Category: Linden Lab

As reported by Tateru Nino, Fredrik Bjork – better known as Fredrik Linden – is leaving the Lab this Friday and off “on new adventures.”

Fredrik has been at the Lab for around 18 months, predominantly as the Director of Web Engineering. Most recently, he’s been in the limelight with regards to the new web profiles & the social media tools that have been added to them.

As Chair of the Web Profile User Group, Fredrik has always been one of the most attentive and responsive members of the Linden team, seeking-out feedback from users and taking on-board ideas and requests to ensure concerns are met and improvements made. This was very much highlighted with the launch of the social media add-ons to web profiles; when a large number of users voiced concern (via Twitter) over the lack of an option to completely opt-out of the Twitter-like Feed aspect of the software, Fredrik ensured there was such an option within an hour of the launch. Nor did he limit his input to the UG meetings – but clearly sought out views and ideas as expressed through blogs, etc. – as his comments on this blog clearly demonstrate.

Nya Linden will be taking over Fredrik’s responsibilities within the UG from next week, where she’ll doubtless receive Friendly Greetings. To Fredrik, I repeat the words of my Tweet from earlier:

Sorry to hear you’re leaving; but hope the adventures are fruitful. All the best to you 🙂

Tateru Nino, her eye ever on the ball, reports that LL are looking for a “Senior Software Engineer, Mobile“.

The job specification is pretty interesting to read, but I tend to side with Tateru when she says, “I wouldn’t expect this job to involve putting a Second Life viewer onto a mobile device, and neither should you. Most likely this will involve a very lightweight application..” 

There is much that is going on that would tend to point in this direction: SLim was canned last year (but then it never really worked), we have the upcoming new web-based profiles which will offer an initial level of “social networking” tools – and which will, apparently – be enhanced and built upon in the coming months. Users themselves are calling for easier and more flexible ways of accessing Second Life while on the move which are potentially free of some of the constraints found in the current crop of text-based “viewers”. Ergo, it seems fitting that LL move to provide some form of toolset that can leverage (at least initially) the new web profiles and offer the potential for improved interaction with those in-world when one is mobile.

Perhaps where I’d diverge from Tateru’s view is that I might be tempted to add, “At least, not yet” to the end of her comment. While it is difficult to see a more interactive element of SL existing on small handheld devices (phones, etc), there is nevertheless a vast opportunity to be mind in the field of tablet devices, which looks set to open-out this year, with just about every hardware manufacturer trying to push funky devices running a multitude of OSs into the hands of anyone willing to buy them.

Therefore, it would make sense – further down the road perhaps – for LL to see how they can leverage this burgeoning market and provide something of a richer experience within SL for those routinely using such devices that goes being merely texting and IMing from a frozen avatar in-world.

Blondin Linden appears to be the latest departure from Linden Lab. His reasons for leaving are unclear; there has been no official announcement, nor has he revealed anything via his own Twitter account – neither of which is surprising.

Blondin joined Linden Lab in May 2008, by way of the Electric Sheep Company, the former operators of On Rez, which was purchased by Linden Lab a few years ago and shut down.

Working out the East Coast office (Boston), Blondin had responsibility for Zindra, Bay City and Nautilus, and first came to major prominence when Zindra was being set-up. At that time he found himself pretty much in the firing line between the Adult user community and Linden Lab, as the latter started to effectively back-out of promises and understandings relating to land allocation on the new continent, etc. While Blondin carried a lot of the blame, the fact of the matter was, he did not have the seniority to make decisions, but was pretty much locked into the role of messenger, running back and forth between users who were growing increasingly frustrated and a line management at Linden Lab that increasingly appeared as if it couldn’t give a hoot.

Recently, Blondin has appeared out-of-sorts at Zindra user group meetings (something Ciaran Laval commented upon to me), which have themselves come across as fractious affairs, something which could not have made Blondin’s life any easier. Nor could the fact he reported into Amanda Linden who, when all is said and done, appears to be both embarrassed and frightened by the Adult elements of Second Life – whatever form they take, be they in-world or reasonable discussions (or indeed, entirely innocent words) in the official forums.

Whatever the reason for Blondin’s departure, there are many who will miss him. Despite often being hampered in his work, Blondin did participate in-world, attending parties and events, was well as chairing office hour meetings and, later, user group meetings. In this, he was very much part of a rare breed at the Lab and for this – as much as all his efforts with Zindra, Bay City and Nautilus – he will be missed. His departure also leaves a burning question – who will now run the Adult User Group meetings?

It seems that Linden Lab is looking for a “Social Media Marketing Guru“. Why, oh why, is it “guru” and not something professional-sounding? I’m pretty sure that whoever gets the position, they won’t find themselves sitting in a Battery Street pod with their name and the word “guru” pinned on the outside; and while terms like this may sound super-cool and west-coast “hip”, they actually come across as a combination of trite, clichéd and outright cringe-worthy.

Or is that just my English sensibilities?

When you get past the hip-speak, the post looks to be a mix of both strategic marketing via social media tools to gather new users, and something of a communications manager responsible for Lab / user (resident) interactions.

The former, I can understand. social networks do have a potential to bring-in users to Second Life, providing it is handled correctly. As I mentioned in Tell me a story… the manner in which LL are currently attempting to leverage Facebook has “fail” written all over it. The entire approach is arse-backwards and as such needs to be redefined.

The latter has me a little worried; we’ve already had Amanda Linden proudly announcing the coming on the new Community Platform – and then promptly pointing at Facebook as “the” way to stay abreast of all the latest news on SL (sure a case of “foot, meet mouth” if ever there was one). Now it seems that we’re going to possibly see a further push of LL-to-resident communications away from their own platform.

I’m not entirely sure that if this is the case, it’s a good idea. Certainly, it is very, very gratifying to be able to Tweet to Linden Lab employees and get a genuine response; it’s genuinely appreciated when someone requests something or raises an issue and sees a positive response, coupled with action from Linden Lab. However, the fact remains that the vast majority of company / user communications should be taking place within the framework of LL’s own platform; the fact that figures show support of the new community platform is declining rapidly among SL users (some are predicting it’ll be as the Dodo within a month, although I personally think the decline will stabilise well before then – but will represent a very low-level of engagement from users) is worrying. However, this should not be interpreted in terms of users all being busy elsewhere. Rather, it is symptomatic of the fact that Linden Lab don’t have the courage or the skill set in-house required to manage a vibrant forum community.

Which is a shame; but it’s no reason to keep pushing communications channels elsewhere.

Returning to the more strategic side of the new position, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do hope that whoever comes in will take a look at Tell me a story… and will be savvy enough to understand Jonathan Baskin’s piece on “silly social media” and ineffective social media marketing campaigns. Certainly I hope whoever comes in will be allowed the opportunity to spend a lot of time in-world to understand the platform and the rich diversity of activities that go on in Second Life  – and will be able to gather stories from the user base that can more effectively help shape the message to the rest of the world.