Will Second Life be a career killer?



Mark Kingdon, CEO of Omnicom Group digital agency Organic, is leaving to become CEO at Linden Lab, the company that owns Second Life.

From a distance, I liked Mark Kingdon. I never worked with him at Organic. He arrived after I had left. But from what I read on Organic's Three Minds blog, he seemed like a smart guy. So, this news really has me confused.

So, how about some multiple choice ...



Very poor move. It has career disaster written all over it.

As Second Life continues to fail due to piss poor user experience, an unstable platform, a lack of true technical innovation, and competitive threats, Mark will struggle (and in my mind fail) to help them turn the corner. People are already abandoning the service in droves (the place is always empty) and nothing will help bring the buzz back once it is gone.

The comments below the announcement are priceless:

Grid Stability is the catch cry, but the “proof of the pudding is in the eating”, and the Grid is NOT stable, and not just the Havoc project, thats one side of the coin, the whole Grid is abysmal. Fix it. Everything else is just moving the deckchairs on the Titanic. (Alf Lednev)

So the head of a digital advertising agency will be the head of Linden Labs. Banner ads, targeted search, clickstream analysis, sl traffic analysis, are these coming to our sl world soon? (Cookies are already here unless you know to turn them off) Are my avatar’s behavior patterns going to be sold to Coke or Proctor and Gamble? Hmmmmmm……. Very interesting…. (Ishtar Writer)

You are walking into a huge mess, and there is a great deal of expectations residents have of their new CEO.. I just hope that your zest, fervor and commitment to success remain.. Its not hard to get sucked into the Linden Tao of “Really, who gives a sh!t” …(Suhana)

I worked for Organic Inc when Mark Kingdon became CEO there at the SF head office. Wasn’t long after that when most of the satellite offices got shut down…with our London Office (the one i worked in) being one of the last. (Rene Erlanger)

Priceless.

Good luck Mark. You're gonna need it ...

Further reading:
Announcing our New CEO! (official announcement)
Linden Installs Mark Kingdon as New CEO Gamasutra
Linden Lab selects Mark Kingdon as new CEO (c|net)
Organic's Mark Kingdon Flies to Linden Lab (ClickZ)
Second Life Parent Appoints Former Organic CEO as Its New CEO (Washington Post)

Technorati Tags: second.life, organic, mark.kingdon