How Internet Rumors Are Like the Dreams in Inception (UPDATED With Background on Rumors of Microsoft Making "Overtures" to Purchase Linden Lab)

... and that's pretty much all I have to say on the subject.

Update, 2:55pm: Then again, ZD Net's Mary-Jo Foley, who writes the column "All About Microsoft", has much more to say:

Microsoft isn’t commenting on the Linden Lab report, but I’ve been asking around and hear from my sources that Microsoft may have made overtures not only toward Linden Lab, but other social-gaming vendors lately. The word from my sources is the Softies are not simply talking partnerships; they’re talking outright purchase.

Hat tip: Scott Jennings, who also has much more to say. So maybe there's a kernel of truth to the initial rumor. After all, even in Inception, the top eventually stops spinning.

Or does it?

Comments

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Oh, Hamlet. That's not an internet rumor. That's you accidentally surfing to the Doug Winger site again.

Is this in regards to any particular rumor? I'm chronically out of the loop in these matters.

[reed]

god hamlet, you just HAD to go and ruin Inception for everybody AGAIN, didn't you?

[Nalates Urriah]

The rumors running inside SL today track back to a group banned by SL, when they are traceable. But, they had me going for a few minutes.

[Cisop Sixpence]

It's nice to see how rumors spread like wild fire. However, if this rumor turned out to be true, would that be good or bad news?

[Eddi Haskell]

You do not think that todays' rumor about Microsoft buying Linden Labs is a total fallacy do you Hamlet? People don't ever make these things up, do they (reeks with sarcasm).

[Hamlet Au]

Wow Arcadia, Googling "Doug Winger" really sent my ass through the rabbit hole. So to speak.

[Daniel Smith]

MS buying LL is like Exxon buying the Titanic.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Aww. I wonder why my rumour of Google buying Linden Lab never caught so much attention!...

I guess it's just because I'm not a famous SL hacker and griefer.

[Renmiri]

MS and LL ?

Mixed feelings on this. On one hand the darn thing would work - til you got a blue screen - and lag could be gone. OTOH all the "colorful" people and sims on SL would be purged. And so would be Opensource.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

If Microsoft bought Linden Lab, I expect it would be immediately be rewritten to be bound as tightly as possible to Windows-only technology... and I would head on my way to OpenSim.

[IntLibber Brautigan]

I doubt MS would buy LL, they'd buy SL.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I'm really sorry, Hamlet. I would never deliberately inflict Doug Winger on anybody unfamiliar with his work. Erase, erase, erase.

[Allison]

I would think it would make more sense for MS to buy Blue Mars. Isn't that architecture closer to their core technology?

[nexus burbclave]

One thing this brings to mind for me is the risk of depending 100% on a platform that you don't control for revenue. In the same way that Zynga is developing strategies to mitigate the risk of depending on the Facebook platform, larger SL businesses should probably be thinking about how they can create other sources of revenue. Otherwise it could be a rude awakening to find out through a press release that your Linden Dollar "revenues" are now nonconvertible MS points. Even as a small-time merchant, I find myself reassessing the risk of just doing SL business in light of this and am trying to decide where else it might make sense to create products. Even if this rumor turns out to be only that, I'd still put pretty good odds on a buyer emerging (and big changes happening) sooner rather than later.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If it has to do with gaming, and Microsoft has anything to do with it, run for your life.

The exceptions to the rule are noteworthy for their rarity.

[Adeon Writer]

Ugh, more Inception spoilers.

[Hamlet Au]

Jeez, has anyone NOT seen *Inception* by now?

[Codesmith]

I have not seen Inception. I'm a Luddite. :-)

[Hamlet Au]

Don't worry, there's so much crazy shit happening in that thing, knowing about an old Japanese dude with a six foot penis or whatever won't spoil anything.

[Adeon Writer]

Ha, I've seen it, can't wait to own it.

[c3]

"maybe" the top stops spinning....

but the film reel runs out....and the theater kicks you out....

and Nolan is already getting Batman ready...

pick your dreams carefully.