Second Life Co-Founder Cory Ondrejka Joins Facebook (But What's He Doing There?)

Cory Ondrejka, who co-founded Second Life with Philip Rosedale, just announced that he's joined Facebook. This comes six months after co-founding a stealth start-up called Walletin, which Facebook acquired. No word on what Walletin is (or rather was), except for Cory saying, "Our friends are the most intelligent and cynical developers in the Valley and even they thought it was cool." Interestingly, Walletin's other co-founder also has a background in 3D online worlds: Bruce Rogers, who was CTO at City of Heroes/Star Trek Online developer Cryptic Studios.

So what's Cory bringing to Facebook? "No comment on what I'll be doing," he tells me, "other than going through their normal Boot Camp with Bruce Rogers." But look for signs of Ondrejka-ish ingenuity emerging in the social network soon after.

Hat tip: Tim Allen. Photo by Joi Ito.

Update, 3:00pm: TechCrunch has a confirmation on this acquisition/hiring from Facebook, along with other details. (Hat tip: Troy McConaghy.)

Comments

[Troy McConaghy]

The name "Walletin" is suggestive. Something related to wallets? Maybe a payments or transactions business? According to TechCrunch, Facebook also got the assets of Walletin.

[Chadrick]

Good for him. He was top notch at Linden and he'll be great for Facebook.

[Metacam Oh]

here comes Facebook Dollars and Facebook Ad Revenue :)

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Facebook (and developers focused on Facebook) seem to be quietly acquiring some of the best and brightest from virtual worlds and MMOs.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Walletin was an afterthought and the real prize they were after was Cory's brain.

(Which they will no doubt keep in a bell jar at the server farm, hard-wired into the system with jumper cables...)