Only 15% of SL sign ups continue to use it

I didn't read the original quote as referring to "active users", but to people who continued to use SL *at all*.

IIRC, that level of retention is pretty common with games.

Define the difference? Someone that logs in once a year isn't a user in my opinion. No matter how you want to look at it 15% is very misleading.

Um, I don't think your figures mean what you think they mean. But I note one thing. We DO have pretty close to 100,000 logged in at peak periods...over 82K this last Saturday.

But these numbers don't apply to what we are talking about. We are talking about what percentage of people who try SL, STAY with SL...and none of the numbers you quoted have any bearing on that.

Absolutely agree Lindal.

I think 15% is kinda high personaly...

I probably could have asked my original question a bit better, with a fuller quote for those that didn't read the article, as most responses don't seem to address my OP and the thread has degenerated into a debate about the veracity of the 15% retention rate.



I think debating Philip's statement of 15% retention rate is a bit pointless as we don't know the assumptions and parameters to which LL comes up with this number. Is it ... number of sign-ups that still have logged on at least once a month later, 2 months, or is it one's that log in at least 1 hour after a week? I think only LL knows this.

My original point was that LL seems to feel that improving the useability of the current client (along with other things like the orientation experience and stuff like stability) will help to improve retention rates *relative* to what the current metrics show.



So do you think a "dumbed down" interface would really make a "huge impact" on adoption/retention rates and is worthy of significant resources to that end?

*thinks out loud*

One of the biggest things that LL needs to do to improve user retention is to truly focus on the social aspects of SL. This includes removing much of the focus of running a business in SL, because honestly, the first few hours of SL are spent.. exploring and chatting. Then as people get the hang of the place, they will seek out what they want from SL.

Along with changes to the UI, there should be something called a "tutorial mode." This mode, set default on in the viewer's help menu, could give people visual walkthroughs of how to use the basic social and movement functions of the UI and would only show up to the user.

Example: Raudf is a new user logging in for the first time. There's no OI and she's just been dumped on a welcome area. Before she begins to panic, the tutorial kicks in and with arrows, points out key UI features with a quick explanation of how to use them. It explains the communications button and how to move her camera and her avatar. And it can do mouse-overs for the buttons to give a quick tip on what each one does.

As people progress, they can chose to continue the tutorials on the basic build tools, how to file ARs, and how to buy things. All of this can be turned off at any time in the help menu.

No annoying OI and it's little goals and this allows users to do things at their own speed.

And since exploring is the second thing most new users tend to do, they should probably take into consideration how the welcome areas and surrounding sims are being used. If I was LL, I'd want to consolidate this onto one small continent and encourage only new user related places/businesses (like NCI) and non-profit RL organizations to have lands there. This would actually give LL greater control of the first impression a new user makes AND improve their PR relations. Also, LL would be able to *gasp* station a G-team member or two there to handle the usual penis-flapper or actual griefer.

Not such 'dummy-down' as 'idiot-proofing'. The pocket protector set at LL has pretend that no one knows what they are talking about - and design it from there.


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Making it able for people to have small companys in sl is also part of the social aspect.. look at any club event ect.. see many dressed in the basic ruth getup?

Shopping in SL is a BIG social thing look at the shoes and hair for sale.
Most people leave sl fast because the platform is unstable (the excuse as to why sipmly doesnt matter) and the sys reqs are on the high side (again the excuse as to why simply doesnt matter) The client does need some work but not as much as the server side.

I think the whole focus on "Retention" and "Retention Rate" is a bit bogus, really.

LL is trying to make SL into "the 3D internet" and do the whole platform thing, and they want to give the idea that there are lots of people hanging around in SL just waiting to be the audience for the next big thing that you or your company creates.

The problem is that they aren't counting it in the same way the internet could. When they internet was becoming popularised, stats tended to be based on the number of people who could potentially access it (ie, people with ISP accounts, or with access at libraries and similar). Nobody would say that somebody was not really an internet user, or a potential audience for a new website, because they hadn't accessed the web that month (which wasn't uncommon at that time). But SL can't do that, because LL have to show it has some benefit above the internet.

The problem is, most of the people who do come to SL time and time again have already found what they want there - friends, activities, business, etc. And this is the problem I've posted before - doing new things in SL is especially risky now, because people may have already come to SL and left for the lack of that thing, and even once you have it working there is no way to tell them to come back. This is doubly bad for corporate builds that most existing users are especially unlikely to want to explore.

That's whyan isolated statistic like the 15% percent of sign-ups continue with the service is a meaningless statistic.

First of all, the whole point of offering free-sign up is to encourage people to use the service risk-free, correct? That means a lot of people who really don't expect to be interested in Second Life might give it a shot anyway, because hell, it's free. In that circumstance, one wouldn't expect high retention numbers.

In fact, 15% may be considered a success, depending on circumstances. I assume that the free trial did get more people to try the service. 15% retention of 1,000,000 people is better than, say, 100% retention of 100,000 people.

The more interesting question, as Conifer pointed out, is "Why?" and the 15% statistic says nothing about the why. How much of the 85% weren't retained because of a bad interface? How many of those weren't retained because they decided they prefered real life to SL after all? How many of those people weren't retained because the grid is so unstable from the current overpopulation in SL?

It would be more interesting to compare retention status between time periods. If it was 15% for 2008, for example, how does that compare to 2007, and what changes to the service might have affected that retention rate?

Linden Lab could very easily put a positive spin on the 15% number. My guess though is that it's not really the 15% that's disappointing; it's that overall, they are not figuring out how to turn potential residents into streams of income. Tripling that retention number means nothing for the bottom line if it doesn't result in income for Linden Lab.

And heck, they'd better figure out how to make a stable grid before they try tripling their numbers. Build the capacity to handle the greater numbers first, then bring the greater numbers in. Linden Lab seems incapable of that kind of forward thinking, which is why their great idea of SL has been a failure in the implementation.

fascinating, captain... ;0

agreed many facets; as ceera and others mentioned, i think perhaps currently the biggest prob is 'rl economy', in a broad stroke - those who can't afford better 'puters or connections simply won't make the choice right now to upgrade -just- for sl. there's nothing much the lab can do about that, so...

plan b) the old interface... funny that interview reminded me of way back trying to grok alllllll the little elements floating around the screen... s'true, very 'intimidating' for someone just looking for something new to play with! if sl didn't have so many of the things i'd felt i'd been looking for up to that point, maybe i wouldn'ta stuck it out. (and i had done my homework, so even coming to it, i 'knew' i wanted in someway - figured something like this would've come along since 'the sims' ;0)



:0 too true... so many pieces to punch away at. but what's really 'expendible', esp. when you encounter someone who doesn't even know to interpret the interface as given? say if someone doesn't know they've landed at an end location over 300m, now all the sudden they can't fly like they normally can... i remember this messing me up lots early on. ;0 the info's right there, although there's still probably no orientation about it... now almost subconsciously when tping to a new location, i check the xyz just to see where i'm at. but that was a learned practice, without anyone ever really 'teaching' me it...

in a case like that, do we a) hide your avi's menubarred x/y/z info just to relieve the screen of that info, or b) allow all avatars unfettered, unscripted flying-freedom access?

lol i don't envy the interface-redesign team. some of their decisions could probably deeply affect in-world standards in that regard, and they'd hafta fight a lot more than just the interface just to make the suggestion... they'd hafta fight the forums. ;0

p.s. to suggest that paying any attention to 'retention' is a bit bogus in itself. ;0 though i appreciate the thought... from a whacky designer's perspective you wish to plunge ahead and assume everything you've done along the way is 'exactly right' and not have to reapproach anything (mainly because of that '10% rule' - 'finishing the last 10% of a project will take 90% of the total project time', roughly.) but no matter what, while your perspective is great 90-95% of the time for you, it just may be a lot less for someone else who learns/interacts in a different 'space'.

thinking of steve jobs and the one-or-two-button mouse debate... ;0 although it was easy enough for anyone to 'custom' to that state, out-of-the-box is an important experience, and 'out of the box' is what the interface is to sl.

Pay? You pay for this? Sucker!