Adulterous Dip: Second Life Active Users Drop In November, Despite Virtual Infidelity Press

Here are the wages of virtual adultery: 527K.  That's the number of new SL sign-ups in November, metaverse census taker Miss Tateru Nino told me last week.  Since monthly sign-ups average around 375K per month, that's roughly a burst of some 150,000 extra.  This additional spurt is almost certainly due to a widely-reported story from the UK which enjoyed international readership a few weeks ago, concerning a real life divorce spurred by virtual sex. NWN readers reported the Welcome Area and other noobie zones were subsequently inundated with new users in search of scandals their avatars could join.  "Amazing what one news story will do, huh?" as Tateru puts it to me.  Then again, it's always been thus.

More concerning for the world's overall health is this number, which represents yet more paradoxical user behavior:

When you subtract the new 527K new accounts created last month, you're left with well under 500,000 recurring active users who went in-world through November.  This represents a 57K dip in recurring active users from the previous month. (There were 551,444 active users in October.)  So even as peak concurrency kept rising in October, active monthly users actually went down.  And so once again, the mystery of Second Life's growth plateau remains.  And how many of those hundred thousand plus new Residents in search of virtual adultery will remain, once they find what they're looking for?

Comments

[Tateru Nino]

Not all of those 527K will have actually logged in. Statistically, I'm guessing a quarter probably didn't - but that's little more than a guess. The Lab has this data readily to hand, but doesn't make it available.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

I put it to you that a net increase in numbers would be pointless if it was composed only of hideously horny sex maniacs. That's not a population increase, it's additional inmates in the asylum.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

The idea was that they'd be open with their figures for better or for worse. The problem with that sort of statement is that it's a lot easier to do so when the numbers look good. With the sort of bad news that's been going around plus the proliferation of grids outside of LL's control amongst residents and newcomers who aren't wedded to the content stored on the main grid, I predict there will be more of this bad news to come if Linden Lab fails to rediscover its original principle of being there for its residents.

This is not the sort of thing I want to think of, but there it is, and it has to go away in the coming months or 2010 may be the year that Second Life potentially shutters its doors for good.

[Botgirl Questi]

Trust takes a long time to build, but can be shattered very quickly. I think Linden Lab lost a great deal of goodwill over the OpenSpace price ambush. If it wasn't for our digital assets being held hostage by DRM on Second Life servers, I think the exodus to OpenSimulator-based worlds would be fast and furious, despite their technical immaturity.

[Luciftias Neurocam]

list dates=['2004','2005','2006','2007','2008','2009','2010];
string doom;
string gloom;
integer k;
for(k=0;k<=6;k++)
{
doom=['This is not the sort of thing I want to think of, but there it is, and it has to go away in the coming months or '];
gloom=[' may be the year that Second Life potentially shutters its doors for good.'];
llShout(0,doom + llList2String(dates,k) + gloom);
}

[soror nishi]

and 20%, 30%..??? of the existing users are active bots?

it doesn't look good does it??

[Pappy Enoch]

Ya'll worries tu much. Think on the oppurtunities them-thar statisticks represents.

Half o' them new, lonely, and horny avamaturs am GALS. O' leestways pertend-gals...I don't discrimernate. Git 'em sum hair an' a purty dress an' Whee Doggies! Instunt par-tee.

I wants tu tell awl desprit (n' good lookin') housewifes that I are reddy n' abull tu be a hunk o' burnin' luv of the mos' knotty adulterermus kind.

Hurry up, gals! I aims tu start mee a waitin' list. I are rite big, but they am only so much tu go 'round.

[Paola Tauber]

que?