Update, February 19th. Linden Lab has confirmed Creatorverse, dio and Versu have all been removed from their product portfolio with immediate effect.
When meeting with members of the SL community on Tuesday February 18th, 2014, Ebbe Altberg (Ebbe Linden in SL), Linden Lab’s new CEO indicated that an announcement should be forthcoming about the “simplification” of the Labs product portfolio.
Whether this means the Lab will be divesting itself of one or more recent acquisitions or cutting items from its portfolio – or whether it means the side of the company managing those aspects of its business is being reorganised, is unclear. In indicating the forthcoming announcement Mr. Altberg said:
I’ve already helped support some decisions of simplifying our portfolio a little bit, and there will be more news on that later this week. They won’t have significant ramifications for us with regards to resources and stuff like that, so it’s more lightening the load on our minds more so than the work we do every day, but it’ll be a little bit simplified.
I’ve very interested in Blocksworld, because it’s very aligned with what we do in Second Life, which is empowering users to create things, to share things, and hopefully over time to monetize their creations.So that one is clear to me.
Some of the other products, I’m sort-of still getting up to speed on, I haven’t even necessarily had product reviews or anything like that on those. but there will be a little bit of … a simplification of our portfolio later this week.”
It’ll be interesting to see what is announced. In the meantime, more of Mr Altberg’s comments and views given at the meeting with users can be found by following the links at the top of this piece or below.
Ebbe Altberg at Yahoo! circa 2008 (image courtesy of LaFlecha)
Update: February 20th: I was fortunate to attend a meet-and-greet with Ebbe Altberg in-world, and have published an article presenting his views on the Lab, You can read and listen to his comments by following this link.
So Ebbe Altberg is the new CEO at Linden Lab, and will formally take up his new position on Monday February 10th. But who is Ebbe Altberg?
You can read his official LL biography here, and I’m using that as a leaping-off point for a slightly deeper look at his career.
Mr. Altberg, Swedish by birth, graduated fromTärnabySkidhem in 1983. This is categorised as a “general college / university” in Foursquare, but appears to (also?) be a ski school.
Tärnaby itself is a locality (“urban area”) situated in Storuman Municipality, Västerbotten County, northern Sweden. It is noted for being the home of several of the country’s top international skiers and is regarded as one of the country’s best ski resorts.
Following this, he attended Middlebury College, Vermont, USA, where he graduated with a BA (subject not clear). Founded in 1800, Middlebury is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States, and offers 44 majors in the arts, humanities, literature, foreign languages, social sciences, and natural sciences.
After eleven and a half years as Product Unit Manager at Microsoft, where he was involved in products such as Word, Office, Mac Office, and multimedia products, he moved on to Internet and Telecommunications company Ingenio in March 2000. Here he was responsible for managing the engineering, program management, operations, and quality teams. Interestingly, and as noted in the LL bio, he also served as the company’s interim CEO.
Joining Yahoo! in February 2008, he spent two years and nine months working as Vice President, Head of Audience for the company’s EMEA division, based in Rolle, Switzerland. Here he was responsible for consumer strategy, products and content throughout EMEA, including Search, Mail, Homepage, Media products, including News, Sports, Finance, Music, Movies, Autos, Travel, Games, Answers, Flickr etc. He ultimately managed all teams responsible for product management, design, editorial, programming, content, production, content business development and product marketing – some 180 people in total across six countries.
During this period, he also served on the board of Yahoo! SARL (Société à responsabilité limitée) – think the equivalent of a Pvt Ltd company in the UK or a limited liability partnership in the USA.
In October 2010, Mr. Altberg became the Senior Vice President for Media Engineering at Yahoo! with global responsibly for Media Engineering for all of Yahoo! Homepages, News, Sports, Finance, Movies, Music, TV, Games, OMG, Lifestyles, Weather, Screen, Livestand and IntoNow products, including related partner portals, publishing platforms and the Yahoo! Contributor Network, across all devices (PC, Tablet and Mobile). This position involved managing an organisation of more than 600 engineers, architects, program managers and quality engineering staff, as well as having dotted-line oversight of some 150 product managers and designers.
Ebbe Altberg joined BranchOut as the company sought to pivot its ailing Facebook app, resulting in the launch of Talk.co
Thirteen months later, in October 2012, he moved to join BranchOut, based in San Francisco, as Chief Operations Officer. At the time of his joining, the company had already experienced something of a rough time.
Founded in 2010 by Rick Marini as an application designed for finding jobs, networking professionally, and recruiting employees, it proclaimed itself to be the “largest professional network on Facebook”.
The app attracted some $49 million in three rounds of funding between 2010 and 2012, and in March 2012 it boasted some 25 million users and was active in at least 60 countries. However, by August of that year, user numbers had fallen to some 3 million, and the company had indicated it would be working to pivot BranchOut into a workplace chat app, As COO, Mr. Altberg played a key role in this effort, which saw the development of Talk.co, a private messaging application. Launched in October 2013, Talk.co promotes itself as “a better way to communicate with those you work with”.
Mr. Altberg defines his key skills as:
Specialties: Team development, strategy, provide vision, software and business inventions, product design, engineering, product/program management, quality engineering, operations.
Manage teams that invent, create, define, spec, build, produce, test, ship, market and operate products.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Altberg is a keen supporter of his son’s racing and driving career with APR Motorsport and elsewhere (image courtesy of Talk.co)
Away from work, Mr. Altberg appears to have an interest in space exploration, particularly efforts from within the private sector. He’s also a follower of Formula 1 racing, and (obviously) a keen supporter of his son, Aleks, a former instructor at the Dirtfish Rally School and who is currently an instructor at the Lamborghini Driving Academy, as well as being a winning driver with APR Motorsport.
From his résumé, it’s fairly clear why Ebbe Altberg has been seen as a good fit for Linden Lab by the board of directors. He has considerable breadth and depth of experience in both product development and product management, as well as in multi-discipline team management and developing and operating software across multiple platforms and product categories.
A lot of Mr. Altberg’s background revolves around social media and the need to establish strong communities. Indeed, his lists his motivating factors as creating “fantastic and profitable experiences that positively impact millions of people.” This might actually bode well for Second Life, particularly if he has the freedom to ensure the company more broadly re-engages with the SL user base, and becomes more pro-active in key areas of communication (such as with changes to the ToS and better communications about legal and requirements which impact users, etc.). He has already received a number of Tweets from SL users (myself included) requesting he takes this into consideration while welcoming him to the company.
Time will obviously tell as to how well Mr. Altberg fits-in at Linden Lab, as well as revealing the direction in which the board would like him to take the company.; in this respect it is perhaps interesting to note how the press release announcing his appointment is directly focused on Second Life and Blocksworld (with a mention in passing of Desura). In the meantime, I’ll once again welcome him to Linden Lab. The hot seat awaits!
Peter Gray has just informed me that on Wednesday February 5th, the board of directors of Linden Lab formally announced the appointment of Ebbe Altberg as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
The press release announcing his appointment reads in part:
SAN FRANCISCO — February 5, 2014 —Linden Lab®, the makers of Second Life®, BlocksworldTM, DesuraTM, and more, today announced that Ebbe Altberg will lead the company as its new Chief Executive Officer.
Ebbe Altberg (image courtesy of Linden Lab)
“We remain committed to world-changing innovation from Linden Lab,” said Jed Smith of the company’s Board of Directors. “We’re keenly focused on providing incredible experiences for all of our customers, and Ebbe is the perfect person to help lead our team as we continue to serve and grow our global audience of active users.”
“Linden Lab has long been at the forefront of building experiences that entertain people while empowering them to express themselves and profit from their creations,” said Altberg. “Our customers’ creativity is unparalleled, and I’m proud to join the talented team that serves them. Second Life is now in its eleventh year, and every day, users continue to create more and more amazing experiences to enjoy. Though much younger, Blocksworld has already seen hundreds of thousands of unique user-created worlds shared for everyone to play with. I’m absolutely committed to supporting our customers and helping them become even more successful. There are significant opportunities ahead, and I look forward to leading us into the next phase of growth.”
The appointment brings to an end almost two weeks of silence on the matter of the CEO position, following Rod Humble’s surprise announcement that he had departed the company, which was made via his Facebook account, and the news broken by Jo Yardley on January 24th, 2014.
In 2011, Desura announced that their client-side software would be released under the GNU GPL v3, allowing it to be developed and enhanced by the open-source community, with the server-side of the service remaining proprietary. The code itself was released on January 21st, 2012 under the project title Desurium.
A small community formed around the project, focusing on the development of the Linux client, with release candidates appearing from November 2012 through until around May 2013 (RC 0.8.0 RC10 for Linux 32 and 64-bit). Since then, things have been relatively quiet, no doubt in part because of Desura being acquired by Linden Lab in July 2013, although commits have continued to the project’s repository on Github.
Essentially, the Lab will be continuing the project, but under a structure that mirrors the current arrangements for open-source development of the Second Life viewer. Part of this is a proposal to change the licensing for the client from the General Public Licence v3 to LGPL version 2.1, which is currently used with the SL viewer. The company is also proposing introducing a Contribution Agreement “substantially similar” to the Contribution Agreement used with the Second Life Viewer.
The Lab believes the licence change will “help to clarify that game developers can incorporate Desura client technology in their products however those products are licensed, and remove the need to drive software design in order to insulate non-open source games from the viral aspects of the GPL.” It is noted that all work submitted to the project prior to the licence change will remain under the GPL v3 licence, and the change, once implemented, will only apply to the project and contributions from that point forward.
Rather than seeking to make an arbitrary change to the licence, the Lab is looking to do so collaboratively, with the announcement noting:
Changing the license will require that we initiate discussions with past contributors. If some contributors are uncomfortable with this new structure, we may need to evaluate the impact that could have and whether we may need to make any adjustments. Contributors should each expect to hear from us soon.
The announcement also highlights that the Lab wishes to see client development move forward on the Windows and Mac platforms as well. It also carries strong indicators of their commitment to Desura, noting that they are in the process of recruiting additional personnel to undertake Desura / Desurium related work in terms of client development and project management, with a strong emphasis on coordination between development work undertaken in-house and development work undertaken by open-source developers.
Response to the announcement has been muted but favourable from the Desurim community.
On Wednesday October 2nd Linden Lab announced it would be offering all nominees and official selections at the IndeCade International Festival of Independent Games, “an agreement for global distribution, without any listing fees, via Desura, a leading digital distribution service for independent games.”
The offer is open to all developers of games aimed at the PC, Mac or Linux platforms nominated / selected for the event, which is due to be held in Los Angeles on October 5th and 6th. In addition, all qualifying nominees and official selections opting to take up the offer “will also automatically be a part of Desura’s new partner program and will be supported with promotional advertising, courtesy of Linden Lab.”
An estimated 21 of the 36 nominees in this year’s IndieCade festival qualify for the offer.
The announcement came via an official press release, posted to both the Lab’s corporate website and on the Desura website. The press release reads in part:
SAN FRANCISCO – October 2, 2013 – Linden Lab® and IndieCade have announced a special prize for the IndieCade 2013 Festival, held October 5-6 in Los Angeles: for the first time, all nominated and official selection PC/Mac/Linux games will be offered an agreement for global distribution, without any listing fees, via Desura, a leading digital distribution service for independent games.
Additionally, IndieCade nominees and official selections that choose to take advantage of the distribution offer will also automatically be a part of Desura’s new partner program and will be supported with promotional advertising, courtesy of Linden Lab.
Desura has a large catalogue of successful commercial games as well as free titles. IndieCade-nominated free games are eligible for this offer and will be also extended the opportunity to participate in a forthcoming promotional initiative.
“We’re a proud supporter of IndieCade and its mission,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “Celebrating and supporting independent developers is a goal Desura shares with IndieCade, and we’re happy to be able to award distribution and promotion to all nominated and official selection games at this year’s event.”
Desura puts the best games, mods, and downloadable content from developers at gamers’ fingertips, ready to buy and play. The free Desura application can serve and patch games, mods, and add-ons directly for customers around the world. Developers and publishers can share news, images, videos, and other content through their profiles, while every member of the Desura community can post comments, submit reviews, and upload screenshots from their own playing experiences. Desura also demystifies user-made mods and add-ons for games by making them as easy to find and install or update as professional titles.
IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games, and is often referred to as “the video game industry’s Sundance Festival”. At IndieCade, independent video game developers are selected to screen and promote their work at the annual IndieCade festival and showcase events.
The link-up between Linden Lab and IndieCade would appear to be a logical step, given that the Lab has recently acquired the Desura digital distribution platform, which has been a sponsor of the event, and that Will Wright serves on both the Board of Directors of Linden Lab and on IndieCade’s Board of Advisors.
The move is clearly aimed at strengthening Desura’s market status and positioning as a front-runner in the global distribution of independent games and mods. It also potentially raises Linden Lab’s profile among independent game developers.
It appears that after moaning a little about the Lab not updating Versu, the Lab has … updated Versu.
Version 1.3 of the “living stories” platform sees Versu freed from the perils of internet connectivity, allowing you to “read on the beach, the plane, anywhere you like!” (subject to roaming agreements, sundry charges and so on and so forth, obviously). A small step, perhaps, but a welcome one, given I’d been worrying that Versu was going the way of Creatorverse and was on a “fire and forget” trajectory.
More particularly, and equally quietly, the Lab added two more titles to the Versu range at the start of August. Whereas the initial stories marking Versu’s launch were all set in the Regency period, the new titles, Office Politics: The Interview and Office Politics: The Launch Party, are comedic pieces set in a modern office environment (“Disruptive Technologies”), which introduce a cast of characters common to both, including:
Dave, the overly friendly boss who really wants to be liked and respected
Alice, the snarky feminist graphic designer who wishes she could just make art
Patrick, the former frat boy who thinks he’s way better with the ladies than he actually is
Jordan, the keener fresh out of business school
Linus, the quiet senior programmer who resents all the constant distractions from his real work
Storm, the ambiguously gendered die-hard fan of the hit TV series, Professor Whatever.
Versu has two new titles in a new setting
Both of the new stories are penned by Deirdra Kiai (“Squinky” for short!), a writer, musician and games developer. Commenting on her decision to go the route of a modern setting, she says,
I found the choice of a modern-day high-tech office to be ideal to write for in this system, because of all the meticulous social rules and procedures involved in a corporate setting. I also thought it would be a great excuse for characters of varying ages, backgrounds, and beliefs to come together and clash with one another in interesting and sometimes comedic ways.
An interesting side-point to this is that Deirdra has created an additional game Jamey Beanman’s Burrito Quest, based in the same universe as Office Politics, which uses dio. However, at the time of writing this article, the dio space had been set to private / limited access, and so could not be investigated.
The arrival of new titles for Versu is long overdue, given it is nine months since the app launched, and during that time there has been little or no news on it or its future development from the Lab, although Richard Evans has been talking about the potential of the Versu engine in a range of simulation activities. If the Lab really want to keep interest in the app alive, I can’t help but feel that they should be doing more to ensure that titles are regularly released – and nine months doesn’t entirely fit “regularly” that well. They also need to see a more diverse range of titles produced, and as such these two new pieces – presumably the first of a series – is a good step in that direction.
There’s still no news as to whether Versu will move beyond the iPad and into the Android, Windows and Linux tablet realms. A move to Android had been promised prior to the app’s launch, but again, whether this is going to be the case is only likely to be discovered if / when the Lab announce it.
In the meantime, for those of you who do have Versu – or at least have an iPad and are looking for a fun, interactive read, go take a look at Deridra’s titles!
Update, February 19th. Linden Lab has confirmed Creatorverse, dio and Versu have all been removed from their product portfolio with immediate effect.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 