Second Life Grows Slightly in Q3 2011: Now 1.05M Monthly Users (Good), 475K Monetized Users (Better)

Linden Lab just published its Second Life user stats for Q3 2011, and there's some somewhat good news: a very small uptick in monthly active users from Q3 2011 (like, four thousand), and more significant, about 12 thousand more economic participants. (I.E. SL users actually spending Linden Dollars.) In terms of Second Life's overall economic health, these monetized users are more important than the total number of monthly actives, because they represent users who are active enough in the system to actually be spending Linden Dollars on in-world content. In a recent comment on the SL Universe forum, Linden CEO Rod Humble said "Large amounts of new users [are] coming organically AND signing up as Premium customers", which this growth seems to indicate. (Though in this context, "large" is pretty relative.)

At the same time, as you can see by the charts here, the number of economic participants are still below a peak in Q3 2010. Additionally, total in-world user hours have dropped from 103 million to 101 million. However, I believe this is not as significant a metric: As Humble noted during his SLCC 2011 address, the new users tend to skew younger (twentysomethings, as opposed to SL's traditional 30s-40s skew), and have user engagement patterns more comparable to a light social world like IMVU. This pattern of lighter SL usage will probably continue and increase, as more SL-related activity is shunted over to social media channels which don't require the full heavy 3D client.

More data here. What else stands out for you, NWN readers?

Comments

[Winter Jefferson]

Ah - the reason user hours dropped that much last quarter Hamlet, is that I returned back to work full time. Sorry, Second Life.

[Flo2]

And the reason of more economic users is that I created a second account (my Third Life) and I spend linden dollars with both of my accounts. :)

[elizabeth (16)]

am one of the 12,000 (:

i get a premium account and i buy 4,000L so far. so about $90. is not much compare to lots other people. if i am average 12,000 tho then is maybe 1 million dollars more for LL than before

[foneco zuzu]

On a side note.
More hope for mesh:)
http://www.singularityviewer.org/downloads

[Johnny alt]

The only metrics that show the real condition of Secondlife are concurrency and number of private islands on the grid.

Both are weak and the constant loss and churnover of sims shows a deep unhappiness with high tier costs

Secondlife will continue to stagnate until the resident killing high tier costs are reduced

[foneco zuzu]

With World getting more and more into a recession, i just wish those numbers will be the same in a year!

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Sounds like it's just following the curve of the broader ("real") economy.

No cause for joy or despair here. It's the long term projections that have convinced me that Linden Lab needs to launch a War on Tier.

[Emperor Norton]

Arcadia Codesmith @ "Sounds like it's just following the curve of the broader ("real") economy.

No cause for joy or despair here. It's the long term projections that have convinced me that Linden Lab needs to launch a War on Tier."

Like the real world the elite will never do something so obvious because it benefits the lower orders until they are forced to.

[Adeon Writer]

Funny, I just recently went premium. (2nd week now) If anyone is like me, my reasons were the not-widely-known change where objects cost less prims if you use LL's newer Land-impact system.. That 512sqm plot and 117 prims (now 117 LI) got far more attractive.

[Mulberry Alexa]

i went to the same school as patrick. i remeber those girls from my school who wrote in. they were white trash...i always felt so bad for them.