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Virtual Goods and Linden Lab: Live from San Jose

A very special ‘mixed reality’ event on September 23rd at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) as we explore the virtual goods industry with Linden Lab executives Philip Rosedale and Tom Hale who will be joined from their live location at the Engage Expo in San Jose California by our guests at the Metanomics Main Stage in Second Life, Harper Beresford and JeanieSing Trilling.

This special event kicks off a new season and the third year of Metanomics, and supports our vision of supporting a serious exploration of virtual worlds. Produced in partnership with Linden Lab and TREET.TV, you will be able to participate in this mixed reality event in three ways: live at the conference in San Jose, in-world at the Metanomics Main Stage or one of our Event Partners, and on the Web.

Robert Bloomfield, Metanomics Host and Editor-in-Chief, will facilitate this discussion of the virtual goods industry: where virtual goods are headed, what makes Second Life’s virtual goods economy different, the challenges and opportunities of an economy based on user-generated content, and the success stories of Second Life entrepreneurs making real profits from their virtual goods.

Please see the event listing for the Engage Expo which provides further details on the panel:

Last year, Residents of the immersive 3D world of Second Life spent more than $360 million on countless items of virtual goods – from land to designer shoes to lavish homes. The virtual economy almost doubled in size in the past year, and at nearly $50 million per month in user-to-user transactions, the Second Life economy is now on an annual run rate of more than half a billion US dollars, making Second Life the largest virtual economy in the industry.

Join Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab Chief Product Officer Tom Hale, and Cornell University Economist Robert Bloomfield to discuss where virtual goods are headed, what makes Second Life’s virtual goods economy different, the challenges and opportunities of an economy based on user-generated content, and the success stories of Second Life entrepreneurs making real profits from their virtual goods..

Guest Biographies

Philip Rosedale

Philip Rosedale founded San Francisco-based Linden Lab in 1999, and has led the creation of the virtual world of Second Life from initial concept to a market-leading virtual world, with a robust economy and a global population. As a pioneer in the virtual world industry, Rosedale is actively involved in the strategy, development and design of Linden Lab’s products, including the world of Second Life and the Second Life Grid platform. Rosedale is known for his entrepreneurial approach to new technologies, starting a network software company when he was 17. In 1995 he created an innovative internet video conferencing product, which was later acquired by RealNetworks, where he went on to become Vice President and CTO. In 1999, the advent of consumer broadband and better PC 3D graphics inspired Rosedale to leave RealNetworks and found Linden Lab, pursuing his lifelong dream of creating an internet scale virtual world. Rosedale holds a BS degree in Physics from the University of California at San Diego.

Tom Hale

Tom Hale joined Linden Lab in September 2008 as Chief Product Officer. Tom drives the product strategy for Linden Lab’s diverse offerings, reporting directly to Linden Lab’s CEO, Mark Kingdon. Hale brings over 15 years of experience in product development, marketing and management to Linden Lab having most recently served as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) at Redpoint Ventures. Prior to Redpoint, Tom served as Vice President and General Manager for Adobe Systems’ Knowledge Worker Business Unit where he drove strategy for the Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Connect and Flash Media Server product lines. Prior to joining Adobe, Tom served a variety of senior roles at Macromedia, where he helped establish Flash as a web development standard and oversaw a learning and training business unit that generated over $100 million annually. Prior to his tenure at Macromedia, Tom was the director of sales and marketing at Fauve Software, an imaging software company. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University.

Jeaniesing Trilling

Jeaniesing Trilling is the creation of Jeanie Tubbs who is a mom, a wife, and a music teacher in a rural Pennsylvania public school. When introduced to Second Life in 2006, Jeanie was hesitant to get involved. “Gaming” was not her thing, and in her late 30’s she suspected that she’d be a virtual grandma in the “game”, but she registered an account and created an avatar at the urging of friends – and tried to keep an open mind.

Second Life as a creative outlet very quickly grabbed her attention and it wasn’t long before she was designing structures for herself, aquaintances, businesses, and a University, and working with people of all ages. Jeanie learned to animate, and shortly after opened her first Second Life business. Second Life’s unique platform offered intellectual and creative challenges that could not be found in real life situations, and teaching herself to script in LSL with no prior programming knowledge yielded both personal and financial benefits. jeaniesing’s shop, jeaniesing’s things, is full of animated and scripted novelties along with kits to help creators who have different skill sets. It remains virtually open to date and it’s profits, along with custom animation and scripting work, provide the SL income that allows Jeanie’s family extra security and the occasional luxury.

Harper Beresford

Harper Beresford (RL: Jennifer Grace-Dawson) is a Second Life bon vivant, businesswoman, landowner and builder.

As Duchess of Rfyre (CMO and Business Manager) for over two years, she brings order and voice to one of SL fashion’s largest empires, encompassing brands under the House of RFyre including RFyre, RP Couture, and Avrele. She also consults Nonna Hedges and Pulse Skin, models for the Fashion Research Institute/Shengri-La and Eshi Otawara, and manages estates, including DB Bailey’s Locus project and her own regions, Avant Garde and Vanguard.

Harper’s photography has been seen in solo and group shows in Berlin, Florence and San Francisco and has appeared in Architectural Digest in Italy and on arcspace.com. Along with houseofrfyre.com, she publishes her own blogs: slfashionpassion.wordpress.com and harperberesford.blogspot.com, and she co-administers the fashion bloggers group in SL. She’s collaborated on the fashion portion of Burning Life in SL and has published academic writing about SL under her RL name. She holds a Masters degree and partial PhD in cultural anthropology, in which her thesis was to address virtual worlds. Recently she was a panelist for the Fashion Track at SLCC in San Francisco.