VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

Mashup companies take over Web 2.0 — InfoWorld profiles three companies making announcements at this week’s conference: Serena, which is launching an online marketplace for business mashups; JackBe, which has a new version of its enterprise mashup platform; and Kapow, which provides a hosted service to build mashups that provide web intelligence. We’ll also be writing more about Rearden Commerce and Zude in the next few days. And we just covered SnapLogic, which provides data integration for, you guessed it, enterprise mashups, and has launched version 2.0 and professional editions of its software.

Linden Lab names Mark Kingdon as new chief executive — Kingdon previously spent five years running digital ad agency Organic. The appointment of someone with a stronger business background than founder Philip Rosedale makes sense, particularly since Linden Lab board member Bill Gurley told me the company needs a chief executive who can help it grapple with rapid growth. Less charitably, the appointment can be seen as an attempt to help Linden get back on track after struggling to live up to the initial promise of its virtual world Second Life. Rosedale announced last month that he plans to step down.

IBM buys storage company Diligent Technologies for $200M — The terms of the deal were not disclosed officially, but Israeli newspaper Globes says it was for $200 million. Diligent is IBM’s third Israeli acquisition this year.

StumbleUpon approaches 5 billion stumbles – The website-discovery and rating service is about to get its 5 millionth user, and is also getting very close to nearly 5 billion “stumbles” (recommendations). Not only is that a number just plain impressive, but since each stumble should improve StumbleUpon’s “discovery” service, it also means the site is getting better and better. StumbleUpon is owned by eBay.

Solar plant builder Stirling Energy Systems gets $100M — The funding comes from NTR plc. Stirling is building solar energy projects in the Imperial Valley and the Mojave Desert.

Walter Bender resigns One Laptop Per Child — Apparently Bender , who served as the organization’s president, is more interested in incorporating open source methods into education.

Linden Lab, maker of the online virtual world Second Life, is looking for someone to fill founder and chief executive Philip Rosedale’s shoes. Rosedale (pictured on the left) has announced that he plans to step down as CEO of the San Francisco-based company, although he will stay involved as the new chairman of the board and will also have a full-time role in Linden Lab’s product development and strategy.

Rosedale, a former chief technology officer at Real Networks, has been key in making Second Life a reality. (When he saw The Matrix, Rosedale was reportedly disappointed because the film portrayed exactly what he wanted to do with Second Life, minus the the enslavement of the human race.)  But as Linden Lab continues to grow, Rosedale says it’s time for someone with more operational and management experience to take over the company’s day-to-day workings.

Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, who sits on Linden Lab’s board, tells us that this is a normal step for a company grappling with rapid growth, pointing to a number of other examples, including Google. (We’ve also wondered if it’s time for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to find himself a CEO.) In fact, Rosedale approached the board about possibly stepping down as much as nine months ago, Gurley says.

“(Rosedale’s) view was that he wasn’t enjoying the job as it reached that scale and that he could be more impactful on the company doing something else,” Gurley says.

Second Life is widely seen as the leading virtual world, but month-to-month registration growth has slowed in recent months, falling from a high of 50 percent in October 2006 to 4.6 percent in January of this year. Gurley, however, says that the change in leadership doesn’t mean Linden Lab is looking for a new direction. Revenue is “through the roof”, and Linden Lab could even go public now if it wanted to, he says.

There doesn’t seem to be a definite timeline for finding Rosedale’s replacement. Gurley says the board is hoping to hire someone who’s run a company of a similar size. And because Rosedale will remain deeply involved, compatibility with him will be a key requirement for the new CEO, Gurley adds.

The buzz around the growth of virtual world site, Second Life, is drawing more scrutiny from real-world regulators who fear they’re losing grip with the growing economy.

The site appears to have hit a sort of critical mass — and the attention is fueling even more activity.

A U.S. congressional committee has launched an investigation of the site, to see that people pay taxes properly on income they make at the site. Outsiders are scratching their heads at reports that several thousand people are pulling in $20,000 annual incomes by selling virtual goods and services, and saying “How can I get a piece of this?” Silicon Valley venture capitalist Bill Tai has been pitching Second Life founder, Philip Rosedale, on the idea of creating a central bank, which Tai would — benevolently, of course — run himself. Rosedale has held him off.

And now there’s a marketing start-up, Crayon, which says its launch Thursday will be the first real business to launch inside of the site.

Up to $500,000 in transactions take place daily at Second Life, and the economy is growing by 10 to 15 percent a month.

FBI investigators want to charge two men for spying in Silicon Valley to benefit China, and they say it is just the tip of a massive effort by the Chinese government to set up front companies to do this sort of thing.

In the latest case, they say Lan Lee, an American citizen, and Yoefei Ge, a Chinese national, stole chip designs and software from their employers NetLogic Microsystems of Mountain View and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in San Jose, and planned to go into business with the Chinese government. The Mercury News has the story about it today (reg required):

The case highlights China’s role as the main adversary in a complex game of 21st-century espionage where many agents aren’t trained spies in trench coats but businessmen, students and researchers. Silicon Valley, counterintelligence experts say, is ground zero.

“Silicon Valley is a hotbed” of economic espionage, said Don Przybyla, who heads a FBI counterintelligence unit in San Jose. The valley is home to many of the estimated 3,000 Chinese front companies nationwide set up to steal secrets and acquire technology, according to the FBI.