Linden Lab: Social networking can't touch Second Life

Of course, virtual economies and voice chat are two areas in which Facebook, MySpace, and most other text/photo oriented social networks are lagging. The big boys have been slow in getting their virtual currency efforts off the ground. Neither site has fostered marketplaces for user-created virtual goods, although game developers have had some success selling virtual goods in Facebook. Voice chat is not natively supported in Facebook or MySpace, although independent developers have been creating voice applications for Facebook.

Where does this leave Linden Lab It's hard to say, at least when it comes to the all-important revenue metric. Voice chat is free to Second Life residents, and the closely-held company doesn't state how much money it's making in its virtual economy (in our interview with Mark Kingdon earlier this year, he would only say the company is profitable). News Corp. and Facebook are also not very forthcoming with their virtual goods sales figures. A September 2008 estimate placed Facebook's annual revenue from virtual goods at $35 million per year, but that's not an official number, and it could have changed a lot over the last year -- especially when you consider the sheer size of Facebook's user base when compared with that of Second Life.

Sources and research: Linden Lab press release, The Industry Standard, VentureBeat.com, Facebook.com

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