Thank you to everyone who participated in making over Philip’s avatar. Philip reviewed all the avatars and is amazed at the creativity that went into the submissions.

The winner is Resident creator, Mars Absent. To find more of Mars’ work, check out The Abyss inworld or the SL Marketplacehttps://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/56011. We invite you to check out the finalist entries on Flickr.com.

Philip is thrilled to have a new look.  Here is the result of his first photoshoot.

 

 

Special thank you to Mars Absent!  Your designs are amazing!

Philip was recently interviewed by NPR’s Laura Sydell, who was interested in discussing how science fiction relates to technological innovation. If you saw Philip’s keynote at SLCC, you may have noticed he mentioned that it was his wife who gave him Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash as gift, and this journalist was interested in discussing how books like that influenced Philip’s thinking about Second Life. Tomorrow morning on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, you’ll be able to hear their discussion.

Air times for specific stations across the US are available here. If you miss it live, the piece should be available online after it airs here.

When you think about someone with an iconic look, who comes to mind? Grace Jones, Albert Einstein, Lady Gaga? How exactly does someone create an iconic look?  Well, that’s not as easy to pinpoint. Some have a natural style that gives their appearance a larger-than-life status, others have extremely creative stylists, and sometimes it’s a mashup of both.

Since Philip Linden is one of Second Life’s most recognized and celebrated Residents, and his avatar appears on the pages of magazines, newspapers, and websites around the world, we’re looking for a special Resident to be his stylist and create a new iconic look for him.  We all know that a lot has changed in Second Life since Philip first created his rainbow-cod-pieced-chapped-Rolling-Stones-tee-shirt-spikey-haired avatar, and… the time has come for him to get a makeover!

Philip’s return to Linden Lab has inspired this renovation — “Philip Linden 2.0”, if you will. And, when exploring the idea of creating a fresh look for his avatar, he naturally decided to turn to the talented Second Life community to assist him in this endeavor.

In his SLCC keynote speech last weekend, Philip announced a contest, open to the community, to help him achieve his Philip Linden 2.0 dream (For more direction from Philip, listen to the video at about 41 minutes in). Keep in mind, we want some essence of the old Philip (he wants to remain a male avatar), but we want your imagination and creativity to shine through. If you want to participate, we ask that you create a full  look for Philip’s new avatar — hair, skin, clothes, etc. He’ll choose his top favorites from the images you submit, then we’ll open up the voting for the community to decide a winner.  The winner will be compensated with Philip’s eternal gratitude for his new look.

There are a few guidelines around the submission process, so please make sure to carefully read the submission form. The deadline is September 6th, 2010, at noon (12:00 PM) Pacific Time.  We are excited to see your ideas!

Quick Link:
Philip 2.0 Submission Form

On Saturday morning, Philip delivered his keynote speech at the Second Life Community Convention in Boston. In the course of his speech, Philip announced coming changes and made several commitments for 2010.

You’ll be hearing more (and more details) on those points soon, but in the meantime you can watch the full video of Philip’s talk online to hear exactly what he said at SLCC. The video, made available by the SLCC organizers, is here (fair warning: you’ll need to sit through an ad before the video).

I’d also like to give my thanks to the SLCC organizers – in particular Fleep Tuque – for all of their hard work on the event, and their flexibility that helped make it possible for Philip to attend in person.

On Saturday morning, Philip delivered his keynote speech at the Second Life Community Convention in Boston. In the course of his speech, Philip announced coming changes and made several commitments for 2010.

You’ll be hearing more (and more details) on those points soon, but in the meantime you can watch the full video of Philip’s talk online to hear exactly what he said at SLCC. The video, made available by the SLCC organizers, is here (fair warning: you’ll need to sit through an ad before the video).

I’d also like to give my thanks to the SLCC organizers – in particular Fleep Tuque – for all of their hard work on the event, and their flexibility that helped make it possible for Philip to attend in person.

Recently, I posted an update here on our blogs about on Linden Lab’s strategy. I mentioned my desire to hold an inworld meeting for questions before the end of July, and today I’m happy to share some details on how you can participate!

On Friday July 30th, join myself and COO Bob Komin (BK Linden) at 10am SLT/PST at Linden Estate Services for an Inworld meeting with the Residents of Second Life. It was announced this June that I would be returning as interim CEO and I’d like to take this opportunity to address some of the excitement, concerns and questions that have been circulating for the past few weeks. The overall goal is to open up the conversation with the community about our upcoming plans around the development and future of Second Life.

If you would like to attend, please fill out this form with your Second Life name and email address no later than 5pm SLT/PST on Wednesday, July 28th.  Admission to the live event will be decided by a random draw and the winners will be notified on the 29th by either an email or notecard with instructions on how to RSVP. Please keep in mind that the event will be in English and that both myself and Bob will be using SL Voice.

We are attempting to make this event as inclusive as possible so that those who are interested will be able to participate. We have partnered with TreetTV in order to provide live video and audio streaming of the event. In addition, we have asked Virtual Ability Island to provide a transcription of the event so that those with hearing impairments can follow along. You can also submit questions throughout the event to the SL Twitter account. The final 20-30 minutes of the event will be devoted to answering some of those questions.

I’m looking forward to hearing from the community on Friday, and keeping in touch with you as we move forward.

Thanks,

Philip