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Cross-posted from my Second Life blog
Linden Lab recently released some figures on the current ’state of Second Life’.
Available in Excel format, I downloaded and played around with it a bit (I’m no Excel wizard; even pivot tables scare me!).
Here’s some interesting statistics:
Australia is in 11th place of countries from which members of SL originate
|
Country |
% of total SL population |
|
|
United States |
31.19% |
|
|
France |
12.73% |
|
|
Germany |
10.46% |
|
|
United Kingdom |
8.09% |
|
|
Netherlands |
6.55% |
|
|
Spain |
3.83% |
|
|
Brazil |
3.77% |
|
|
Canada |
3.30% |
|
|
Belgium |
2.63% |
|
|
Italy |
1.93% |
|
|
Australia |
1.48% |
The average age of SL members is 33; the breakdown by age group as follows:
|
Age Band |
% of Active |
|
|
18-24 |
27.46% |
|
|
25-34 |
38.78% |
|
|
35-44 |
21.00% |
|
|
45 + |
11.52% |
The gender balance has remained fairly consistent over the last few months. Second Life is not the ‘boy’-heavy environment many claim it to be:
|
Gender - last 3 months |
|||
|
Year |
Month |
Female |
Male |
|
2006 |
November |
42.14% |
57.86% |
|
2006 |
December |
41.42% |
58.58% |
|
2007 |
January |
41.11% |
58.89% |
The number of Premium account holders has steadily increased too. Premium account holders actually pay for their access, rather than ‘test’ the waters with a free account:
|
Year |
Month |
No. |
|||
|
2006 |
August |
24,702 |
|||
|
2006 |
September |
28,253 |
|||
|
2006 |
October |
32,526 |
|||
|
2006 |
November |
42,430 |
|||
|
2006 |
December |
49,776 |
|||
|
2007 |
January |
57,702 |
|||
This is in comparison to the total number of accounts, both free and premium, which too has been rapidly growing over the last six months:
|
Year |
Month |
Users |
||
|
2006 |
August |
597,269 |
||
|
2006 |
September |
805,638 |
||
|
2006 |
October |
1,203,244 |
||
|
2006 |
November |
1,727,229 |
||
|
2006 |
December |
2,251,416 |
||
|
2007 |
January |
3,117,287 |
Finally, the financials are also showing a rather large increase in both in-world transactions (buying and selling) and ‘real world’ transactions:
|
Month |
L$ Exchanged |
US$ Exchanged |
# Sells |
# Buys |
LL L$ Sales |
LL US$ Sales |
|
August 2006 |
444,451,150 |
$1,499,843 |
10,119 |
69,027 |
2,389,282 |
$8,092 |
|
September 2006 |
481,134,877 |
$1,726,581 |
10,588 |
76,604 |
20,117,994 |
$73,511 |
|
October 2006 |
580,545,638 |
$2,116,961 |
12,048 |
90,717 |
49,728,404 |
$183,824 |
|
November 2006 |
717,580,354 |
$2,626,763 |
12,237 |
112,236 |
77,327,855 |
$286,676 |
|
December 2006 |
1,043,298,924 |
$3,858,847 |
15,002 |
145,764 |
198,449,261 |
$740,943 |
|
January 2007 |
1,341,270,320 |
$4,987,208 |
16,187 |
169,621 |
165,833,743 |
$622,839 |
Fellow SLer and FIR listener Marcel de Ruiter had a look at the numbers with some interesting additional data. Definitely a worthwhile read, and thanks for letting me know about your post, Marcel.
All of which suggests that Second Life is definitely here to stay; it is up to us how we shape our little part of it and our experience of it.
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Alex Manchester 02.19.07 at 11:02 am
Hi Lee,
These figures have caused quite a stir haven’t they?! You say Second Life is here to stay, Clay Shirky over at Valleywag,/a> says the figures show Second Life - based on it’s membership vs retention figures - is actually nowhere near as popular as people think as the majority of people try it once and don’t go back.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this
Alex (Melcrum)
Alex Manchester 02.19.07 at 11:02 am
Hi Lee,
These figures have caused quite a stir haven’t they?! You say Second Life is here to stay, Clay Shirky over at Valleywag says the figures show Second Life - based on it’s membership vs retention figures - is actually nowhere near as popular as people think as the majority of people try it once and don’t go back.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this
Alex (Melcrum)