Shock Stat: Nearly 1 in 3 Second Life Users Reportedly Use the Emerald Third Party Viewer!

Emerald, a third party Second Life viewer based on Snowglobe, Linden Lab's open source development project, is maintained by a large global team of anonymous coders who are mostly known only by their avatar names.  Their GPL compliant software is extremely popular with SL's existing userbase, but I didn't realize just how popular, until recently. In early June, for example, nearly 85,000 daily Second Life users accessed the world via Emerald. On June 21st, according to the Emerald developer known as Fractured Crystal, daily uniques were 90,516. Which is an even more impressive number, when you compare that to total daily unique Second Life users, in recent months: Between 280,000-300,000, according to Second Life data analyst Tyche Shepherd of Grid Survey.

In other words, nearly 1 in 3 daily Second Life users are accessing Second Life not through the official viewer software, but via Emerald.

I was somewhat skeptical when I first encountered that number, so asked Mr. Crystal to explain how the team arrived at that figure:

"When the Emerald Viewer is started," Fractured Crystal told me, "the login screen is loaded, which is a web page on our website. The user count is approximated from the 'Absolute Unique Visitors' to that page according to Google Analytics. This tells us roughly how many unique individuals started up the client over the course of a given day."

To be sure, 90,000 is a fraction of Second Life's userbase of monthly uniques, which is now about 825,000. However, daily uniques are probably a better measure of the dedicated SL user base who regularly log-in. In June 2009, when monthly uniques were 740,000, just 341,000 logged into Second Life a total of four hours or more.

Somewhat ironically, Emerald has little or none of the new Second Life Viewer 2 features intended to make the software more intuitive. In fact, Emerald is even more complex than the previous viewer, which garnered so many complaints for its lack of user-friendliness. However, that also means access to many more special features, and reportedly, more stability. With few official channels or advertising to promote it, Emerald's following has grown mainly by word of mouth, and boasts a substantial percentage of SL's dedicated userbase. (Which now includes, I should say, me.)

Hat tip: NWN event writer Chestnut Rau.

Comments

[Adric Antfarm]

How many times are you going to run this?

[Toxic Menges]

LL should be paying Modular Systems to run MOTD info to help get their corp blogs etc out - the lab has always had a problem with their own messages getting to the residents, but the popularity of Emerald proves that the residents are listening (or at least open) to useful and helpful information.

[Jovin]

It only goes to prove that the Viewer 2.0 project should have been focussed on developing a better, more sophisticated, creation-drived client for the builders and scripters in SL and not a socially-driven, dumbed-down client for the casual visitors. They first needed to encourage the existing users to stay, to create and to extend SL - instead they alienated existing users with a client that's a total nightmare to build with.

SL still needs casual visitors, but they need the oft-discussed browser-embedded client with NO build functions (except basic scale and nudge functions) and an interface focussed on exploration and socialisation.

Problem is, too many existing users will whine about the lack of build functions in a web client - LL will listen to them and include those functions and once again we'll end up with an over-complicated, laggy client that scares away new users...

I wish it wasn't all so predictable. :-)

[Metacam Oh]

Once Emerald adds Shared Media with their interface I will be one of those people switching to Emerald

[Loraan Fierrens]

I'm not too surprised. From what I've noticed just walking around while running Emerald myself, it seems a sizable portion of the population is using it too. I haven't actually done a count, but a sizable proportion of the people I see seem to be in Emerald (right after Viewer 2).

I found out about it by word of mouth, for what it's worth. Someone I respect highly in SL recommended it, and I decided to give it a try. Viewer 2 has some nice features (I like the new outfit system, for instance), but that sidebar annoys me more every time I try to use it.

Oh, and Adric, a quick check on Google shows something like seven (!) posts in NWN mentioning Emerald. I think this is in for the long haul. ;-)

[Loraan Fierrens]

Oops... sorry for the weird phrasing. This is what I get trying to post a comment right after breakfast and before tea has had a chance to work the divine magic on me. Apologies all around for my slaughtering of the Queen's English.

[Adric Antfarm]

The popularity of Emerald proves bloggers like Hamlet feel no need to let users make an informed decision.

We know plenty about Mr. Crystal, it's simply Hamlet has no interest in telling you about it when his new avatar is so much more interesting (yet long overdue - 2005 called - it wants it's avatar back).

[Ann Otoole]

This is a surprise to someone? After people have been shouting it for how long?

Different viewers for different needs. Kirstens is the choice for machinima and photography.

Still no viewer with two way comms subscription management for social network fora so our twitters, plurks, facebook, and assorted rss feeds appear as IM channels in the viewer. And no viewer with a real mmorpg style UI with user customizable hot bars, etc. Configure the UI for what you use it for and not show all the commands/features you seldom use.

Plenty of room for improvement.

[brinda allen]

OH come on... We made and informed decision.

And @ Metacam Oh... If Emerald goes to html on a prim I'll disable it as well.

[spyvspyaeon]

I am not so much surprised. I wonder see how Kirsten Viewer is rated on viewer. As far as I tested Emerald on a MAC, I had couple of tiny problems that "forced" me to install and run Kirsten Viewer so I am on that viewer from some months ago and I have no complaint. But anyway for both tumbs up

[spyvspyaeon]

I am not so much surprised. I wonder see how Kirsten Viewer is rated on viewer. As far as I tested Emerald on a MAC, I had couple of tiny problems that "forced" me to install and run Kirsten Viewer so I am on that viewer from some months ago and I have no complaint. But anyway for both tumbs up

[Toxic Menges]

Kirsten is definitely the way forwards for machinimatographers, I consistently get great results with projected textures and shadows using Kirstens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byiETQThtEQ (btw not just a test of projected textures, and shadows an actual story led machinima)

My daily browser of choice is Emerald though.

[Lizzie Lexington]

I only use Emerald because I cannot stand the side bar on 2.0. Personally I dislike a lot of the bells and whistles add ons. I really do not like being offered inventory when I IM some of my friends including *cough* my hetero life partner. (I love you Miyoko, LOL).

[Adeon Writer]

If it were possible to have Kirsten's stability and graphics (shadows!) on a 1.x style GUI, I'd use it. But Emerald still uses the old GUI while Kirsten moved on to 2.0. Kirsten tried fixing up the flawed 2.0 GUI to an amazing extent that it's almost bearable, but it's still too much of a burden. I'm going to keep using a 1.x GUI viewer until one is no longer available. For the mean time, that means I'm using Emerald.

[Ann Otoole]

@Toxic: I just posted this one filmed in Kirstens last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7uFJR2_IzE&fmt=35

Gotta love having a newer model video card. Kirstens tuned for best results is a "game changer".

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Emerald will move to the Viewer 2 base - or they won't get shared media in it. Kirstenlee has got a good head start on them - and I know who I'd rather trust, even if Katherine has joined the Emerald team recently. Viewer 2 base is the future even if they messed up the original design (and badly) but are now rectifying it.

[Toxic Menges]

@Ann That looks great! There is something about Kirstens that just makes the grid look more vivid for me, filming is a joy on that client. Whats the GPU? I'm on a GTX 480.

[Ann Otoole]

@Toxic - Just a GT240 (1MB Vid Ram) plus a lot of trial and error in the Kirstens settings to get it to do the good stuff and maintain high FPS without crashing. These newer video cards are very affordable if you have the power supply to drive one. I need to see a lot more of the right direction from LL before considering dumping the money into having the sort of system you have lol. Maybe next year if LL gets things turned back around.

[Miro Collas]

I have to strongly disagree with calling Viewer 2 "user friendly" - it is anything but. In my view, Viewer 2 is an excellent example of how NOT to design a user interface.

But to each his/her own, of course.

And perhaps what this really shows is that despite the few who loudly scream otherwise, people are not afraid of apparently complex UIs, and are glad to have the many features Emerald offers, and which the SL client should have implement years ago (integrated AO and radar, just to give two examples from a long list).

But yes, some will continue to try to dumb things down, and to treat users like inept children. I refuse to be treated that way and so use Emerald.

[Toxic Menges]

@Ann I can understand that viewpoint, but I wanted bells and whistles for my machinima, and for me it has paid off.If Emerald had the extra pretty that Kirsten had I'd live in it.

[EnCore Mayne]

no mention of Fractured's permaban?

[Simeon Beresford]

Well I don't think it was a shock to the third of the grid that use it.

Emerald'popularity is due to V2 it had the best word of mouth when folks started looking for alternatives to the new viewer with its flaws.

It is going to be hard for any other browser to become established now. provided Emerald transitions to the new Snowglobe base We are niche products aside in a two horse race for the forseeable future