I know I know, it’s Linden Lab, but The Silence Of The Lab doesn’t work as well for a headline, anyway, http://lindenlabs.com does take you to the right place. However the right place still has no mention of a CEO, as we come towards the end of day 7 of “One of our CEO’s is missing“.
The silence from the lab is pretty deafening at the moment, which is now getting beyond the useful stage. The smart money at this stage seems to be on the next Second Life blog post that isn’t a pic of the day being a shout out for the next video installment of The Drax Files. A very worthy addition should be released tomorrow, well worth a shout out that’s for sure but not exactly reassuring to the expectant masses.
Over at New World Notes Hamlet Au has another tease of a post: Relax: Rod Humble Leaves Linden Lab, But Second Life Steams on (With Surprises Still on the Way) :
Rod Humble is gone and that is too bad for many reasons, but Second Life is doing fine (more or less). Not only that, some excellent surprises are coming soon
At this stage, an excellent surprise would be someone at Linden Lab finding their way to the blog and posting some information. Whereas the silence of the lab has created a buzz of sorts, the buzz is getting close to being stewed, which means it won’t leave a nice taste in the mouth for much longer. The issue isn’t just that the CEO chair is absent, there are other issues too.
The Second Life forum still has posts from people confused about the tax and account requirements that are taking users by surprise. Over at SLUniverse the thread on issues related to the tax and account requirements is still going strong, with frustrations boiling over for some, who feel that LL’s threat to put accounts on administrative hold are a step too far:
Honestly, having my account threatened with ‘administrative hold’ was the most low class, underhanded thing I’d ever seen. What the hell? Let me gently remind them exactly who is writing the checks in the first place. It’s us, the customers, the people on the estate (me included), and we are all getting pretty ticked.
In the old days, people like Zee Linden would actually explain matters, exemplified by Zee Linden’s blog post about VAT. VAT of course was an issue for many, but the tax and account issues could do with someone of Zee’s calibre explaining just what the hell is going on.
The CEO also used to say goodbye, as Philip Linden did back in 2008. There was also a blog post in 2010 when Mark Kingdon stepped down and Philip temporarily returned to the CEO role.
Of course Second Life carries on, many happily oblivious to all that is or isn’t going on. That’s a good place to be, but for others, the lack of communication, the lack of support and the lack of explanations are stretching people’s patience.
I’ve been a long time critic of Linden Lab’s lack of communication, so I’m biased somewhat but I can’t help feel that now is the time for someone to step up to the plate regarding the exit of the CEO and the tax and account issues. There are times when someone needs to take the bull by the horns and that time would be around about now, which would also ruin the safe bet about that next blog post being about the next episode of The Drax files and fulfil Hamlet’s prediction of surprises.