Philip Linden: Hope you are all enjoying the new partner page...
Philip Linden: I got a proposal already...
Philip Linden: I won't say who from.
Philip Linden: It's nice to see you all here.
Philip Linden: So we'll do the usual format... with questions from Haney
Philip Linden: But FIRST
Philip Linden: I have a really fun announcement that I think you will all enjoy
Philip Linden: maybe not as much as custom animations.
Philip Linden: But you'll like it, I think.
Philip Linden: Tommorow morning,
Philip Linden: we will be announcing
Philip Linden: the closing of an eight million dollar round of new financing
Philip Linden: Our new investment is led by Benchmark Capital,
Philip Linden: who is pretty much the most important VC in the world.
Philip Linden: A guy from there named Bill Gurley is going to be joining our board.
Philip Linden: For those who don't keep up with ALL the linden news...
Philip Linden: our board of directors is Mitch Kapor, Jed Smith, myself, and now Bill
Philip Linden: Another really cool part of this new investment,
Philip Linden: is that some of the money is coming personally from Pierre Omidyar,
Philip Linden: the founder of eBay.
Philip Linden: Pierre is one of us... an SL user...
Philip Linden: that is how I met him.
Philip Linden: So it is really special to have had Pierre want to invest as well.
Philip Linden: For those who have read the history of eBay... a really cool company,
Philip Linden: that started out with a lot of the same principles as SL...
Philip Linden: that the community would be running the show, and that the role of the company
Philip Linden: was to listen and amplify and focus that energy.
Philip Linden: Clearly if you look at eBay today...
Philip Linden: the idea of lots of crazy people running their own little stores...
Philip Linden: well that turned out to be a pretty big idea after all!
Philip Linden: So this is very very exciting.
Philip Linden: In terms of what we will use the money for...
Philip Linden: our focus will be what it has always been...
Philip Linden: fix the bugs, scale the system, and make SL into the thing we all dream about
Philip Linden: we will be able to hire more people, buy more equipment, and move more quickly than before
Philip Linden: If you think we were able to move fast so far... just wait.
Philip Linden: This is a really big investment for us,
Philip Linden: and we think we will be able to do a LOT with it.
Philip Linden: Just for fun...
Philip Linden: you will see some new servers coming online in the morning as a sort of celebration gift to us all.
Philip Linden: I'll leave the details until then.
Philip Linden: So let's get to the questions... happy to answer anything about this new investment for you.
Philip Linden: I forgot...
Philip Linden: I'm going to get our new board member Bill in-world for a Q&A,
Philip Linden: perhaps at the next town hall.
Philip Linden: He is an incredibly cool guy who totally gets what SL is all about,
Philip Linden: and knew a ton about us and the community before I even met him.
Philip Linden: You'll enjoy meeting him.
Philip Linden: OK... questions.
You: Ice Brodie: Will the investment affect how SL is run?
Philip Linden: No.
Philip Linden: SL will be run exactly as it has been...
Philip Linden: perhaps just moving even faster to make progress.
You: Mr Fairplay: Question from the Second Life Herald: Are those new servers released tomorrow going to be released in a control fashion in order to preserve the SL Real Estate market's stability?
Philip Linden: Yes, actually they will not be up for auction... you will see.
Philip Linden: So no worries there.
You: Mr Fairplay: Question from the Second Life Herald: Considering the last Town Hall discussion fiasco when the possibility of allowing minors in SL was raised by Philip. Is this possibility still under consideration?
Philip Linden: We have no plans to allow minors in SL.
Philip Linden: We would like some way for kids to use SL, but I don't think that means giving access to the main grid.
You: Catherine Cotton: Doesn't this new investment just turn SL into a 3D Ebay then? A sea of stores and malls, and clubs for the socializaion of ppl. is that the intention of SL?
Philip Linden: I don't think that SL and eBay are comparable at the level of commerce, no.
Philip Linden: I think they are most comparable at the level of community and entrepreneurship.
Philip Linden: So I don't think that SL should be selling stuff like eBay does, no.
You: Oz Spade: The announcement of big VC kinda worries me, mainly because of this question, will they have a greater influence on the development on SL and what goes into it than the community because they put up alot of money? Simular situations happened with AW.
Philip Linden: Well we have a bunch of big investors, and Benchmark will be one of those.
Philip Linden: It does not mean that they will control what we do.
Philip Linden: Mitch and our other big investors all participated in this round,
Philip Linden: and Benchmark is not a company that pushes it's entrepreneurs in the wrong direction.
Philip Linden: So I don't think this is comparable to something like AW at all.
Philip Linden: We weren't even actively looking for investment...
Philip Linden: I met with Bill and was blown away by his knowledge and interest in what we were doing.
You: James Dayton: So the line is that this is keep-doing-what-your-doing money, not "directional" money...
Philip Linden: Absolutely....
Philip Linden: this is a new investor who is incredibly excited by our direction and wants us to keep carefully growing the community,
Philip Linden: and see this become a world changing thing.
You: Clio Anansi: Will we see SL plots for sale on eBay?
Philip Linden: Hmm.... I suppose that would be a bit easier with the relationship afforded by the investment,
Philip Linden: but I wouldn't do it if it didn't make sense to SL.
Philip Linden: I'd be interested (in forums perhaps) to see what others would like there.
Philip Linden: I think our auctions work pretty well now.
You: Dakota Bukowski: Question..Does this nee partnership means we will be getting Voice very soon in SL.
Philip Linden: This will help us add features, yes, although near term we will focus on stability,
Philip Linden: as I've talked about,.
Philip Linden: The choice on voice is still an interesting tech and design problem.
Philip Linden: We are still thinking about what is the best thing to do.
You: Salazar Jack: How many new employees do you anticipate hiring in the near future?
Philip Linden: Off the top of my head I don't have an exact number...
Philip Linden: but we will grow as quickly as we can do in a smart way.
Philip Linden: right now there are several openings, and I'd say we will probably end up
Philip Linden: hiring a couple people a month.
You: Scarlett Fonzarelli: there is some concern amongst some of us that there will be taxes now...is this a possibility?
Philip Linden: Well in a sense we have land taxes today... we've always felt that small taxes on different things was a fair way to do things.
Philip Linden: But no, we don't have near term plans to change things.
Philip Linden: I want to add something that Haney mentioned...
Philip Linden: as to the sims tommorow...
Philip Linden: they will be additional void (water) and sandbox sims
Philip Linden: so there will not be a land rush.
Philip Linden: Don't want folks to get ready on the border for no reason
You: Bran Brodie: I thought that bugs were the only priority, now we hear about new servers.
Philip Linden: new servers and bug fixes are not related to each other.
Philip Linden: it does not cost development time to add machines to our grid.
You: Ahroun Maelstrom: Does this investment mean that we might see some more intense development of LSL? As a scriptor, I'm aware that many script writers feel there is a need for other vital functions to fully flesh out LSL
You: Drift Monde: With all the new found money will Havoc2 be in our Xmas Stockings?
Philip Linden: We will continue to add features to LSL as quickly as we can.
Philip Linden: Given the thousands of programmers we have,
Philip Linden: I doubt that will be fast enough!
Philip Linden: But we will try.
You: Brace Coral: With this new collaboration with Ebay - are we going to now see some more viable ways to advertize/promote for buy/sell interests ingame?
Philip Linden: Let me correct that question...
Philip Linden: we are not collaborating with EBay...
Philip Linden: the Founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar,
Philip Linden: is investing through his personal investment group,
Philip Linden: called the Omidyar Network....
Philip Linden: check out their web and other info...
Philip Linden: you will really enjoy it...
Philip Linden: they are interested in investing in technologies that bring about social change.
Philip Linden: So this is not a collaboration with eBay, but with Pierre.
You: Donnie Donovan: Are there plans to use funds for large scale advertising to bring more people into the community?
Philip Linden: SL is an organic phenomena at this stage (I think)
Philip Linden: most of our growth is word of mouth.
Philip Linden: we will (and have been) increasing our marketing,
Philip Linden: but our primary focus is simply giving you the tools and features and stability you need...
Philip Linden: we think that drives our success the most at this stage. Benchmark shares this view 1000%
You: hybridmachine Klein: Is investment in SL a matter of acceleration growth, or a matter of survival. IE does SL make enough to live on its own?
Philip Linden: SL is making pretty solid money today... so this was by no means something we had to do.
Philip Linden: We were excited by how deeply Benchmark/Bill had thought about the market, and happy to bring them in as an investor.
You: Andreyl Satyr: Does LL have any intent to allow investors corporate advertisement into SL?
Philip Linden: Not at present.
Philip Linden: I think the policy we've had... we don't get very involved... has been the right one.
Philip Linden: If Coke wants to buy an acre of land and advertise products,
Philip Linden: I'll be fascinated to see how the community will respond.
Philip Linden: But we have no plans to sell advertising in some global fashion.
Philip Linden: I think the community has to set its own policies here... and we will watch and listen.
You: Maxx Monde: Is there any concern that auctions are typically dominated by a small number of players who subsequently markup land to funnel to the SL population at large? Is this the kind of market dynamic we're supposed to be supporting?
Philip Linden: I think that long term, years from now,
Philip Linden: the role of LL should not be to make and sell little parcels of land directly to users.
Philip Linden: So I think it would be cool if the community could buy larger blocks and develop them in some way.
Philip Linden: But that is something that clearly isn't here yet...
Philip Linden: So we are open to suggestions and thoughts.
Philip Linden: I haven't looked at the markup between auctions and in-world,
Philip Linden: but last I looked it was very very small.
You: Michi Lumin: Do you see the LL administration becoming less accessible and more impersonal after this VC infusion, due to expansion of both world and staff?
Philip Linden: No, to the contrary... If we can have a few more people we will probably be more personable!
Philip Linden: No changes in policy at all.
You: Cory Bauhaus: Philip said "the community has to set its own policies here..." - how much control do residents really have to set policies for the community?
Philip Linden: Well this is a big topic... let me expound a bit.
Philip Linden: I am here in NYC right now...
Philip Linden: getting ready to speak at the State of Play conference tommorow.
Philip Linden: The subject of the conference is democracy and law in virtual worlds.
Philip Linden: And so I have been thinking about this.
Philip Linden: I'll write more in my blog about this...
Philip Linden: but I think that simply allowing freedom of speech, assembly, and the sort of things that SL is filled with,
Philip Linden: means that we HAVE to listen to you. regardless of whether we technically can choose not to.
Philip Linden: This is a subtle point, and one I will be talking about tommorow.
Philip Linden: But I believe it is quite true.
Philip Linden: Our course has been to listen and allow,
Philip Linden: and therefore our course must also be to act.?
Philip Linden: So yes, we will listen to the community and make changes...
Philip Linden: if we do not, we will fail as a company. I am quite sure of that.
Philip Linden: BTW Catherine pointed out that Omidyar has involvement with Creative commons...
Philip Linden: yes i believe they do... and also some other really cool stuff.
Philip Linden: I'll try to post to blog about that.
You: Yoshi Platini: Will you be investing in server upgrades to bring all sims to a uniform performance level?
Philip Linden: Currently all the sims are very similar hardware in terms of performance.
Philip Linden: The differences are in the content.
Philip Linden: We will keep building tools to better balance and debug content, yes.
Philip Linden: But we don't need new servers.
You: Beatfox Xevious: Will there be an increased focus on developing features that will appeal to action-style gamers? Many people here feel that this is an as-of-yet untapped potential customer base.
Philip Linden: I think that making SL work for fast gaming is very important, yes.
Philip Linden: It has always been high priority, but as I said everything should move a bit faster.
You: Spider Mandala: the question is... with 8 million dollars, thats surely not a passing interest, they have no opinions on what happens in SL at all?
Philip Linden: Of course they have opinions, and we are very excited to hear them else we wouldn't have gotten involved.
Philip Linden: But, like our other investors, this is not a controlling interest.
Philip Linden: We are not selling the company.
You: cua Curie: Now that unexpected investment interest has been shown will LL be looking for further investment partners in a more accelerated fashion? Do you have a limit on how many members you will be adding to the board?
Philip Linden: We will not need additional investment for some time if at all,
Philip Linden: so no there are no plans to seek additional investors.
You: Zarah Dawn: is there any chance that we will see Sims that are totally residental... to alleviate some of the lag problems that are created by huge clubs put up next to residences ?
Philip Linden: I think that we are already seeing big residential projects like Lusk...
Philip Linden: and Slate.
Philip Linden: Whether we need to accelerate that by adding some sort of global zoning is an open question.
You: Khamon Fate: will these new partherships shorten the time before ll is able to license sl server software?
Philip Linden: I think that this will give us more speed with all development.
Philip Linden: I'm not sure what will happen with specific stuff... we will just have a LOT more firepower.
You: Lordfly Digeridoo: question: can SL users "invest" in SL too? /me wants a few shares...
Philip Linden: I think that would be very cool, but the SEC does not
Philip Linden: the law says that to invest you need to have a lot of money,
Philip Linden: and that when you have a lot of investors you need to become a public company.
Philip Linden: OK this christmas hat thing is really strange.
You: Schwanson Schlegel: What is your prediction as to the size of the player base over the next year?
Philip Linden: Well you know what they say about predictions.
Philip Linden: But I think we can continue to grow quickly...
Philip Linden: I just want the growth to be compounded and steady...
Philip Linden: showing that word of mouth is working and everyone is happy.
Philip Linden: Whether that means 2X or 5X growth, I am less concerned. We will see.
You: Lisse Livingston: Q: Any plans for the Find/Places list to be replaced with something more like Yellow Pages?
Philip Linden: I'd like to see a more general sort of listing system, yes!
Philip Linden: We are thinking and working on that.
Philip Linden: Agree we need more... especially objects, for example...
Philip Linden: how do you find a specific object today... you can't!