When Second Life launched in 2003. running on just 16
servers with barely 1 .ÐÐÐdedicated users, it was the
culmination of a kind of dream for me. One of the things
Td always been interested in, ever since I was a young
boy, was how we manipulate the world around us.
The world had so much stuff in it; there was always
something I wanted to change, something I wanted
to add, something I wanted to build out of the
things I saw around me. That, to me, was magical:
seeing the world change shape in response to the
ideas In my head. One of the things I wanted to do
when we started developing Second Life almost a
decade ago was to give anyone a chance to work
that same magic
Fastrforward three years and that's exactty
what we have. Second Life now runs on more than
3,000 servers and has close to a million registered
users, but the fundamental idea of the world
hasnt changed: It's a place where you can tum the
pictures in your head into a kind of pixelated reality.
It's a venue for self-expression that's among the
richest and most satisfying out there. In Second Life.
if you see something you want to build or change, the
abiity to do so is at your fingertips. The world is a place
you experience, but more importantly, it's a place you
create.
And those mil ion users—you—have created quite a
world. You add milSons of objects to Second Life—in the
form of cars, clothes, castles, and every other kind of thing
you can imagine—every day You spend close to $5 million
there every month: and that's money you spend not on the
things Linden Lab creates, but on the things that other
users have created and added to the world. To me. that's
the beauty of Second Life: al we've created is a platform,
an almost empty world; where we got lucky is in the fact
that you came along and breathed life into it. If Second
Life is a world at all, it's because you've created it.
