Here's the Top 50 Most Popular SL Sims for March 2012

Courtesy Louis Platini's Metaverse Business, a Second Life/OpenSim analytics company that gathers publicly accessible in-world data for its clients, here's the top 50 most popular sims in Second Life for March 2012, listed according to their average visitor count, the unique visitor range at any given period, and the sim's rank the previous month. Here's the top 25:

Click here to use SL's map function on the web to search and directly teleport to any of these sims. Ironically, we were just talking about how Penny Arcade's first thought about SL is kinky virtual sex, but what's the point complaining, when the top five sites by active visitors include a nude beach and bukkake? Speaking of which, longtime SLer David Cartier made an important point in Comments last month: "I don't see how it's in anyone's interest that Linden Lab even allow property names like 'Bukkake Bliss Island'. Some of us try to combat the widespread idea that Second Life is nothing but a wasteland of sexually deviant... but Linden Lab isn't helping things." Then again, if you subscribe to SL's original libertarian philosophy, shouldn't any property owner have the right to name their island pretty much anything they want, especially for the amount they're paying to have a private island?

Anyway, see top sims 26 through 50 for March after the break:

Possibly more productive question: Which sim in this top 50 besides Tempura Island (which is lovely) and Franks Place 2 (which is an oasis of friendly jazz lovers) is worth visiting?

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Comments

[Suzan]

Crossroads is a great place to hear Blues music!

[shockwave yareach]

If SL is a libertarian wild wild west where anything goes (because nothing can hurt you), then yes, what we name our sims is our business. Likewise what we call ourselves, our prims, the stuff we build to sell and so on.

If SL is merely a product for the mass market, then LL must restrict any words that could offend anybody anywhere for any reason. This approach was tried under M's reign. Tell me, how did that work out for you?

A good approach is to balance both freedom AND sensibility. You should have 3 continents rated PG, M, and A. The name of your private island must likewise be in line with the rating your island possesses -- no PG rated Bukake Paradises. Let people do what they want and see what they want, but make entry into the world nice and sanitized until the person CHOOSES to leave PG areas and goes someplace else. Maybe even give a warning dialog the first TP out of PG of the day to warn that what other customers do on their land is out of LL's hands unless it violates the TOS.

Simple, and what so many of us asked for before Zindra.

[Charlie B.]

I suspect a lot of people aren't pleased to see so many sexually focused sims at the top of the heap, but it's not surprising. I also find the attitudes expressed by so many freedom loving residents and LL folk to be surprising. Restrictions always seem to be sensible when it's restricting someone you don't like.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Libertarianism is the philosophy of selfish interest over all else. Its 'liberty' of this sort that allows the strong, who can gather the most liberty, to become tyrants of oppression against the weak.

Its a darkly evil philosophy that sounds good on the surface - but is arguably worse than fascism or communism. Just another 'ism'.

You need a method to ensure equal rights and justice - and any such method is something libertarians will oppose. Thus Mr. Paul's opposition the the Civil Rights Act...
- Because it constrains the liberty of racists and evildoers.

Point here being; a 'Libertarian anything goes' philosophy in SL just results in the tragedy of the commons - where the most selfish actors will eat the system out from the inside and cause their own destruction.

Babylon burns itself to the ground.

Any ism is an evil when given such 'liberty' to do as it will.

What is needed in all things is balance. Liberty needs to be weighed against Justice and Equality.

Again for SL; this means that you need policies such as the maturity policy; to give the best for the widest appeal and hopefully fairest set of outcomes.

It might also be said that, for the benefit of all, the liberty of some needs to be reigned in just a bit, and names like 'bukakke' might be better altered.

BUT, presently, if the maturity policy and ensuring filters on search were working probably (and they probably aren't) - this place won't show up on a general outside world's search anyway - which while constraining its 'liberty' ensures that the least harm is done by it to others.

[jo yardley]

I don't mind people knowing SL is apparently a place where lots of people like to do virtual hanky panky, but what I do mind is that it dominates the reputation of SL.
We all know many people use the internet for this sort of thing, but we all also know that the internet is much more then just that.
Some of us, myself included, have no interest in the adult side of SL and use it for things like education.
It can be rather annoying that the first thing people say when you mention SL is something sex related.

Can something be done about it?
Yes perhaps.
LL has to fight, really fight, to give more attention to the other sides of SL.
And it would also be a good idea for websites like this blog to not just show the highest rating sims, but the highest rating sims per rating or even per subject.
It would be a good idea if LL published these lists as well, starting with the highest rating PG sims.
Don't hide the adult side of SL, but show more of the other side.

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

I'll visit that Sexy Nude Beach some day... SOME DAY! *shakes fist* DX

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

I might add... London City has a dirty little secret. (^_^)

https://my.secondlife.com/imnotgoing.sideways/snapshots/4f7a42f6a8ed2809e3000001

[Iggy]

Having lived in RL Spain, I should give the virtual one a look and blog it up. That sounds worthwhile. I wonder what the builders did with the Alhambra or Segovia's aqueduct.

Now for the "grabber headline" that Hamlet should have used this month:

"Londoners Top Naked Slave-Girls and Bare-Butt Brazilians: Jaded Island Less Jaded While Blissful Bukkakians Ooze Upward in NWN Ratings."

[jo yardley]

Oh and as for your question, I have not visited any of these sims.

[Marianne McCann]

@Imnotgoing Sideways. My, that looks like a 'bot farm to me. A little Traffic Gaming going on?

Im not sure if I've been to any of these (possibly Sweethearts and possibly London City, but not the others), but ya know what? I'm good with those existing. If people use them and all that, fine. It keeps the lights on at the lab and let's me do my own non-bukkake, non sexy nude, non Gor-jus things elsewhere.

[Stone Semyorka]

@ Pussycat Catnap - Well said.
@ jo yardley - Good suggestion.

You have to wander what LL really is after when the head folks field a marketing operation that is so clueless.

PR? The message is everything. You always, always, always want to control your message, but LL seems never, never, never to try. Or, if they think they are trying, they surely are inept.

[Will Szymborska]

*Reads list* Sex, rape, GOR, Brazil, Beach... sex, sex, GOR, vampires. Yup looks like Secondlife to me.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

You mean Bukkake Bliss island doesn't serve sobe noodles? Imagine my surprise.

Seriously, the answer isn't censoring the sex sims. Like it or not, they're as much part of the world as any of the rest of us are.

If you want to knock them out of the top rankings, recruit and retain creative residents (outside the erotic arts) with strong incentives and robust support for their various applications.

[Valentina Kendal]

Yeah, ditto Suzan's first comment - Crossroads is a place you can race a motorcycle and hear great blues.

[Tali]

This strikes me as being mainly about the way to present statistics.
It could be fun to do a similar aggregation across all websites, and see what conclusions people would draw about the Internet based on that.

It would also be interesting to correlate the visitor count shown here with retention and time spent inworld. I strongly suspect that the numbers show a lot of short-lived accounts, going wild with crazy excesses, and then wandering off and never returning.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

I don't wish to veer off into a political discussion, so I will only say that Pussycat has done a wonderful job of setting up a strawman that is not at all what libertarianism is about. See http://www.libertarianism.com/ for more information.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Just out of curiosity--is that data gathered in a way that excludes bots in visitor counts?

[shockwave yareach]

I should point out that I didn't bring politics into anything. I used the term libertarian not as a party, but as the philosophy. The libertarians don't own the word liberty anymore than the republicans own the word republic and the democrats own the word democracy. So let's leave the parties out of things, shall we? (For one thing, SL is where I retreat from the constant hatefest that is politics.)

I stated, quite clearly I thought, that there should be a balance between anything goes (like SL used to be) and Disneyfied (as we currently struggle with). Simply make a PG continent that new members enter into and they then have to deliberately choose to leave -- with a caution that LL isn't responsible for what others show -- and you improve SL's image quite a lot. Keep the names of pg areas pg and keep the newcomer areas clean, and you'll improve newcomer retention.

LL made only half of the step in the Zindra debacle. Had they done the whole thing correctly, we wouldn't be in this mess. We need three continents each zoned one way and one way only, with newcomers entering PG. If they want to see Spurticus Island, it's their actions to find it and go there. Anyone not wishing to even know it exists, won't.

And again, I ask WHY this wasn't done years ago when the whole zindra debacle was implemented?

[Louis Platini]

+Melissa Yeuxdoux . Bots are included in the counting. Many of the sims with high avatar count have a lot of bots. Ask Imnotgoing Sideways

[foneco zuzu]

Afraid of the connections between Second Life and Sex?
Its not enough the false morality that exists in real world?
Do any needs to bring that to virtual worlds?

[foneco zuzu]

And i can recommend for sure Crossroads as a great place to listen to some cool Blues and to ride around on a bike!

[irefuse]

@PussyCat

Basically you want it scrubbed and sanitized for the masses, and you want everyone to like it.

No.

[Uccello]

Not a bit surprised to see London City at the top of the list. Visit any Infohub and you'll have a landmarked tossed at you by a robo-spammer avatar with about 7 out of 10 of them being for London City. I suspect the traffic they get is mostly noobs and not repeat visitors.