Wagner James Au / New World Notes

With the Second Life community and the wider industry still processing the passing of Ebbe Altberg, I went back to read my first interview with him in 2014, shortly after he became Linden Lab's CEO. It's particularly moving how he discovered the virtual world through his son:

Though he is Linden Lab’s new CEO now, one of Ebbe Altberg’s first experiences with Second Life occurred over 10 years ago, and as it happens, actually involved a violation of Second Life policy. It was around that time, you see, that Altberg’s son fell in love with Second Life, and became an avid builder there. Which is usually a fine thing, but here’s the problem: Altberg’s son was a young teen at the time, and back then they were strictly not allowed:

“So yeah, he was underage,” Altberg admits now, “so SL booted him correctly.”

Altberg convinced then CEO Philip Rosedale to be lenient, but by that time, Altberg’s young son had become a well-known content creator in Second Life… Despite all that, Ebbe's son stayed engaged in Second Life for a couple years, and even co-founded an in-world design company. And being among the first explorers of Teen Second Life, one of that world’s original islands was even named after the avatar of Ebbe Altberg’s son. And Ebbe Altberg watched all this amazed: “For a kid to have this experience so early was fantastic,” as he puts it now.

Another interesting point is how he saw VR/XR devices as a potential savior to Second Life's waning  user/revenue growth:

“It’s open knowledge Second Life’s revenue base is eroding,” I tell Altberg. “How do you plan to solidify it?”

“That’s one question I don’t have a clear, concrete answer to,” he tells me, pointing out that Second Life is already 11 years old, and has had “a fantastic run”. That said, “there are issues with our codebase and technology that’s going to take investment and time…. I don’t think there’s simple things we can do to have it hockey stick to the right again, but the idea [of Second Life] should be much much bigger than it became.” He suggests the solution will include different technologies and platforms, such as the Leap Motion controller and the Oculus Rift. “There’s a lot of obvious and not obvious things to give it a much much broader appeal… without taking away too much from the depth that’s been created, the unbelievable engagement that’s almost unheard of, to have that level of engagement you have from the core audience.”

Read the rest here.