Death Watch for Second Life

[Ellen Nosal (SL: Ellen Starostin)]

My professer found and article write in the Uk about the Second Life Death Watch. Here is the link.

http://tinyurl.com/ck3jpf

Would really like to hear back from folks on their thoughts about this. Please comment or email me.

[Ross]

I am not sure if Linden Lab needs corporate presence to be profitable - if they do, then they are certainly in trouble (and so are educators, who could ill afford to keep the innovation going). But I think the real impact of the corporate dollars was the unparalleled marketing it gave TO Second Life. The population exploded, people signed up for paid accounts in droves, and the in-world economy boomed. Those aspects remain. World of Warcraft is wickedly profitable and, to my knowledge, there are not any armor stores being sponsored by Axe Body Spray - or healing depots sponsored by Walgreens. The economic model of success can be virtual without real-world ties.

[Tim Owens]

Lots of speculation in that article me thinks. Just because an analyst "believes" SL can't be profitable and is "probably" stagnant in growth and "could likely" die off in a year or two amounts to nothing more than someone who may or may not even understand SL trying to weigh in on the whole thing.

To be fair Linden Labs doesn't help themselves by keeping their cards close and refusing to make public any numbers, but then again I'm not sure they owe that to anyone. Would be an interesting discussion in and of itself: Given the high level of investment by the SL community, should LL make their financial state public record?