Linden Lab, the makers of shared creative spaces including Second Life®, Patterns^TM, and Creatorverse^TM, today announced the open beta for dio, a new site that allows users to create, share, and explore interactive places. Though still in its early stages of development, dio is now open to users who request invites at dio.com.

In dio, you create places by adding text, photos, videos, and interactive objects into interconnected ‘rooms’ that give spatial context to the content you share. You can keep your places private, share them with friends and family, or allow everyone to explore and enjoy them. Live and persistent chat allows you to socialize with other users as you discover and explore dio places together and see what those who came before you had to say. In the future, dio users will be able to monetize the dio places they create, enabling them to profit from their own creativity.

“dio is a new shared creative space on the web,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “Based around the concept of linked spaces, dio makes it easy and fun to create or visit experiences of all kinds. dio is still in development, and we have deliberately kept the tools as broad as possible, but so far our testers have created a vast range of spaces, from wedding keepsakes, to house tours, to games, to rich media-linked chat rooms about sports and ancient history. I'm really looking forward to seeing what people will create now that dio is more widely available. One of the things that's made Second Life successful is that users are able to monetize their own creativity by selling their creations. Second Life’s economy was extremely robust with over $500 million worth of user-to-user transactions last year. With dio, we want to similarly empower creators by sharing ad revenue with them and ultimately allowing them to sell their creations, and our hope is that this will encourage the kind of incredible dedication and creativity we've seen with Second Life."

You can request an invite to the dio beta today at dio.com. The site will be updated with new features, tools, and concepts every two weeks. A video introduction to dio and screenshots for press are available at: http://lindenlab.com/products/dio

About Linden Lab

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, Linden Lab makes shared creative spaces that inspire and empower users to explore and share their creativity with others.

In 2003, the company released Second Life, the pioneering virtual world filled by the unique creations of its users, who can build anything they can imagine, socialize with others from around the world, and share or sell their creations in a thriving real-money marketplace.

Linden Lab has now expanded its portfolio to include new digital entertainment products, including Patterns, a new 3D universe for users to shape; Creatorverse, a tablet and mobile game that allows users to set their creativity in motion; and dio, a new site that allows users to create, share, and explore unique interactive places online.

For more about Linden Lab, its products, and career opportunities please visit LindenLab.com.