Yesterday I complained that Linden Lab’s communications in recent months, insofar as key areas were concerned, had been at an all-time low. While the term “unmitigated disaster” keeps floating through my head, I’m going to go with “fiasco” to describe it.

I’ve complained about that before, in fact, I’ve been complaining about that since it started.

I imagine that the problem basically rests with the communication policies that Kim Salzer (now departed from the Lab) put into place.

Numerous insiders tell me Kim was instrumental in implementing a corporate policy that tightly controls information and internal communication within Linden Lab, both between departments, and between Linden Lab staff and the community. – New World Notes

Now, while the Lab has really lifted its game in a number of areas since the beginning of the year, Marketing/Communications hasn’t been one of them. I can’t think of a business that’s doing worse in that department than Linden Lab this year. Statistically, there must be some, but they’re not the sorts of organisations that I would do business with. Think about that for a moment.

This year, the Lab essentially ceded primary control of its message and conversations about its brand to third-parties. Third-parties who aren’t always kind. I don’t know but that most marketers will tell you that that isn’t exactly a winning marketplace strategy.

Substantive communications from the Lab have been rare in 2011, and there seems to be little place to lay the blame for that other than at the feet of the Lab’s Marketing/Communications policy, introduced at the beginning of the year, not long before the arrival of its new CEO.

There’s plenty of areas where the Lab’s communications are clearly deficient. The ongoing traffic calculation issues are one of them, and you can probably think of a dozen others in just the last month. Can you even name this month’s premium membership gift? Communicating important information to customers in a timely fashion doesn’t seem to even be on the agenda these days.

At least it seems that the Lab’s Marketing/Communications are unlikely to get any worse – there’s practically nowhere to go but up, in that area.

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Tags: Kim Salzer, Linden Lab / Linden Research Inc, Marketing, New World Notes, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual Environments and Virtual Worlds