Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Pathfinder Linden Leaves

Pathfinder Linden
Location: Montclair State Amphitheater

I was setting up for Roundtable when this news came in:

https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/educators/2010-March/038468.html

Note from John Lester's e-mail this line: "Due to recent reorganizations at Linden Lab, my current position (Evangelist, Market Development) has ceased to exist. There are no alternative positions available to me, so as of March 12th I will be leaving the company."

One must wonder at this. Spin it how you wish, but Mark Kingdon has said very little about the role of education in SL.

To lose Pathfinder, who spearheaded the U Texas system's large investment, is a heavy blow to those of us who teach with and about SL. Path's magic hat, which threw fireballs if you touched it, is a big hat to fill.

I'm hoping that Claudia and George Linden, long-time friends of educators, won't also be leaving.

2 comments:

Tenchi Morigi said...

Should I be upset? I think yes.
Am I upset? No.
Should I be surprised? Most likely not.

As you Magic SLeight Ball this morning I thing that even how sad this piece of news is, it is actually not surprising. Since the massive changes with the "old guard" being either driven into non significance or out of the company completely, things are pointing into one direction.

I do not think that SL will cease to exsist in the mid term, but I don´t think it will evolve either. With the hype gone and a lot of desillusioned users (and even worse creators) SL is losing its base of revenue.
In my eyes what they are currently doing is to milk everything out of the plattform as long as they can, and close it down once there is not enough revenue left to keep the plattform running and still earn a decent cut.

One can only hope that a decent alternative will come up in time before the people that are most important for plattforms like this (the content creators) are still interested in them.

Tenchi Morigi said...

geez ... ignore the typos *LOL* I am barely awake yet.

Take care everyone
T