Linden Labs Picks New CEO

He’s Mark Kingdon, CEO of Organic, a digital communications agency, alias Marcus Voom, now alias M Linden as soon as he takes the reins on May 15.

Linden Labs announced the appointment today in a remarkably dry and unimaginative press release, which you can read here if you want. But if you want a more SL-centric account, turn to Reuters’ version here, which at least provides Kingdon’s SL names (first Marcus, his freebie avie on an account he launched in January 2007, and now M Linden, with a profile that reveals nothing but his avie and RL pics).

Apparently, Kingdon was the one who set off the marketer stampede into SL with a column he wrote for the marketing Web site ClickZ (read it here). I remember that column well, because it ran shortly after I wandered into SL to check out the now-vanished Aloft hotel build.
“If Second Life was on the periphery of your marketing initiatives, as blogs or social networks might have been a year ago, it’s now time to take a closer look at the opportunities and risks associated with this experiential medium,” he wrote, apparently before actually going in-world himself. He also cited a Vancouver Sun article claiming that SL’s primary demographic groups, at the time, were at-home moms and young professionals. It is to laugh.

Here’s the new boss, who at least has a nice customized avatar: