In August this year, Linden Lab announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) to run a new Adult-oriented Gateway for Zindra and Adult-related activities in Second Life.The closing date for proposals was the 12th September, with an announcement due at the Adult Content User Group meeting held on Monday 3rd October.

Only it wasn’t – the reasons given at the meeting were that Viale Linden needed some extra time to work things out and get some preparation work done.

However, some people seem unwilling to wait, as there is a note card doing the rounds that reveals that the winning proposal for the Gateway is apparently from Freedom Continent. This is a group of some 16 private island sims, all themed around adult activities and which include Thunderbird Island (Jennifer’s Jewelry), Blacksilk (The Blacksilk Academy), Damsel, Bondage Ranch, Bondage Playground and Slaver Bay among others, and which includes brand names such as Latex Station, MoDesign, and Think Kink.

The notecard itself reads in part:

“At a meeting on monday the 3rd October Linden Labs [sic] announced that a single organisation had won the contract to build, run and expand an Adult Gateway in accordance with well established principles. While it has not yet been officially announced, the organisation who obtained this contract is called ” The Freedom Continent “. This is an established complex of 16 sims, mostly adult, working together to bring a better sense of reliability to adult users in SL. They have in place a well established management system and many years of experience in dealing with adult content. The freedom team are looking for mentors who understand the problems in dealing with adult content users and work with the team to build a good sound adult mentor group who will greet and teach new users as they appear. The Mentor group, The Adult Grid Mentors, will form the backbone to the group. This mentor group will be the official mentor group for the new adult gateway and has the full support of Linden Labs [sic].”

Precisely what form the new Gateway will take remains to be seen, although four sims are on offer for actually hosting the Gateway – these being the four used to host ZExpo 2011 earlier in the year. As a part of the arrangement, the group managing the Gateway regions will also have exclusive use of the name “Zindra”. Reaction to the news of the selection – assuming it is accurate – has yet to be gauged, but is likely to be interesting.

Update: October 7th

Commenting on questions raised as a result of the note card circling in-world, Peter Gray, Linden Lab’s PR Manager stated, “There is a leading candidate, but we’ve not yet finalised any agreement or announced our selection. We hope to be able to do so soon.”