Recently, the announcement of Linden Labs’ CEO Philip Rosedale that “the company he founded has begun a search for a new CEO with more operational and management expertise” was followed by quite some mixed comments ranging from “With Rosedale in a more ancillary visionary role, and a more experienced day-to-day, managerial CEO in place, that’s likely to change things, surely for the better.” (James Wagner Au, GigaOm) to “while Linden Lab insists that the decision wasn’t precipitated by a crisis, it’s hard to ignore the ongoing backlash against Second Life from the mainstream media.” (Prokofy Neva, Virtual Worlds News) to “Rosedale’s resignation from his executive position more firmly solidifies my own perception that it is only a matter of when, not if, the land of bizarre, free-form make-believe takes its final bow.” (Paul Glazowksi, Mashable)

Now, is writing off SL not a bit premature? After all, (according to Techcrunch) Linden Labs has a funding of around US$ 19 million under its belts (which, BTW, wouldn’t keep Gaia Online even running for more than 9 months, as we learned in the recent days). But Linden also faces peculiar problems both from its inside (namely the complexity of its product and its company-structure) and from the outside with growing competition like Hipihi, EA-Land and Multiverse.

SL has to confront a vital question which eventually every social network/massive world these days will have to answer: What is its purpose and unique benefit to its members, after the initial sensation has worn off?