Filed under: News and developments by Digado

Though it’s been all over the blogosphere, no one has come even close to Rheta Shan’s post to illustrate what happens when you try to reconquer something which many believed to be community property - the brand of ‘Second Life™‘. Linden Labs recent new policy on how to use their brand name (and new brand name -inSL™, of which no one is quite sure what to use it for) has led to some redicule, and probably rightfully so in the way they did it. But Linden Lab is reclaiming what is theirs, and why they do it could be quite obvious.

Everyone has been speculating about an IPO (Initial Public Offering) of Second Life™ after Phil Rosedale stepped down - and I think this is the first in a series of steps to protect the value of Second Life™. This value consists of 6 major assets as I posted as a comment in Tateru Nino’s somewhat grim foresights (but perhaps quite accurate) for a possible take-over:

1. Software (sim structure)
2. Hardware (servers)
3. Content (hosted data)
4. Network (users)
5. Experience (employees)
6. Brand (awareness)

Obviously its the last they are most concerned about at the moment, and have instigated this new policy on ‘how to treat the logo‘. Whether the link to the IPO is real - I don’t know, but its a clear they are trying to protect their assets which makes me less surprised if this where to be one of a number of measures we will see over the next months to protect the property of Linden Labs (I would be surprised if we didn’t see something related to the property of avatars in the next 3 months).

 Edit: Picture is of course of Rhetas wonderful blog - please don’t sue me :(

Posted on: March 25, 2008 | Share on: