How Many Active Second Life Users Will There Be in 2009?

Still time to take the survey!  Results announced near month's end.  Some think the user growth plateau of 500K will continue, or even decline into outright loss; others see the usage base growing even past a million.  Here's two data points to consider: Sales of laptop PCs now greatly exceed sales of desktop computers, which are in steep decline.  (And since laptops aren't usually sold with robust 3D graphics power, which Second Life requires, the potential market will shrink.)  On the other side, tech insiders believe the incoming Obama administration will earmark billions to expand broadband penetration in the US. (Which will also grow the potential market for SL.)  How will that change the user base for the metaverse?  Decide for yourself here.

Comments

[Elanthius Flagstaff]

It's a pretty bad time to take a poll like this. Jack has been promising that very soon there will be an announcement on traffic bots in the very near future. If the announcement is something like, "All traffic bots are banned on pain of death" or "Traffic is being eliminated" then concurrency numbers, active user numbers and new sign ups will probably immediately drop in half. It's not at all clear what LL are planning and I'm sure it will be some happy medium that everyone will complain about being too tough or too soft but it is clear that it's impossible to seriously predict "Active Second Life Users" until after the dust settles.

[Ann Otoole]

Re: purported impending traffic related announcements...

They have promised stuff before during times of emotional stimulation and then after things calmed down we never heard anything more on the topic. Like premium subscription enhancements, doing more about content theft, estate controls for windlight and sharing windlight settings, etc. etc. I no longer expect Linden Lab to make good on promises. I choose instead to be pleasantly surprised when they do something nice. Such as the Linden Prize. Someone is going to get $10,000. That much cash would pay my rl bills for an entire year so it is very nice indeed. (too bad I can't afford to do any projects that would remotely qualify) Personally I think they need to do grants instead since it would enable more efforts to be realized but something is better than nothing right? It is an entirely different and more positive outlook on things.

I'm also considering discontinuing of reading most SL related blogs since, in general, the level of vitriol is becoming distasteful and time wasting.

[Nerolus Mosienko]

How many users? Or how many traffic-exploiting bots?

You just can't answer that question truthfully - but the stats will show more..."users".