Although he was familiar with the metaverse of Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, Rosedale has said that his vision of virtual worlds predates that book, and that he conducted early virtual world experiments during his college years at the University of California, San Diego, where he studied physics. That effort eventually transformed into the better-known, user-centered Second Life.

That vision changed into the software application Linden World, in which people participated in task-based games and socializing in a three-dimensional online environment.

In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of the hardware, known as 'The Rig', which in prototype form was seen as a clunky steel contraption with computer monitors worn on shoulders. Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab in 1999 with the intention of developing computer hardware to allow people to become immersed in a virtual world. History Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life Second Life is intended for people ages 16 and over, with the exception of 13–15-year-old users, who are restricted to the Second Life region of a sponsoring institution (e.g., a school).

Second Life also has its own virtual currency, the Linden Dollar (L$), which is exchangeable with real world currency. The platform principally features 3D-based user-generated content. They can explore the world (known as the grid), meet other residents, socialize, participate in both individual and group activities, build, create, shop, and trade virtual property and services with one another. Second Life users, also called ' residents', create virtual representations of themselves, called avatars, and are able to interact with places, objects and other avatars. The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own client software or via alternative third-party viewers. In many ways, Second Life is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: 'There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective'. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017 the active user count had declined to 'between 800,000 and 900,000'. Developed and owned by the San Francisco–based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003, it saw rapid growth for some years and in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Second Life is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multiplayer online virtual world.

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