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LL Announces New Investment

Second Life has just scored $11 million in funding from a pretty gosh darn intriguing collection of investors.  Check the article: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146717.html on CNET.  Interestingly, Catherine Linden is quoted as saying that SL is currently not profitable.  Overall, the article discusses the graphical upgrade, infrastructural development and international expansion of SL.  The main thought I have on this is that it probably wouldn't have been necessary had SL spent more time developing infrastructure, mainly business and social applications within SL.  Obviously SL will diffuse faster when it's easier to use to accomplish a variety of tasks.  So LL needs to take the lead as far as developing that infrastructure by doing it directly, perhaps even by launching for-profit businesses within SL.  This will then spark evolution by encouraging template copy-cats.  If you build EASY TO USE INFRASTRUCTURE they will come.  But since that hasn't yet occurred top-down, LL now needs more external investment in order to maintain the growth rate.  The longer they hesitate to get into the sh*t, the greater the chunk of the world that they will be giving away.  Hopefully some big infrastructure upgrades or dynamic partnerships with an entity like MySpace will be forthcoming. :)

Posted by on March 28, 2006 |

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