Second Life Median Concurrency Trending Down Since March (Evidence of Traffic Bots Going Into Exile?)

Tateru Nino has some very interesting charts on her blog, tracking median concurrency numbers in Second Life, which she has been compiling (along with many other stats) since 2006. While we generally analyze an online service's daily peak concurrency rates, the median number is also a valuable data point, because it better suggests average usage throughout the day. (Compare to the peak concurrency numbers above right, from T. Linden's most recent economic report.) According to Tateru's figures, Second Life's median concurrency, which spiked to 78K in March, has been trending downward since.

But why since March?

In the reader comment thread on her post, well-known innovator Opensource Obscure suggests it's a reaction to a Linden announcement banning traffic bots in April; Ms. Nino herself notes that March was the month the Lindens unveiled plans to segregate extreme sex and violence to a separate continent. I'd say Mr. Obscure's hypothesis is more on the mark, and we're seeing the result of traffic-gaming bots being slowly sent offline. But as is often the case, I'd also suggest that's only part of the reason. SL activity generally decreases during the late Spring and Summer, as the real world weather improves for most of the population, who subsequently spend more time offline.

In any case, will be interesting to see what happens to that median in coming months. As the Lindens beef up their website presence, adding a social network and other content sharing/discovery features to users' dashboards, I think it's likely median in-world concurrency will begin growing gradually, but not rapidly. After all, since there's now more ways to enjoy SL activity without actually having to log in, many users will probably spend more time shopping on the xStreetSL ecommerce site, noodling around on the dynamic web-based world map, and so on. If that's right, we may see median activity in Second Life continue at current levels -- while activity on SecondLife.com grows strongly.

Comments

[Maggie Darwin (@MaggieL)]

Well, how about that. LL may not generate much direct revenue from a NPIOF freebie avatar, but at least they can sell ads on secondlife.com. :-)

[Tristin Mikazuki]

I think its evdience that people are leaving Second Life for greener pastures.
LL has latley been treating its customer base VERY badly and people are fed up and leaving.
On a side note the online game I work at has about 25% more customers from Dec '08 quite a few have come from SL ;-)
LONG live LLs bad customer service!

[Robert Graf]

A large percentage of the drop are folks like myself who are refusing to login or buy anything inworld. Linden Labs has only themselves to blame for this. Constantly changing ground rules, insider corruption, and total lack of customer service are just a few of the reasons I left. SL just isn't worth the time, money, and frustration anymore. I and others are moving on to greener pastures - opensim/OSGrid. The trickle of people leaving SL is rapidly turning into a flood and Linden Labs has only themselves to blame for this. Notice they don't publish "residents online now" on their website front page anymore. And that number was manipulated. Wonder what the real number is down to now? 10,000 - 20,000 maybe. lol ;)_~~~

[Ann Otoole]

It isn't bot removal lmao. Although some have been removed.

The bigger story at the moment is the LL job listings page. I do so wish I had the qualifications for some of those roles that *will* make a difference.

But I don't. All I will ever be is a content creator. Oh well.

[Galatea Gynoid]

If it's due to bots leaving, it will have no real impact on the economic figures. If it's due to people leaving, you'll see the same dip in economic figures. Seems to me it shouldn't be that hard to check, one way or the other.

[Tristin Mikazuki]

If ya look at a few of the Labs friends sim and stores guess what.. traffic bots LOl
Just look at LostDog 8 bots in the middle of the sim and usally 2 to 5 more on the east side just standing there.
The traffic drop is just people leaving SL its dieing off.