Peak Second Life Concurrency Passes 61,000

This is interesting: traditionally, Sunday at 2pm SLT has been the world's busiest day and time, attracting the most Residents in-world.  In the last couple months, judging by Frans Charming's handy charts, this maximum concurrency has hovered at around 58,000, on other days peaking somewhere at between 43K-58K. 

Today, however, the peak inexplicably jumped from last Sunday's record of 58,738 to 61,445, a surge of nearly 3,000.  (I just took this screen capture from the home page about 10 minutes ago.) What factors caused such an impressive boost of activity in so short a time?

Comments

[Cyde Weys]

I think Second Life has gotten increased media coverage this past week, for whatever reason. I know I saw it matter-of-factly on MSNBC's front page. The story wasn't a "Gee whiz, look at this Second Life virtual world thing"; it was reporting on some goings-on within the virtual world. I guess that coverage lended an air of notability, and it had a lot more people either revisiting Second Life or checking it out for the first time.

[Ann Otoole]

ah that explains the weirdness i was experiencing.
i guess those 3 full clean reinstalls were probably not necessary after all. but the objects moving from folder to folder by themselves was very interesting so i suspected a client side cache problem.

its good to see the "never have logged in but are sl haters" finally being displaced by real reporting.

[ArminasX]

Interestingly, there were no less than THREE articles about or mentioning Second Life at MSNBC.com in the past few days:

• Jan 8th: Ancient Roman road gets virtual life
  Museum visitors wander through rebuilt monuments


• Jan 10th: Pixelanthropy: Charities tap into Second Life
  Nonprofits move into virtual world and champion causes in new ways


• Jan 10th: Q&A with Anshe Chung, virtual philanthropist
  An out-of-this world interview with Second Life's real estate tycoon

I wonder what's up? Perhaps MS or NBC has purchased a hunk of SL? Maybe they just had that same virtual urge that afflicted CBS a few weeks ago?

[Efemera Bisiani]

My guess is the increased concurrency is as a result of Torley's multiple viewer Tip of the Week.

[Frans]

Thanks for the link love. <3