SECOND LIFE SLUMPS-- A SPIDER'S EXPLANATION

In the Lindens' latest demographic figures published recently, there's a small but noticeable population slump among active Second Life Residents and a decline in virtual business development.  Curious for the Lindens' perspective, I queried their staff demographer.  And the giant spider goddess teleported me to her office, to explain.

"There is a 2.53% drop in the count of active users from May to June," Meta Linden acknowledges, "but at the same time there is a 3.96% increase in the total Active user hours. This corresponds to the small fluctuations we see month-to-month and disparities between count versus hours growth in total logged on users too

"So slightly less people came in world in June but stayed longer?"

The spider goddess nods.  "Right. I still maintain that user hours is the more pertinent metric."  In aggregate, those have still been climbing. "Counts will fluctuate due to lots of factors, but overall attention is best measured with time."

But does she interpret this as a seasonal fluctuation?

"That's my interpretation, that yes, historically we do see seasonal fluctuation," says Meta. "It's more visible now that the market size is bigger."

"Does that include a drop off in earnings for business folks in Second Life?"

"Resident-to-resident transactions have seen a similar leveling, so in some ways, yes. This also could be an effect of our problems with Paypal and billing, but I shouldn't speculate.  I'm really no economist. I just make sure the numbers balance and are accurate, and try to deliver them on time."  Thus qualifying, the spider goddess pretends to don a hot dog vendor hat. "Get yer red hot metrics here!"

In an earlier e-mail conversation, Metric pointed to a continued overall increase of new users:  "Unique residents (registered) rose 19.53% in June, higher than the previous 2 months-- 15.64 and 16.07% respectively for May and April," she notes. "It's my personal perspective that in previous years we hadn't had enough of a marketplace to accurately measure the effects of seasonal trends (i.e. "Summer Doldrums"), but anecdotally even I, who usually avoids that scary big yellow ball in the sky, have been tempted by the beautiful weather to follow a little of Darren B's advice this past month. It really is a nice summertime." 

More analysis: "We have in fact seen small slowing in Premiums, Hours spent In-world, and Logged in User Counts month-over-month in plenty of prior years.  Here is a condensed version of my June metrics that includes the month-over-month growth percentages, so you can see the trends over time a little more clearly?  Some of the figures (logged-in user counts and logged-in user hours particularly) fluctuate wildly due to media attention - and you can note that count and hours trends often directly conflict with each other in their growth percentages (April '06, Jan-Feb-Mar '07.)"

There's more on Meta's personal blog, including a request for other metrics she can report in future analyzes.  Or you can always stop by her purple-hued temple in Beaumont by the sea.

"This is where I hold my office hours," she says.

The entire interview was conducted with my skin vaguely crawling, so I finally have to ask. "Do you scare people away in that avatar?"

Meta Linden shrugs.  "Some, I suppose. I personally love spiders. I've had two tarantulas as pets."

And then a black-winged goblin with a gold cane happens by, rezzes a capture cage around Meta, and after the spider goddess flicks it away with a vaguely annoyed wave, proposes that he and Meta get married in Vegas.  But that's another story.

Comments

[Stephanie Gerson/Sequoia Hax]

Does activity in SL correlate with activity in RW? I.e. with fluctuations in the stock market or other metrics? It's interesting to zoom into in-world activity, but might also be insightful to examine relationship/interaction between SL and RW...

[cj christensen]

Or you could put it this way :
SecondLife has peaked. let the buy out commence.