"Pandemic Boost" Reverses Decline of Second Life Monthly Active Users

Interesting tweet from NBC Senior Business Reporter Ben Popken, citing Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg: Since the pandemic, Second Life has seen monthly active users (or MAU) grow from 700,000 to now 900,000. That's good news for the SL community - but how good depends on the definition of a monthly active user:

"MAU represents all unique users who log in to Second Life in a given month," company spokesman Brett Linden tells me. "This includes newly registered, returning, or reengaged users. Newly registered users who do not log in are not included in our MAU calculation."

 

The surprising thing to me is this: Second Life MAU was at 800,000 in 2017 (also according to Linden Lab), so since then, usage has continued to fall, to beneath 700,000 before the pandemic hit.

 

Also, Second Life has reported attracting 350,000 monthly registrations on average, so that too must be factored into this MAU number:

"While businesses have consistently used Second Life for remote meetings and training for many years, we are seeing a significant increase in demand now as organizations seek out online solutions that offer something more engaging than video conference calls," said Ebbe Altberg.

— Ben Popken (@bpopken) June 16, 2020

Assuming most of those new registrations log in at least once month, it's quite possible the number of engaged, returning SL users had fallen to below 500,000 before the global quarantine hit. 

Putting these numbers all together, I think the reasonable conclusion is this: The pandemic has created an unexpected (and in utterly tragic circumstances) opportunity for Second Life to reverse its downward trend. It's now up to Linden Lab to make the moves needed to maintain this small growth spurt caused by the quarantine, and build on it.

Comments

[Amanda Dallin]

If the definition of a monthly active user has remained the same then the comparison to the peak in 2007 is valid. Actually there were likely more than 350,000 new registered users a month in 2007 when SL hit the peak of 1.1 million MAU so the number of returning users could be about the same or higher than in 2007 using your math and logic.

[Lee A Beaulieu]

I guess since i was born in sl in 2007 I am a baby boomer in real life and in second life!