Indicators up. Reasons why?

Mid day Sunday SLT and 70,000 again online as I type this. Best I can tell, land demand is climbing slowly again (from my meager perspective) and it's not even October yet.

It's Fall 2008, and unlike the predictions made in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and earlier this year - the End of the Grid has not happened. Yet.

Are these people new?

Are they oldbies coming back?

B0ts?

Are they all backpackers not spending a dime, or high rolling types?

Who are they, and why aren't they all off playing Spore?



These are million dollar questions for somebody.



What's going right?

remember when weekends had a bad habit of service outtages?

notice how it hasn't been like that for awhile?

i'm betting that has something to do with it

I rarely see any accounts older than late 07 in my estate(the occasional oldbie, who perhaps is lost), and I am seeing a few more than usual newbie style questions rattle through resident answers.

I would have to suggest that M's call to the pragmatics has worked.

I hesitate to call it an influx, but the new population(from my POV) looks to be your casual social web user. I don't see the same drive to "move in" to the space that I experienced in early 06 when I joined. Nor do I see much drive to learn to create.

Maybe the "End User" is here!

Just my observations.

edit: Spore entertained Me for all of 15 minutes....

I would have to say improved stability.

Uh oh --

The Sims Online closed thier doors this summer. I'm sure we got some refugee's from that online world as well.

Not that many of us exist.

At Robin's office hour on Tuesday someone with a lifetime account turned up, which impressed Robin.

I think we'd need to see how increased concurrency compares to overall usage to get a better picture, are concurrency figures down for other periods for example but it does lean towards suggesting more people are using the platform and I doubt it's an increase in bots....well I hope it's not!

Was that the full paid for version or just the free creature editor?

I am a lifetime account.



And I am thinking it is both bots and more 'end users'.

Many of the new residents these days have never rezzed a prim.

Adjust an attachment, sure! Align a prim, good luck.

The indicators that I'm more excited about are the PMLF numbers on the Economic Statistics page. Comparing March to August, all the categories higher than $200/month show strong improvement. There's more people making more money. I know there's a lot that those numbers don't account for, most notably tier and other LL fees, but that's still a very impressive 6 month growth rate.

And that growth is happening during a time of RL global economic turndown.

Maybe the economic downturn can help SL sales - after all I can indulge in some serious retail therapy in SL and only spend about £5. It would take more like £500 to achieve the same degree of fulfillment in RL.

One source of new accounts is almost certainly university courses. As Second Life has become better known, more and more professors of the social sciences are putting student-pleasing assignments in their syllabi.

And "make an SL account and gather information on __________" is a fun-sounding assignment that can help boost any professor's end-of-semester Performance Evaluation scores.

As to what percentage of the increase in traffic might be due to this source---I've no idea. But whatever it is, and whatever proportion of students 'forced' to come here end up enjoying it and staying---none of that can be bad for LL. Or for us!

Spore wont claim me until they patch it..

Imogen

I think this might be the reason. The economy is uncertain, but there's no question that it's bad. People are in a saving mode, not a spending mode, but they still want to have fun. You can stay home, save gas, and spend a small fraction of what you would spend if you went out to dinner and a movie. People may be hunkering down and trying to spend the least amount of money they can on a newly limited budget.

Come on guys, seriously? You can't have the two top threads on New Posts be "Indicators up. Reasons Why?" and "RL Recession Effecting SL Economy" it's just embarassing, make your mind up.

Personally I think things are slightly down on 6 months ago but not significantly so. Things certainly don't swing back and forth across a period of a few weeks the way you'd think from the threads on this forum.

I guess the thing is some people are doing badly and blame it on the recession and other people do well and say they don't see a recession.

/me runs around arms flailing and screaming, "the sky isn't falling! The sky isn't falling!"

Jesus! Its about time! lol Talk about dragging their asses into the 21 century!

I left TSO 2003! - Went to There.com ( which has a shelf life of about 12 months - still miss the physics engine mind ) and then to here.

The transition to SL was NOT easy... omg...talk abot techincal culture shock! Took me 3 months to become " addicted" I would spend a whole day farting about with making my own "avatar apearance" clothes adding the freebie textures to my home made skirts and tops and TOTALLY loving it!
But confused as Hell also.

Then one day I left There.com for good and look back at it now as a cartoon world for kids.

Indeed. My sentiments entirely.

It would be great to see some new residents (who truly reside). Azure sims are emptying and, I think, a few are being closed down. Also, the islands where I live are continuing to depopulate.

Could it be that the new mainland policies are eroding the island land rental market? (Forgive me if this has been discussed to death in other threads; I haven't been reading much). I wonder if mainland land sales are to new residents, or to island renters who've decided owning mainland makes sense now?

And yes, I think a continuing downturn in the US economy could drive people in the US to virtual fun.

However, the constriction of credit markets that drives the downturn probably will not be not good for LL, the company. You generally want a more bullish environment for an IPO.
.

Despite global warming, fall and winter still come to the northern hemisphere, and the return to school coincides with the beginning of fall. These two factors keep people at home and seeking home-based entertainment this time of year, and the land market picks up as some of these people come into SL and spend money on land. Then the holidays come, spending increases all over the economy (often in an unwise fashion), and the market continues to climb. When the holiday bills come in, that is when land plummets, as a general rule. Unless LL dumps or holds back on land dumping, these factors have great sway over the land market in the final quarter of the year. Because LL has stated the poor market for most of this year has led them to err towards no new mainland sims in the near future, I expect a robust land market till the end of the holiday season.

I'll have you know, Briana, that I rezzed a prim just yesterday. It was a nice plywood cube, with full bright, and glow. It was mine, and it was shiny...it was my shiny! (/me giggles maniacly)

SL has been getting more media coverage (both good and bad) this year. So more mainstream people are hearing about it, and perhaps checking it out.

If the new user experience was better, the numbers might have posted even better growth. But as it is, you have to be pretty persistent (stubborn even!) to get past the initial learning curve.

Everything I've learned so far has been through NCI, or the forum hangout.

I'm seeing many more shop models where shops have a bot avatar put out to show off products like hair or skins.

Nothing wrong with that (they arn't trying to pretend they are real people), but it will add to the total numbers in SL.

**********

Also the mainland is suddenly a much nicer place to explore now the ad farms are disapearing, so perhaps more people are staying.

I'm saying this very cautiously, because I don't want to jinx it.

I'm seeing more sales in the mall, and I'm getting down to limited rental space on my sim. I think I have two houses and four skyboxes left out of 24 possible rentals.

Two of my existing tenants have increased their prims...so more money, and all my current renters have either been there awhile, or love the place so much (and the high prim allowance) that they've sworn never to move.

I can live like this

Hopefully last night at the Help Island I was working will be a sign of the things to come.
Busy busy, with lots of noobs in their Edit Appearance, some in Voice, asking about building and making clothes. Adult WoW and TSO refugees looking for something new and a chance to express themselves creatively.
The biggest hurdle still remains the NUE (New User Experience). LL continues to tweak here and there, knowing that a 15% retention rate just isn’t going to cut it.
There still is this concept though, and I’d like to know where it comes from, that you have to find a job and lots of money is to be made. Many of us here do make 'some' money but for me it wasn’t why I came on. Maybe if there were lower expectations in that regards then people might slow down and enjoy their SL and not be stressing about getting a job within fifteen minutes of starting. Geez don’t we get enough of that in RL?

Oh and I guess there was a piece on CNBC about SL last night too.