Second Life History

Second Life

Linden Lab was founded in 1999
In August 2001 Second Life was called LindenWorld
Closed beta began on November 2002 with public beta opening on April 2003
Second Life was launched on June 23rd 2003 developed by Linden Lab. CEO and founder Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden)
First ever blog post by Linden Lab was made on 4th October 2004 on the official Second Life Blog
Second Life reached 1 million residents on 18th October 2006 at 8:05:45am SLT.
Linden Lab removed Ratings from Second Life profiles during April 2007
Windlight was built into the SL viewer (1.19.1) on April 2nd 2008
Philip Linden stepped down as CEO in March 2008
New CEO M Linden took over at LL during April 2008
OnRez and XStreet SL was integrated on 20th January 2009
Snowglobe 1.1 released in August 2009
LL shut down SL Mentor program on 10th December 2009
Linden Lab launches new SL Forums on 9th February 2010
Snowglobe 2.0 released on 22nd February 2010
Linden Lab launches new Viewer 2.0 Public Beta on 23rd February 2010
Viewer 2 launched officially (out of beta) on 31st March 2010
M Linden left Linden Lab, Philip Linden replaced M on 24th June 2010
Philip Linden announced that Burning Life will be renamed to BURN 2.0 on July 22nd 2010
LL dropped educational/nonprofit pricing in late 2010
Farewell to Avatars United – 23rd September 2010
Rod Humble new CEO of LL – 23rd December 2010
Teen Second Life merges with Main Grid – 21st January 2011
Linden Lab launched the new Second Life Community Platform on 3rd March 2011
Linden Lab launched Basic/Advanced modes in Viewer 2 on 29th March 2011
Linden Lab announced that mesh is coming this summer (July/August) – 31st May 2011
Group Chat testing event on Beta Grid hosted by Linden Lab (4pm SLT) on 2nd June 2011
Linden Lab launched the new social web profiles on 26th July 2011
Mesh goes live across the grid – 23rd August 2011
Linden Lab introduces Pathfinding alpha – 16th February 2012
Linden Lab announced that Second Life’s 9th Birthday will now focus on the spotlight community events – 16th April 2012
Linden Lab announces Project Shining to improve Avatar and Object Streaming Speeds – 29th June 2012
Linden Lab launches CHUI Beta Viewer to improve communications in SL – 28th February 2013
Linden Lab launched Materials Project Viewer for alpha testing – 8th April 2013
Linden Lab announces faster avatar loading changes with Project Shining – 29th May 2013
Second Life officially turned 10 years old – 23rd June 2013
Linden Lab announces SLShare – 25th September 2013
Rod Humble leaves Linden Lab – Mid January 2014
Ebbe Altberg Joins Linden Lab as new CEO – 5th February 2014
Linden Lab announces SL Go by OnLive – 5th March 2014
Linden Lab announces new Mesh avatars – 15th May 2014
Linden Lab announced Experience Keys – 2nd July 2014
Linden Lab hosts Snowball Fight – 6th February 2015
Experience Tools became available for Premium Members – 30th June 2015
Linden Lab announces Project Bento – 16th December 2015
Linden Lab announces 360 snapshots – 26th October 2016
Linden Lab launches new Second Life community platform – 14th March 2017
Linden Lab announced reduced mainland costs – 14th March 2018
Linden Lab rolls out Animesh gridwide – 14th November 2018
Linden Lab launches new Linden Homes – 16th April 2019
Linden Lab introduces new Second Life Blogger Network – 26th September 2019
Linden Lab launches EEP grid wide – 20th April 2020
100% of Second Life regions moved to the cloud (AWS) – 19th November 2020
Linden Lab introduces the Second Life Public Calendar – 19th November 2020
The migration of Second Life to the cloud completed – 5th January 2021
Ebbe Altberg passed away – 4th June 2021
Linden Lab introduces multi-factor authentication – 22nd September 2021
High Fidelity Invests In Second Life & Philip Rosedale Returns – 13th January 2022
Linden Lab announces Premium Plus – 23rd June 2022