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

History of Second Life

Teen Second Life

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