Second Life Developers Raise $11 Million

Posted on April 4, 2006

Linden Lab, the developers of the popular online world called Second Life, have raised $11 million in financing. Silicon Beat reports that Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale wants to use the money to make the game more mainstream.

Indeed, Philip Rosedale, chief executive of Linden Lab, tells us he wants to make the game more mainstream, so that people can make money by doing or selling whatever they want. Second Life now boasts 165,000 residents, and of those around 20,000 people are using it every day, he said. Players are spending $5 million on goods and services per month, on things like clothing and jewelry that they can buy from others. You multiply that by 12 months, and you have an annual economy of about $60 million at Second Life. Not bad.
He said about 180,000 distinct items were bought or traded last month, which makes the selection on Second Life about the "size of four WalMarts,'' he said. He said the next challenge is to draw people who have less free time on their hands, which means allowing them to find things and places by giving them more sophisticated search technology, for example.

To really go mainstream, Linden Lab would almost need to find a way to make Second Life into a communication tool like MySpace and other social networks. There might be a market for this as 3D virtual characters are becoming more commonplace. A company called Meez has raised $4 million for its business that will sell customized 3D avatars. Second Life needs to connect more with regular web users and the search idea is probably a step in the right direction.