Unless I missed it, the last time the Lindens announced Second Life's user metrics on their blog was last February. However, data up until May 2008 is actually now available on the main site's economy page-- a fact I wasn't aware of until tonight, when RightAsRain Rimbaud of metaverse developer Rezzable pointed it out to me. There they were on the top right corner of the Economic Stats page, in several formats, under Key Metrics.
What's the latest status of Second Life as a world and a business? On my first read, the picture is mixed. Most concerning for the Lindens, the total number of Premium accounts (Residents who pay a recurring subscription of $6-9.95 a month, depending on plan) has been steadily dropping since January, slipping over 3500. That means less revenue from subscriptions and virtual land ownership (since you need a Premium account to own land.)
On the more optimistic side, in-world activity in terms of total user hours has still been rising. Total monthly active users has dropped from 543,574 in January to 532,606 in May-- not a substantial dip, especially when maximum concurrency rates have plateaued. So those who are already in-world are in there longer. Why vanishingly less are willing to stay with them there (nearly 1.5 million new accounts were created since January) remains the key mystery.
As I say, that's my initial take. What's your read of the data?
Though, didn't the Lab say, once upon a time, that they weren't really aiming to make premium accounts a priority, seemingly preferring to be a hosting provider? After all, look at what a premium account gives you - true, the ability to "own" (ie lease) land, but amongst those I know, plain rental's the preferred option. This accounts for roughly $700k/mo (given we don't know the frequency of payment, and thus the amount paid per month).
By comparison, look at the figures for islands added - up on last month, bringing in some $5m/mo (again, some may be paying the preferential grandfathered rate of $199, others the newer $295). This would seem to be a greatly more significant revenue stream for the Lab.
Do we have historical information for land ownership available?
Posted by: Porsupah Ree | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 02:55 AM
Rumours fly that Linden want to flatten the land tiers but they'd do better to get rid of the necessity of a Premium account to own mainland. Just let anyone buy mainland, Premium or not, as long as they have a payment method registered to cover the monthly tier.
Or be truly innovative and let people pay mainland tier in Lindens. Altho' I'm not sure if that's good news for Europeans or not, what are the VAT implications?
Posted by: Jovin | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 04:46 AM
You have to have a Premium account to BUY land. But if you deed the land to a group, do the group owners have to have a Premium account? A group has to have two owners to stay in existence. But do BOTH of those two group owners have to have Premium accounts in order for the group to hold deeded land? Or as long as one of them does, and purchases and donates enough tier, is that good enough? Or what if they aren't Premium either, and rent tier from Ninjas to be donated to the group?
Just wondering, as we are considering dropping my Premium membership next week when it comes up for renewal.
Posted by: Princess Ivory | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 08:23 AM
Could the many inworld-hours have anything to do with the widespread BOT-phenomenon?
We see so many islands with 30 to 60 (!) computer-steered Avatars way above ground (mostly sitting in a 700m-Skybox).
Second Travel, our Blog community, and one of the German SL-Forums are about to start a large Count: We want to be able to estimate the number of Bots on the Grid - and we want to ask LL to do something about the misuse of Bots for Traffic-and-Map-Purposes!
Botspotters wanted: We have 1000L$ to pay for people who have some time left to once surf across the Grid (route given out by us) and make a simple list: Bots, Campers, Other Avatars.
Please IM Nuschi Martynov, we are happy about every helping hand!
Posted by: Nuschi Martynov | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Nuschi what your discribing is against the TOS of SL its called harrasment I will AR every single one of your thugs and call all my friends over to ar them intell they get banned or you can think of doing it a different way
Posted by: anomouse | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 11:53 AM
I'm not too concerned about the decline in the number of premium accounts. There's little reason to have a premium accounts these days. If you want a parcel on the mainland, you'll probably get a better spot and better customer service if you rent.
I'm keeping my premium account because I got it in the days when premiums got (and still get) a L$500 stipend per week, or about US$96 per year - more than I pay (US$72 per year for a premium account).
Posted by: Troy McLuhan | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 12:20 PM
I just LOVE it when I hit the right spot!
:-)))
Posted by: Nuschi Martynov | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 12:49 PM
I think in the first years, Second Life was able to expand and grow their premium account base through word of mouth and simple public relations. But, the platform is reaching a more mature stage of its life cycle. Perhaps, Linden Labs should now turn to more pro-active methods for attracting new residents. But, they need to provide them with an easy and simple way to integrate themselves into the SL community so that they'll have a vested interested in staying and becoming a part of it.
Posted by: Chenin Anabuki | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 at 01:07 PM
As you know from our previous discussions, I think the number of Active Users is by far the most significant measure of Second Life's health.
I did some research on the Second Life blog for the history of that stat.
Far as I can see, LL began publishing the stat in May, 2007. At that time, there were 507,000 active users.
The next month, June 2007, was the lowest number of active users we've seen in the entire period LL has been publishing the stats: 494,980.
The number of active users has never broken 600,000. The peak was 561,485 in July, 2007. The seven-month low since then was September, 2007, at 516,149.
I think this past month will be the first full month with M. Linden at the helm -- we'll see if that makes any difference, although I suspect it has not. I suspect he has not had time to make his mark just yet.
Posted by: Mitch Wagner | Wednesday, July 02, 2008 at 12:15 AM
Last I heard, you should not need a Premium account anymore for Island/Estate ownership - only mainland. As long as you have verifiable payment on-file like a CC I don't think they care anymore /w Islands.
The KB is rather vague on this unfortunately, and someone should get a clarification from LL.
--TSK
Posted by: T_S_Kimball | Wednesday, July 02, 2008 at 01:45 PM
And now we have Nielson backing you up Hamlet, posting that Second Life had the third highest growth in number of user hours behind only Facebook and youTube.
http://dusanwriter.com/?p=682
Bots or not. I also think there's a disconnect between usage stats and economic stats, because I'd propose that even if we saw the number of users growing, the economy is bound to hit a stall in the object economy because stuff never gets worn out and there are no sinks - it just gets lost in inventory. How many pairs of jeans can a world sustain?
Which means that the stuff people want to BUY is either because of brand cachet or because it's solutions oriented - rental systems, presentation systems, vendors, whatever - the folks buying are companies, educators, brands, whoever - and they're looking for more than a couch, they're looking for out-of-the-box solutions. For residents buying because they want the latest and greatest, this implies more than a casual interest in SL. They're in the culture, they get it, and they want to support the top content creators. For all the casual users who used to drive the economy of yesteryear, there are enough freebies and cheap houses out there that they can have a pretty nice set-up on a nice cheap plot of land for far less than they might have a year or two ago.
So maybe the economy has shifted - the casual user who drove the network/pyramid effect of the economy of last year is being supplanted by users who spend a lot more time in-world, whether students, scientists, or corporations hidden behind the IBM firewall or off on their own cordoned off sims, and they've probably HEARD of mainland but never visited it.
I find it hard to believe that in the UK that bots made up all those user hours - 171,000,000 minutes in bots? (Plus, I'm assuming Nielson is measuring actual people, but I may be wrong - I don't think they have meters in SL).
Posted by: Dusan Writer | Friday, July 04, 2008 at 04:59 AM
Stupid question: Is Nielsen actually looking at Second Life usage, or are they looking at Web site visits?
As you know, B/o/b/ Dusan & Hamlet, Second Life is not a Web application, so measuring the popularity of SL using Web site visits is like measuring the popularity of Google by checking out the number of visitors in their Mountain View, Calif., offices.
Posted by: Mitch Wagner | Saturday, July 05, 2008 at 12:35 PM
Be the first to get a Rapidshare FREE PREMIUM ACCOUNT. Working 100% .....Just go to:
http://rapidshare.com/files/129658185/FREE_PREMIUM_ACCOUNT_FOR_RAPIDSHARE.txt
Pls don't change the pw.
Posted by: prakot | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 06:59 AM