Second Life Creator Philip Rosedale Will Now Take Your Questions

You could argue that Philip Rosedale has done more than anyone else to help millions of people live their dreams. As the founder and CEO of Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company that created Second Life (which we’ve blogged about now and again),
he has taken virtual reality to a whole new place.

A technology whiz since childhood (he built his first computer in the fourth grade), Rosedale started a computer software company in high school and eventually developed FreeVue, a video conferencing system for PCs. After his startup was acquired by RealNetworks, he became the larger company’s vice president and CTO. In 1999 he left to start compiling research for Linden Lab, and in 2003, Second Life was born.

Now, with 11.2 million registered users (about 1 million of whom have logged in during the past month) and with nearly 4 billion “Linden Dollars” a year being spent on property, goods, and services (of all kinds), Second Life has become the most prominent truly interactive virtual world in history. (It is so prominent, in fact, that IBM makes fun of it in a recent commercial.)

Rosedale has kindly agreed to answer questions from readers of this blog, so fire away.

Addendum: You can find the answers to these questions here.