Will Second Life get bought?

An interesting article appeared in Businessweek which some of you may have seen. Apparently, SL is going to have growing competition in the near future. The article criticizes SL for not having a more user friendly interface and apparently worlds like Weblo are taking advantage of this perceived weakness by designing its own interface and using the SL model of owning virtual property.

It also speculated upon the possibility that bigger fish may come like Google or Microsoft and gobble up SL or create competing worlds. eeek! Could SL compete with a virtual world created by Google? This makes me nervous.

What do you all think?

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2007/tc20070522_380944.htm

Easier VR will just be training wheels for SL.
Easy = easily bored with

I don't see LL selling.

They have no direct competition now, so they are better off selling sooner rather than later.

I for one, welcome our new corporate overlords and hope they can provide solutions to all the performance issues and a decent customer service department that responds in a timely manner.

I will miss all the mature content however. But Mr. Disney no likey orgies.

Be careful of what you wish for....

Competition is good

If some other Virtual World offers some people what they need - they can go there.

Secondlife will still snowball along without them.

If Second Life becomes too Disney and Sanitized - Ill be one of the ones looking for another Virtual World to go to.

I enjoy Social Aspects of Secondlife - I dont want the Socialize in Virtual Disney world. Simple as that.

The SLirgins are welcome to that stuff tho.

Don't be nervous, competition is good, it leads to improvements in services and customer relations.


That is the important point to note. SL can’t be bought unless LL decides to sell. LL is a private company, therefore not at risk of a hostile takeover, as it would if it was listed. However those that have invested their millions of $ into LL and SL will, at some point, want a return.

Though Mr Disney likes it clean Mr Sony is not quite so discerning.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3b7eq5
(‘fraid your going to have to copy and past the link until they fix the BBcode)

Funny thing is, I thought SL's interface was already quite simple to figure out?

I hope everyone's using Disney as an example because in reality all of the Disney computer and video games I've seen (I have a little brother and sister, nieces and nephews...no really!) they're generally about 2-5 years behind the curve and pretty much make knockoffs.

Also considering Disney's current financial situation (they aren't doing too well last I heard) I don't think they'll be in the market for a virtual world company until it's a bit more commonplace.

I don't think LL will sell anytime soon, either. Their leadership is way too into being in a position of leadership to give that up!

Very simple.



And to the OP- Makes me kind of nervous too. I mean, on one hand i WANT someone to create a world like SL (where there is a real economy) just in hopes that they have good customer service and take care of their user base.

But on the other hand I wonder if it will mean more dividing of ppl and leave SL kind of baron. I guess that wont be the case, we`ll always have new ppl coming and going. But I guess as a content creator "am i going to lose a chunk of customers to another virtual world?" crosses my mind.

If anything arises comparible to SL, i`ll definitely head over and see what i can make of it. As long as they dont dish out BS like sl has done/does i`ll be ok. Wouldnt be able to handle 3 headache worlds

Certainly good points -- and I agree that competition might be the factor that gets LL to improve things and make it a better experience for everyone(not that its bad now--I'm addicted). If LL did decide to sell however, what is the possibility that the purchaser could decide to revamp the entire world, kick out the residents and reclaim their virtual property without compensation? "They"Google, Microsoft, Sony, take your pick) could then re-open SL with a different business model entirely. I concede, that seems very unlikely and would ruin the trust that virtual worlds are trying to build -- but there is nothing that could stop them from taking such action is there? I've been considering expanding my plot of land beyond my little beach, but am afraid to do so since I'm paranoid that some future corporate entity will take it away from me! Land costs real $$. I just wish I could own a piece of SL and feel the same way I do about owning a physical piece of property--like a computer or a TV.

LL will wait for SL to grow bigger (and more valuable) before considering a sale. But it will happen. Not a question of if, but when. SL's not ready to be sold yet.

I dont think they will get bought per say

firstly they are making the viewer open sourced -gave up rights already there
then they are making the sim stuff open sourced - another chunk of things being given up as far as rights go

what's left after that? the lindex system? their own servers which will with the advent of open sourced sim software suddenly become just another 3D hoster. They might sell that part but well I doubt it as its just going to be another hosting service.

So what they will have will be the lindex that is not being made open sourced. (yet)

Agreed, I haven't been here long. I'm aghast at the age verfication issue but I'd rather have SL with all it's flaws as it is now than some big corporation coming in. Maybe I'm just pessimistic but I feel our freedom of expression would suffer if a big corporation took over.

to this day i still dont understand how anyone finds the sl interface difficult
after playing numerous other online games this is by far the easiest to figure out
walk around usin arrow keys and just about everything else has buttons labeling it easy to find things to do

Second Life is just like First Life. There is no guarantee it will be here tomorrow, so plan wisely for the future but live every day like it might be your last.

A virtual world created by M$? Oh dear... there is not sufficient space for the jokes that come to mind.

Competition is always a good thing, but LL has a lot of time and R&D behind them. It would take a lot of money, corporate espionage, hard core talent, and some very courageous people to seriously compete.

For the record, every request I've had to LL for whatever reason has been addressed well. I've phoned, contacted in-world (when that service existed), e-mailed etc., and it's all been good.

Sure, I lost a bit of inventory the other day but the vendor was great and re-sent it.

Like life, stuff happens. I find it difficult to criticize something when there are very serious RL issues that we CAN do something about.

My couple of Lindens.

Personally, I don't worry about SL being bought ... more likely to go public, dontcha think? From LL's website:

"Key Investors:
• Kapor Enterprises
• Catamount Ventures
• Benchmark Capital
• Omidyar Network
Other notable individual investors including current/former executives from Apple
Bank of America and Goldman Sachs."

Heck, Mitch Kapor is the chairman of LL's board! These guys don't care what Business Week thinks! And they're not gonna be content with some relatively puny 500 M$ buyout. Since execs from Goldman Sachs are investors, we even know who will be handling LL's IPO!

(and Lucrezia I have 20 jokes about a M$ virtual world all ready to go ... start a contest!)

There is other virtual worlds out there that I have studied and observed in last 11 years but SL has features the others don't.
Even in more pg worlds there is mature situations happening its just not something out in the opening.
Even in Runescape the kids are behaving or misbehaving in ways there parents would find disturbing.

You are probably right. And I will not invest in it, because I think the monkeys they show on the home page when the grid is down would do a better job running a company. Of course, the IPO will be huge and I will miss out, like i did on Google.

heh yes We Blo is a virt world lol ..I think that comment says it all lol
not a company anyone would have to worry about LOL

I don't know if Linden Labs will sell, go public or go broke. My guess is that they will keep pushing their envelope for as long as they can before any thoughts to the contrary even enter their collective minds.........they could get lucky and stay on the forefront of virtual reality for quite some time (but not forever). Competition is coming....and coming fast that could also make it difficult for them to continue getting and maintaining investors. The problems LL has with scaling SL and their apparent lack of ergency with the unhappy residents are well known to other people developing the competition. I seriously doubt those competitors will repeat LL's mistakes and with that knowledge could come out of the blocks in a better position to get and maintain the finances to surpass SL in total "residents" in a realitively short period of time.

There are some very smart, talented, and dedicated people in this field........LL does not have a lock in that area. I see rocky times for LL and Second Life........and starting very soon.

Well actually, I should have said, since Goldman Sachs execs are investors, we know who WON'T be handling LL's IPO, lol!

*nadu to the SEC*

An interesting paragraph from said article.

However, SL doesn’t follow this model. Indeed through age/identity verification it would appear to be trying to be as far from this model as possible. Is that SL’s Unique Selling Point, being a platform for advertisers to get to tech savvy adults?

I don't forsee the "competition" ramping up to SL's level anytime soon. And as long as LL keeps working on making this product better, I don't forsee competitors catching up easily. Can happen - it just isn't easy. Virtual worlds are HARD to make.

Sony's product "Home" is nothing but a 3d Worldsaway - pretty but content controlled utterly by the corp - some of us already saw how well Fujitsu did with that model. Fell flat on its face. I think the same will happen again.

The rest are so bad as to not even worth bothering at this time.

And folks keep forgetting the founder of this thing - Philip Rosedale - has an emotional investment in this - I don't see him selling as long as he's at the helm.

I'd only worry about a buyout if he's not running things. I don't see Philip leaving anytime soon, so I don't worry about it. People may laugh about drinking the kool-aid, but that's about what it takes to persevere with this stuff. The amount of time and investment required for a product like SL is beyond the capacity for most short-sighted corporate execs to stick with.

Second Life already has competition from virtual worlds that are easier to use. THERE springs to mind immediately. One only need look at the number of Therian Refugees in Second Life to understand why, in my estimation, There is nothing more than a school for future Second Lifers. The poster who pointed out that Easier VR = training wheels for Second Life hit the nail on the head in my estimation.

Kam