Last month, the renowned market research solutions provider Global Market Insite conducted what is, to my knowledge, the broadest survey of consumer opinion of Second Life to date. Of their nearly 10,000 respondents, just 479 were Second Life users, but even that number is one of the largest, rigorously collected sample of Resident opinion so far. Their key finding for marketers, of course, is that 78% of those surveyed said real world advertising in SL would positively influence their real world purchasing decisions. I reported on that yesterday for GigaOM. But that was just one question in a much larger survey, and thanks to Jensen Gadley of GMI, I'm able to present the full survey here, after the break.
Their sample skews, I should note, toward relatively newer Residents: a full 89% have been members of SL for just a year or less. For that reason, perhaps, the skew is slightly different demographically than Linden Lab's own figures: 66% of respondents are male, 45% live in a major city, and 51% are 29 or under. (In LL's recent cumulative data, Residents are 59% male, and median age is 32. Last year, at least, Residents activity was based in primarily in small cities, though that may have changed since.)
Some highlights of the GMI report:
- 65% have a college degree or higher; nearly 40% earn $90,000 or more in annual household income.
- 70% are married or co-habitating; nearly 60% have one child or more.
- Most respondents are relatively casual users, with 68% in-world 10 hours or less per week.
- Almost exactly half say their moral behavior in-world is slightly different than it is in real life.
- Nearly a quarter play as another gender (not too surprising) and as another race (somewhat surprising), and as a different nationality (quite surprising), while 11% have an avatar of a different political orientation (very surprising, at least to me.)
Again, that's just a sample. The full GMI report after the break; read and discuss!
