone who can really market them to the masses, SL needs to have a stronger technical platform and richer entertainment content.


so... welcome to our wonderful and cantankerous community David!

Isn't robin the VP of marketing now?

This is old news of two weeks ago and has been up on the website for like ever. Or at least talked about as coming, I heard it two weeks ago. It made me put a lot of things Robin said in context.



Hate to rock your world LF. But what is she VP of now...?

Are they going to have someone in charge of liaison with land groups in SL?

"As a platform for 3D content creators, Second Life depends on great developers and great developer programs," said Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab. "David's extensive experiences in developer relations and marketing are a perfect fit to lead new initiatives that will bring many more dynamic content creators to our rapidly expanding digital world."

Senior Vice President, Community and Support

I'm guessing liaisons, conceierge etc

Um...more content creators? And what about land rights?

You need to stick stuff on your land...

you don't need someone in charge of land rights... you need a good design spec and the product managers and VP of Engineering to build it into the product and get us better tools. They don't need someone in charge of in-world business structures either, which is my own hot button -- they just need to put their design caps on and give SL members better tools.

Content creators and the developer community, however, are different. It makes sense to have someone who is charge of their recruitment, outreach and management.

Whew. For a moment there I thought we had lost Robin. I cannot imagine SL without Robin.

Music to my ears.

looks like in this phase of sl, more support of classes on how to make more content would be very fruitful.

at the moment there are two classes, and one of them is tringo...

Guess LL is more fun than Adobe

Somehow I don't think that LL will be putting a lot of energy toward training amateurs to produce content in SL. I suspect that the content developers they will be going after are the ones who are working professionally on other games and in other digital media.

Hey Forseti, you're right.. this guy doesn't come from a gaming background ala Robin.

When I read it a couple of weeks ago, I thought it was a huge mistake. Robin seemed like a very talented person and to make that kind of core change so early on in the life of a startup is rarely a good idea.

However, I hadn't even considered that this is a shift in focus away from entertainment and into general content. The jury is out if this guy is any good, but that could be a positive sign. I wonder how much of this was Philip's decision and how much this was Benchmark/Board talking.

Anyways, I guess another good thing about this is that we get more of Robin's attention, which seems to be the most important thing in 'developer relations' to me.

So far that is leading in very productive directions.

Not sure what this fleck guy is going to do. Conjure developers out of thin air? Buy ad space on BoingBoing? I haven't seen anything yet that seems valuable to me, but who knows. Everyone should get a chance to prove themselves.

At the very least, I guess, he'll probably be less FIC by the sheer fact he wasn't around in the 'good ol' days'. Unless he already was FIC..

Yup, More Content Creators and Less Talentless Hacks that become Land Barrons=Better SL.


IMHO.

LMAO is this situation where Less=More?



Prokofy,If you take that as a personal attack thats your own problem as I am generalizing as a whole. Just wanted to be sure to clear that up before you went on a 5 page discertation of how I was attacking you.


Shadow

Well, less techi-wiki would definitely mean more.

Hopefully the brand of developers Fleck brings on are interested in solving real user problems.

actually blaze, i took a slightly different spin on it (or maybe i'm misreading you). He's not here to manage a developer community that works on the SL engine -- we're not open source yet lol -- he's here to encourage developers who will create rich content within the SL environment.

Rich content will take more than good textures and builds lol... it will need advanced scripting... of course he'll have to be patient just like rest of us, including in-world developers who currently chafe under the limitations of LSL, since the tools need to evolve further...

I'm glad that Robin might be paying more attention to customer relations, writ large, with competing groups in the game.


Any really big and seroius developer who wants to put in rich content (and we're thinking this isn't the McDonald's stand and the Coke drinks or the IMacs in TSO, but something less obvoius) is going to run smack up against the problems of the tekkiwiki culture. I was just realizing this as I pondered the problem of telehub-hatred, tree-hugging, and new gated residential communities.

What a McDonald's or a Coke or a Shell needs are customers -- the masses. But the tekkistas mitigate against the creation of a mass because they hate mass culture and are in a position to constantly pull the plug on it (with events crippling, Tringo, stipends, etc.) Of course, Shell could only use it for high-end kewl-looking exec training, just a perk to ad on to the weekend in Vegas with the strippers and Wayne Newton.

But if they want to place products, they need customers, and that means they need all the things that attract masses which range from sexay avatars to nesting and decorating houses -- all stuff that the FIC tend to be cynical about even as they in part cater to it with their in-world vendors. A Coke or a Shell isn't going to be able to afford to be as nasty and cynical to their customers as these high-end boutiquers.

They'll have to welcome malls, Tringo, sex, telehubs, and the open mainland grid -- Purina. That is how they'll get rapid market distribution. They can't just sell in closed gated communities. This is going to be the stumper for big companies, how to jump over that closed, medieval guild system to a more modern economic space of the free flow of goods and services as well as consumer information.

Or..they could just come in and build and sell things people want....

Yes, I wasn't refering to the engine so much as hopefully he's going to bring in developers who want to use LSL / prim editting to build things like online education, workgroup collaboration tools, that sort of thing.

Perhaps a little clarification...

I've spent the last 3 years both working to build the Second Life brand (name and logo, PR, online ads, website, etc.) and collaborating with the rest of the team on policy and design questions that have shaped the SL experience. As SL has grown, it's become apparent that the job of acquiring new residents and the job of supporting current residents is huge. I've opted to continue to work with the existing community while David takes on the outbound marketing job.

What this means from a practical standpoint is that he will take responsiblity for PR, ads, and other traditional means of letting people know about SL. His background also makes him well-suited to work with content creators who are interested in working with us to reach out to new residents. Such a program might include the co-op ad program that I started with Catherine (SLAP). It could also take the form of lobbying development for tools that would help content creators be more effective.

I will continue to be responsible for support (CSRs, abuse management) and community development. In my view community development means finding ways to give residents a voice and a role in shaping SL: supporting volunteer groups such as Live Help, Mentors, and Greeters, improving communication and education, taking on the thorny issues of governance and reputation ratings, events and so on. In addition to support, the liaisons and community team (Pathfinder, Uncle, Jeska and Jesse) report in to me.

As always, please feel free to IM or email me if you still have questions.