| On Thursday, June 25th 2026, Linden Lab held the fourth of the SL23B Meet the Lindens events, featuring Brett Linden, Vice President of Marketing Second Life and Fausto Linden, Senior Growth Marketing Manager, discussing Second Life marketing & growth. The session was live and featured a mix of pre-submitted questions, and those asked during the session.
Notes:
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Table of Contents |
- Timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comments directly to be able to do so.
Second Life Audience
[7:31-11:59] Who is Second Life for? What is SL’s audience and identity? Is the goal to primarily serve existing residents, attract younger users, grow the creator economy, position Second Life as a social platform, or something else that we haven’t even thought of?
Brett Linden:
- Doesn’t think there is a single audience that defines Second Life and in some ways hopes there never is. It is diverse, encompassing creators, role players, musicians, educators, and so on, all of whom reinforce each other. Creators do need customers, customers need places to explore, communities need creators that build experiences.
- LL certainly sees opportunities to grow and to win back lapsed users. The goal is not to replace one audience with another but grow the ecosystem to make it easier for people to discover whatever it is in Second Life that’s meaningful to them because it is different person to person in many ways.
- This means LL will continue to invest in the residents who built this world, such as leaning in to creators for partnerships and that sort of thing.
- Bringing in new audiences is also important, whether via Mobile, whether it’s more creators, etc. One thing research has consistently shown is that the long-term success isn’t just about fitting into one very tightly defined demographic; it’s about helping find people to connect to those communities, those social experiences, and or creative opportunities that give them a reason to come back.
Fausto Linden:
- Second Life is for any adult seeking deeper social connection, creativity, and self-expression. It provides a persistent virtual world where people can build communities, create identities, and participate in thriving economies, and live in immersive experience alongside others.
- Growth has to be about nurturing existing users and do outreach to people who are looking for deeper social connection, creativity, and self-expression.
- To answer the question “Who is Second Life for?” I think it’s for everybody. Second Life offers something for everyone.
[13:21-15:36] How do envision SL being of value to everybody? Do you think it could ever be something like the Internet that that everybody could find a use for a given time, like 5 or 10 years from now? Could we ever get to what Philip had originally envisioned for a virtual world?
Brett Linden:
- Philip has a very specific perspective as the founder of Second Life, as was heard at his Meet the Lindens event.
- Having been involved in SL for over 20 years, 19 of them as a Linden agrees that it is true that Second Life is for everybody, but would add nuance to that:
There is a specific kind of person that really resonates and connects with Second Life, who finds a utility in Second Life, a meaningful way of engaging that is not just entertainment.
Some people do use SL in passing, but the majority see it as an extension of their identity; it is something where people have their tribe, their community, their family. Those are deep and meaningful things for people.
- SL also fulfils a purpose for those who have something which limits their physical world life, where cultural issues or limitations prevent them from expressing their true identity in the physical form. So it is really important for LL to really make sure that the platform does right by people that have not yet discovered SL and who benefit from it.
[17:06-20:02] When the marketing team develops campaigns and advertising, who are the primary audiences you’re trying to reach today? Have those target audiences changed over the last few years? What is the primary audience that you’re trying to reach out to?
Fausto Linden:
- So, the primary audience in terms of demographics is adults 25 to 55 plus who value things like community, identity expression, creativity, role play, social connection, and digital lifestyles.
- Targeting these people is often based on the creative remake: expressing the wonderful communities and groups that exist in Second Life. This includes using videos showing the multiple ways people can express their truest self.
- There are also market segments being looked into to see if SL can acquire users that’ll stick based on some of those niche experiences.
- So it’s a case of reaching out to people where they are; highlighting content creation to creators, music for those looking to socialise, and segments like anime, fantasy, furry, gore, Goth, sci-fi, as there are so many of these communities thriving SL that just need to be discovered by people with like-minded interests.
[20:18-22:33] If the primary audience being focused on is 25 to 55 plus, how are you thinking about introducing SL to younger generations, those who spend time on like Roblox and 5M, VR Chat, IMVU, Discord based communities? Do you think there’s a chance for us to introduce them to SL without changing / losing what makes it unique?
Fausto Linden:
- LL does see competitors as huge opportunities because those users are already into some type of 3D world, some type of avatar lifestyle.
- LL has tested campaigns targeting users from VR chat, IMVU, and The Sims with encouraging results. These positioned SL as the 3D world with the best avatars.
- Believes there is a huge opportunity with Roblox, and potentially creating campaigns targeting ex-Roblox users to graduate from that platform to SL as an almost natural next step.
- Younger audiences can be tough due to shorter attention spans, but opportunities are there and will continue to be investigated. However, the primary target demographic for now is 25 and up.
Growth, Strategy, User Acquisition and Retention
Growth and Strategy
[22:58-27:40] How does LL envision growing Second Life? What are seen as the greatest opportunities – former residents returning or entirely new users discovering Second Life for the first time? Creator-driven growth, Mobile users, international markets, or a combination?
Fausto Linden:
- Growth will be a combination of new user outreach, existing user engagement, and winning back of lapsed users with almost equal importance.
- For the foreseeable future, will be focused on driving a percentage of new users, bringing back users that have left for whatever reason and making things more accessible for the for the existing users to be able to encourage potential new users to engage with them.
- The only way to gain wins is to work on all three areas.
Brett Linden:
- Adds that the question is complex because there are many dependencies on what needs to be done, not just on marketing. Even in the local chat people are acknowledging product issues with SL as it currently stands, good and bad.
- The reality is that there needs to be some changes with Second Life itself in order to break through the current stagnant growth. People like Fausto and Jerome Linden (Senior VP of Engineering) bring experience that can help with this. Making sure the product is where it needs to be is really important.
- Bringing former residents back is a huge opportunity because millions of people who’ve experienced Second Life over the years; some stayed, others just popped in and popped out real quickly, and would like to see them to come back
- Mobile is definitely an important opportunity. There is still work to be done, it doesn’t replace the Desktop experience but it certainly has the opportunity to expand the audience of Second Life if done correctly.
- SL’s creator community is always really important for helping to drive growth and finding ways to partner with them. There been a lot of things done in this last year that are new in terms of partnerships with the community. Check the Second Life You Tube channel, you’ll see the sheer volume of content created by the community.
- So rather than just pick one lane, it’s thinking about the entire life cycle, the dependencies with the product and engineering things that need to be done together to attract new people and get these returning users back as well.
[28:05-29:11] Are there plans to invest more heavily in international marketing efforts including countries like the United Kingdom and other regions outside of North America?
Fausto Linden:
- In terms of global markets, these take two forms: what the Marketing Teams calls Tier One English markets – the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These have provided good data and users from those countries retain and stay for a long time, so these are the primary English countries.
- In terms of non-English countries, the focus for the foreseeable future is going to be Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico.
[29:13-33:22] Some residents that feel recent advertising campaigns are targeting a relatively narrow audience. How do you balance appealing to Second Life’s existing community while also reaching entirely new audiences who have never heard of virtual worlds before?
Fausto Linden:
- Keep the two somewhat separate; new users require on-boarding, support, encouragement, etc., which is different to the needs of existing users. It’s also not possible to speak to all users with a single ad.
- So different ads speak to different people: friendship and belonging videos for users seeking connection; ads that highlight creativity and expression for people searching for creativity and expression; role-play ads for users that are looking for role play. So those are all form attracting new users.
- For existing users, the plan is to make things just more accessible: how do we surface groups other users are seeking; how do we connect uh users with similar kind of interests? How do we connect users to the products they’re looking for? That is the direction taken.
Brett Linden:
- People probably have strong opinions about the good, the bad, and the ugly of what’s been done in marketing and ads. Historically, LL hasn’t done a lot of paid ads; it’s usually been organic and word-of-mouth where a lot of the growth and ads come from.
- There has been a lot of feedback on past ads, some suggesting we should turn more to the community for certain ads, other expressing support, others expressing dislike. This is all good, as not very ad is going to hit the right note, and feedback has enabled collaboration.
- LL will continue to look at the data on which ones that successfully bring in and keeping new users. Some will perform better than others, but lessons are being learned and the Team is moving quickly.
- There have been times when it has taken a long time to put together campaigns , now the Team can iterate quickly and it’s great to see the wallet or purse opening again to actually start experimenting and testing. And Fausto has rich experience in that space.
Resident / Community Involvement
Fausto Linden:
- Brett’s team does a lot of the communication to existing community, maintaining a thriving posting cadence with a lot of good features and announcements. These generate a comments and suggestions and ideas and what the community feels.
Brett Linden:
- It’s great to get feedback, obviously, good or bad. What is in action is when people respond with ideas, do step up and show us, because right now, many of the current ads were through resident involvement.
- So that’s something for people to think about; if you’ve got a connection to that part of the community or you are a machinima artist, there might be an opportunity for you to kind of participate.
So you’re very open to machinima makers and photographers, etc., volunteering to help?
Brett Linden:
Use of AI in Advertising
[38:15-42:45] Are you planning to use AI in advertising? Some say that it is ruining art and it’s ruining the creator community and the more it’s allowed to take a foothold in SL the more it risks people turning away from the platform. What are your thoughts about using AI within marketing?
Fausto Linden:
- The ads we use must be created in-world and with no AI visuals or smoothers being used.
- One creator did use an AI smoother to make the motions look more natural, which was not well received by the community, so no AI smoothers was added as a requirement.
- There is an exception for AI voice-overs because some creators either do not speak English or do not want to have their voice recognised. In a future time we hope to hire someone talent to provide voice-overs, but not at this time.
Brett Linden:
- It is a hot topic, and there is understandable frustration / hostility given this is a user-generated world and community.
- LL is showcasing the real Second Life in terms of the video footage that’s captured in world that focuses on resident created content not AI generated imagery for those videos.
- Broadly recognise that creators have strong feelings when it comes to things like generative AI, because Second Life exists because of human creativity, and resident creators are the reason the platform has endured for two decades.
- Would view himself as neutral to the topic, as there are some uses where it can be very efficient – but not in ads and for Second Life specifically, where it is important to celebrate the human-created component of SL, which is quite special.
- If something does slip by within creator-made videos and LL is alerted, as Fausto noted, action will be taken.
Referral Programmes and Rewards
[43:25-47:21] Platforms like Fortnite and Roblox use creator referral programs to incentivize creators, streamers, and influencers to bring in new users. Has LL explored similar programmes to reward creators and community leaders in helping grow Second Life?
Fausto Linden:
- LL recently surveyed subscribers asking if they would recommend SL on a rating from 1 to 10 (extremely likely to recommend). 75% of the respondents gave 6 or above.
- As a result, LL is investigating the idea of a referral programme to reward both the referrer and referee – although this is still in its early days.
Brett Linden:
- Is excited to see where the idea might go, and believes existing users are great ambassadors for SL
- Personally stayed with SL as a user because someone else befriended and mentored him.
- Does believe it is more than just a sign-up referral, however; it’s about those in the community creating destinations for users, those who volunteer as mentors, etc., all of whom help with bringing new users into SL. Believes it is true that people will stick with SL a lot more when they quickly find and connect to a community or experience that resonates with them.
- Everyone can play a role in both attracting new users and helping to make them feel they have a place in SL. There are been situations where incoming users have been met with welcoming energy and other times when the reception has been hostile
- There is a role for LL to play in preventing the latter – but the community also plays a role. Just being kinder to a new user can help them feel settled.
Lab-Developed On-Boarding Experiences and Activities
[47:25-50:16] A lot of residents remember a more structured on-boarding experience. Um are there plans to provide more Linden Lab created activities, guided experiences, or community programs that help new residents discover what makes Second Life special?
Brett Linden:
- This has been a major focus over this past year. Rather than trying to redesign the New User Experience internally, LL partnered directly with multiple Second Life creator communities to create the New User Experience Working Group.
- This sit in addition to the on-going Community Gateway Programme, and is a collaboration with some of the top creators across SL meeting with the SL Studios team weekly over months to build and test new user experiences for both Mobile and desktop.
- Testing included sharing raw data on what was being seen. Sometimes the data was surprising: what was thought to be a slam dunk success wasn’t reflected in the data. So this equal level of working will continue to be an experiment.
- Going forward there will likely be more working hand-in-hand with those in the community who know Second Life very, very well. So it’s not some new user experience that’s just done and finished. Partnerships will be iterated upon.
- The goal is not just to teach someone how to use the viewer, it’s more nuanced; it’s about getting people connected and understanding why Second Life is meaningful for them and making them feel welcomed and why SL is worth coming back to.
The Role of Creators in Growing SL
[1:01:26-1:03:34] How important are creators to Linden Lab’s overall growth strategy, and what role do you see creators playing in attracting and retaining future generations of residents?
Brett Linden:
- Creators are at the heart of everything, including things that are important for showcasing what’s great about Second Life and the growth strategy – destinations, communities, experiences, events – all give an opportunity to put the spotlight on what’s really happening in Second Life.
- 99% of the time, while SL Studios put together good stuff, the majority of SL comes organically from the community. So LL’s job is to help more people discover what’s already being built out there in the community.
- In terms of attracting the next generation of residents, it is how does LL help more people discover the incredible creativity that the community has put out there; that’s where creators play such an important role.
Fausto Linden:
- Creators are the backbone of Second Life’s growth strategy. LL works with creators to test on-boarding destinations, test new user avatar customisation, etc. Creators as ambassadors of Second Life, and LL will continue collaborating with them to make Second Life more accessible to new users.
In-world Discoverability, and Social Interaction & Community Building
In-World Discoverability
[50:20-54:21] One common challenge is that there are a lot of interesting locations to explore in-world but they struggle to attract visitors and then disappear. Are there plans to improve the discovery tools um or provide better promotional opportunities for destinations and communities so that you can connect new users and older residents with places that are worth visiting?
Fausto Linden:
- One idea being investigated is that of a recommendation engine that would help pair users to groups, destinations, products, and other users. It’s in the very early stages of thinking, but the idea it is to connect new users to the things that they want to do, and the places that they want to see.
Brett Linden:
- Believes this is one of the biggest opportunities we have, and there are internal conversations happening on what this “personalisation engine” will look like.
- Notes that from his experience at Amazon, personalisation was game-changer in terms of e-commerce; having large data sets where patterns of what is liked or not can be very effective.
- With SL, there is a special responsibility in Second Life that this is done correctly, taking into consideration people’s desire for privacy, etc. So if implemented, it will be done with care.
- However, the idea is an interesting opportunity to do better at serving people recommendations that are context-appropriate and sensitive to their interests. The Destination Guide has thousands of [semi-]curated entries which could be leverged.
- There is also the Second Life Spotlight series, the partnership with Essential Inventory, who produce What’s Hot in Second Life every Tuesday, which is being tested as a guide to some things that might otherwise escape attention.
Social Interaction & Community Building
[54:24-58:22] Some residents feel that social interaction and community building have also become more difficult over time. Are there initiatives being explored to encourage stronger community engagement, meaningful connections, and positive resident experience?
Fausto Linden:
- LL is again in the planning stages of ways to better surface SL communities as a part of the “personalisation engine”; using it to help facilitate people find the right groups.
Brett Linden:
- One of the biggest priorities is working with the community, not just building for the community. There’s kind of a fine, you know, line between, you know, where it’s appropriate for one or the other.
- There is the Creator Partnership Programme, a channel for pitches and proposals and ideas to be communicated to LL any time residents, creators, or anyone in the community can just pitch an idea for partnership.
- In the year since it was initiated, over 700 proposals have been submitted, signifying there is a desire for people wanting to help and work with LL in terms of working with the community.
- Obviously, LL cannot partner with everybody, so some proposals / ideas do not get taken up, but some fantastic collaborations have emerged, and more are expected.
- Does think it’s important to strengthen how LL works with the community with is not top-down, but in partnership.
- As a tease: as well as the “personalisation engine”, LL is also looking at putting together something along the lines of a “community priorities programme” (not the official name) to help LL work closely with the community and give the community a stronger voice in weighing in on where they want attention focused – such as improvements and preservation efforts and infrastructure projects and community spaces – anything that makes Second Life better.
- Really wants to make sure that there’s a voice and a process for that voice to be heard so that LL can hear that and take action, and there will be more on this programme as it develops.
Supporting Resident-Led Marketing of Communities and Events
[59:01-1:00:47] Many creators, venue owners, and community organizers struggle to promote projects and events. What opportunities do you see for Linden Lab to better support resident-led marketing and promotion?
Fausto Linden:
- Believes LL could be open to co-promoting items on social media.
Brett Linden:
- There is also the Destination Guide which is open submission and fuels a lot of things like social posts and the e-mails that go out.
- There is an Events e-mail that goes out to users who have opted-in, which go out on Fridays. There is also What’s Hot in Second Life.
- [There is also the Dashboard Events pages].
- If people have a specific pitch, there is the creator partnership uh programme form already mentioned.
Miscellaneous Questions on Marketing and Growth
Premium Rewards and Retention
[1:03:56-1:07:01] Some residents really appreciate the various Premium rewards and gifts but they feel they could be more meaningful or aspirational. How does the team evaluate premium exclusive promotions, gifts, events when designing retention programs?
Brett Linden:
- There is a lot of different interests in Second Life, so what one person sees and values might be different from the next; so there is no single aspect of the subscription tiers that’s going to appeal to everybody. But that said, there is obviously a unifying interest in subscriptions.
- Would clarify that subscription rewards enjoyed by members over the years in terms of the gifts specifically; rather they have been expanded through the use of gifts.
- Gifts have been offered in the past through the work of the Moles / the in-house Second Life Studios team. What is different now is that LL has started to partner to augment and supplement those with additional gifts just as an add-on extra.
- These additional gifts cycle in and cycle out. Seraphim supplied some, right now it is both Essential Inventory and the Collide Circle.
- With that volume of gifts, some are going to resonate with people and some won’t, and this will be tested and changes will be cycled on based on this.
- Will also continue to iterate on the subscription plans where again people like different things – Linden Home or increased Group limits, fee savings on uploads. There is a suite of perks to
- Feedback is listened to, and there will be changes in time as what works and what does not work is better understood. But the goal isn’t to create one single aspect of the perk that it that everyone loves; it is designed to be a membership programme where the overall value continues to grow with benefits offering broad appeal.
Taking Feedback
In term of resident feedback and the influence it has on marketing decisions, are there some examples of where resident feedback has directly influenced campaigns, messages, or growth initiatives?
Fausto Linden:
- On joining LL, oversaw the production of videos focusing on friendship and connection, which lead to suggestions of other topics to cover – creativity, the economy. Content creation – these formed a list for a series of videos.
- Also focused on role-play, and the feedback has been requests for SLurls to the places shown – so that is now happening.
Recalling Torley Linden
[1:10:34-1:13:47] Torley Linden is well remembered by long-time residents who for his contributions to community communications and tutorials. Looking back, what role do personalities like Torley play in helping residents connect with Linden Lab and the broader community?
Brett Linden:
- Torley is missed personally. He was very visible in Second Life, did amazing job on many tutorials and did great on behalf of Second Life. There’s just never going to be another Torley. He had a really unique and great ability to educate, inspire, and connect with community. And he was authentic; he was saying it from his heart. And that passion and that authenticity just came through.
- Moving forward, would love to see a situation where there is no one public face representing LL, but there are a lot of different viewpoints of people coming from Linden Lab and sharing and interacting with the community and frankly, educating people about what’s going on at the Lab. There’s just a lot of great people engineering, product support across the board. And so there’s more than just one person that can really tell that story.
- The Meeting the Lindens Engineering Team session did that – 10 people on stage including Jerome, the new Senior VP of Engineering; you don’t see that many Lindens in a Town Hall style event. It gave diverse viewpoints and a from the trenches perspective of what’s going on at Linden Lab.
- Wants to see more opportunities for these Q&A style events, space for authentic conversations .Is appreciative of Fausto’s energy and positivity in his responses, his excitement at the chance to bring change to SL and make a difference. Hopes there will be more Linden voices interacting with the community.
Achieving and Measuring Success
[1:14:29-1:16:10] Imagine it is a year hence, it’s SL24B. What growth metrics or community milestones would make both of you feel that Second Life is heading in the right direction?
Fausto Linden:
- Short and sweet: because focus is on growth and performance marketing: success would be to see the count of active daily users increase by 10%.
- That means acquiring new users and retaining them, acquiring lapsed users and retaining them, and engaging with current users and getting them to be in-world more often.
Brett Linden:
- Supports Faust and likes that he gave a figure to attain. Everyone loves SL, but it is also a business and needs to grow. And people get frustrated if they perceive this is not the case, so it’s good to have a hard number to try to achieve.
[1:16:28-1:18:59] Is there something that users can do that would help grow Second Life? Promoting the community is something the Lab is very eager to do. But is there anything users can do to help make Second Life successful?
Fausto Linden:
- A striking thing is when visiting the Welcome Areas, they can be a little empty. So going to a Welcome Area and befriending people that are new is something people could do. Like a buddy system type of thing.
Brett Linden:
- LL bears a lot of responsibility for user safety, but as a community, everyone has a duty of care to be kind and good to people.
- The current age makes it hard to get a place to escape where there’s nice, kind people, good conversation, fun, crazy – but coming in-world and somebody throws hate or negativity or clicky energy at you, that’s not going to be very welcoming.
- So, while acknowledging the Lab has a lot of responsibility for creating a safe environment, the community putting its Kind Hat on would help when it comes to welcoming new people.
[1:19:52-1:22:30] After more than two decades what gives the marketing and growth team the most confidence that Second Life can continue attracting new residents and thriving into the future?
Brett Linden:
- The confidence that I have comes from the community itself. Has been here for 20 years, has seen the great and not so great things done on LL’s side. So thinks the steady force has been the community that has kind of held things together and made SL able to survive where so many others have failed.
- Notes there are some competitors that are actually giving SL a good run for the money and offer lessons to be learned. But that said, has confidence in the fact that the community continues to surprise and evolve and do really great things with this platform well above anything LL might do.
Fausto Linden:
- Agree that the community provides a lot of confidence for the future, as does the data.
- This data focuses on behavioural patterns that guide decision making. There is a sophisticated data science team to help validate some assumptions and put a numbers against tests.
Audience Question
[1:23:0-1:24:25]Has the Marketing Team ever considered Discord Orbs for advertising SL, given that platform is popular with SL residents?
Fausto Linden:
- A survey showed that around 40% or so of those SL users asked are on Discord, and there were around 26% on Reddit. So both platforms are being considered for SL advertising.
[Note: there was a final question on whether LL “is looking for people who can create art with AI?”, but it was considered too vague to be able to formulate an answer.]
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