Cross-posted from my Second Life blog
Linden Lab recently released some figures on the current ‘state of Second Life’.
Available in Excel format, I downloaded and played around with it a bit (I’m no Excel wizard; even pivot tables scare me!).
Here’s some interesting statistics:
Australia is in 11th place of countries from which members of SL originate
|
Country |
% of total SL population |
|
|
United States |
31.19% |
|
|
France |
12.73% |
|
|
Germany |
10.46% |
|
|
United Kingdom |
8.09% |
|
|
Netherlands |
6.55% |
|
|
Spain |
3.83% |
|
|
Brazil |
3.77% |
|
|
Canada |
3.30% |
|
|
Belgium |
2.63% |
|
|
Italy |
1.93% |
|
|
Australia |
1.48% |
The average age of SL members is 33; the breakdown by age group as follows:
|
Age Band |
% of Active |
|
|
18-24 |
27.46% |
|
|
25-34 |
38.78% |
|
|
35-44 |
21.00% |
|
|
45 + |
11.52% |
The gender balance has remained fairly consistent over the last few months. Second Life is not the ‘boy’-heavy environment many claim it to be:
|
Gender – last 3 months |
|||
|
Year |
Month |
Female |
Male |
|
2006 |
November |
42.14% |
57.86% |
|
2006 |
December |
41.42% |
58.58% |
|
2007 |
January |
41.11% |
58.89% |
The number of Premium account holders has steadily increased too. Premium account holders actually pay for their access, rather than ‘test’ the waters with a free account:
|
Year |
Month |
No. |
|||
|
2006 |
August |
24,702 |
|||
|
2006 |
September |
28,253 |
|||
|
2006 |
October |
32,526 |
|||
|
2006 |
November |
42,430 |
|||
|
2006 |
December |
49,776 |
|||
|
2007 |
January |
57,702 |
|||
This is in comparison to the total number of accounts, both free and premium, which too has been rapidly growing over the last six months:
|
Year |
Month |
Users |
||
|
2006 |
August |
597,269 |
||
|
2006 |
September |
805,638 |
||
|
2006 |
October |
1,203,244 |
||
|
2006 |
November |
1,727,229 |
||
|
2006 |
December |
2,251,416 |
||
|
2007 |
January |
3,117,287 |
Finally, the financials are also showing a rather large increase in both in-world transactions (buying and selling) and ‘real world’ transactions:
|
Month |
L$ Exchanged |
US$ Exchanged |
# Sells |
# Buys |
LL L$ Sales |
LL US$ Sales |
|
August 2006 |
444,451,150 |
$1,499,843 |
10,119 |
69,027 |
2,389,282 |
$8,092 |
|
September 2006 |
481,134,877 |
$1,726,581 |
10,588 |
76,604 |
20,117,994 |
$73,511 |
|
October 2006 |
580,545,638 |
$2,116,961 |
12,048 |
90,717 |
49,728,404 |
$183,824 |
|
November 2006 |
717,580,354 |
$2,626,763 |
12,237 |
112,236 |
77,327,855 |
$286,676 |
|
December 2006 |
1,043,298,924 |
$3,858,847 |
15,002 |
145,764 |
198,449,261 |
$740,943 |
|
January 2007 |
1,341,270,320 |
$4,987,208 |
16,187 |
169,621 |
165,833,743 |
$622,839 |
Fellow SLer and FIR listener Marcel de Ruiter had a look at the numbers with some interesting additional data. Definitely a worthwhile read, and thanks for letting me know about your post, Marcel.
All of which suggests that Second Life is definitely here to stay; it is up to us how we shape our little part of it and our experience of it.
Powered by Zoundry
Pingback: Everything Hits at Once » Blog Archive » Where the boys are