Second Life economic stats

136,937

1,859

$22,327

11:20 GMT 09/Feb/2006

Yes, it's "live" data. Users logged in is cached every 3 minutes or so, and separate caches are maintained on each web server. The US$ spent each day is cached every 30 minutes or so, and separate caches are maintained on each web server. I think that right now we have the cache for population being cached and only updated once a day, just after midnight, and separate caches are maintained on each web server. The population query was getting pretty expensive to run and we need to add another database index before we can start updating it on a shorter interval again.



I strongly second this sentiment, especially since this we have a link to graphs.

Cheers,
Lawrence

The best I've been able to discern from all this is:

Out of 120,000 users claimed:

No more than 4,000 are ever logged on at any one time. That regularly drops to below 2000, apparently on a daily basis.

Since the primary user population seems to be from the United States and Europe, I would have to guess that primary population of 4000 is from the United States during primetime hours and the 2000 figures likely a combination of U.S. and European users during US nighttime hours.

I remember a Linden once telling me (I forget who now) that about 9,000 users log on each day. But this claim was made back when the population was 1/4 what it is now. Even if that statement were true, I had to wonder how many logons are in the form of alts. Given the stats provided, I'd estimate that roughly 6,000 to 7,000 people log on a regular basis (and I think that estimate would be fairly accurate-- but be real generous and say 10,000 max).

So the claim of 120,000 doesn't really seem to accurately reflect either the active population of Second Life or the potential market. It would seem the majority log on, check it out, log off, bye-bye. That tells me that perhaps some things on LL aren't all that popular (poor griefer policies, prevalence of weapons, user immaturity in the form of offensive activities and language... who knows?) Your guess is as good as mine... but whatever the reason, the results are apparent.

My guess would be that if a poll were taken of all the merchants on SL and what their montly sales are in RL$, the resultant demographics would be somewhat disappointing overall.

Admittedly, this is nothing more than personal observation based on very limited available statistics (I might have a more positive outlook if the statistics were available-- or then again, might not). Without any proof to the contrary... these are the stats upon which I build my business plans. And right now, that's not enough to really make me want to spend a lot of time pursuing a business here, especially under current system policies.

137,982

1,925

$11,354

Lawrence, first of all thank you for confirming that Linden update this data and that it is more or less up to date in real time. Your feedback on that point as a Linden Lab employee is appreciated.

To take up my point about your second comment, really follows on from your first point.

As I have said in a previous post on this thread I am moderately relaxed about my first life identity, that is I am a IFA who deals with other peoples money mostly in longer-term investments within what we call in the UK "asset backed investments". I need certain financial information from the City to do my job properly. "Hard" data, i.e. factual information is mostly contained within what we called regulated data sources approved by the FSA (a Government organisation) and perhaps trusted third party sources such as the Financial Times (FT) Bloomberg, Reuters, and certain stock market information providers such as AFX News.

Now here in Second Life my interest is commercial and one of the tools I need to evaluate Second Life is very accurate financial information about SL's economy in the public domain. You have confirmed those points in your post.

As for me placing any absolute confidence in third party data sources external to Lindon Labs, well that would require public ongoing endorsement from Governor Lindon.

I trust you see my point and I also hope you do not think I imply any disrespect.

Finally this thread does seem to be popular with over 600 hits with a very limited number of posts

I don't know what your level of technical expertise is, but we do offer this link so that people can easily automate this kind of data collection.

Cheers,
Lawrence

Basd upon my past experience our numbers are very comparable to most MMOs. But it's difficult to draw a market-size parallel with most MMOs, since the nature of their markets tend to be very different than Second Life's. What data do you feel would be best to use for comparing Second Life to other markets?

On a related note, we do have a project in the works to create a revamped stats page with more info about Second Life. Once that launches perhaps we can discuss market size once you're equiped with the additional data.

Cheers,
Lawrence

Yes, however...



not a single one of those people have posted a snapshot of data from the homepage into this thread. Please consider taking your data recording activity offline and storing those values in a spreadsheet or other data file.

Cheers,
Lawrence

Does that mean you plan on releasing the following information?

Currency in Circulation?
Amount of L$ destoryed from Sinks?
Amount of L$ created from Stipends/NewPlayers?

These are the most important stats when it comes to the economy.
We Citizens need to know how much L$ is floating around.
For all we know, SL has L$2/Billion L$ in float and this titanic
is a wreck waiting to happen.

Ah, though there have been some stunning examples such as Enron and WorldCom, somehow I don't think the Company here is going to end up a 'titanic' nor will it dramatically 'wreck'.

Few people choose to accept the risk of owning or running a business. It is *not* for everyone, it takes guts and nerve, day in and day out.

Let alone a cutting edge technology business with *no* cookie-cutter business plan such as a McDonalds has.


That said, releasing such numbers to the populace would not necessarily help much. As innovative as the Second Life population may be, even a *strong* economic outlook may not be identified as such.

Were it so easy to identify, everyone and their dog would be building a competitor to Second Life right now. Land barony is as transparent a business as it comes - but it takes an Anshe to build it the way she has.

Even if the writing was on the wall, can we all read it? NO private company releases all that, and personally I'm shocked to see as much as I do.



I have a vision that I think many others see too.

I see a 'metaverse' as the next generation internet. Regardless if this Company wins or loses, it will come. So far, Second Life is the closest thing to it. I'm getting in fast, relatively early, and staking my claim.

Could I lose, and lose big? You bet. But I'm betting more, and faster.

LL expects investment of time and money into SL, yet it refuses to give vitial
economic information on the health of Second Life. Which means that I
could sink US$50,000 into SL with a specific business/content/etc idea in
mind. Only to have my investment wiped out because the SL economy
collapsed because nobody saw the real books on the SL economy.
(ie: Inflation).

Why should I load up on 1,000,000m2 of Land to Resell, only to have the
value of the L$ drop, thus destroying the already small margins I would have
pocketed?

Nobody is going to poor in money and time to create content if they can't
profit from it. Sure there will be the handful of Free-Love-Open-Source folks
who are anti-profit. But for the most, they want a return for their 1500 hours
of coding. Or cash investment into a business model.


WE NEED REAL ECONOMIC STATS LINDEN LABS... Stop being Socialist.

Lawrence, that link is a Second Life website link and as such I am quite content to accept the data source as first hand. Therefore I will collate my own data in future and look forward to the more in depth data you mentioned

Btw, it has been said that the US and the UK are common people seperated by a different language, what I mean to say is that nuances in English english and American english are very different....I am NOT a programmer but my experiance of computers goes back to DOS ver 4 @1985 for your own interest

Well, yes, that is *exactly* the point. I could not agree more.



Over the life of any given bit of digital content, what was your time worth? So far, some of my architectural pieces have paid back handsomely.

Take an item making roughly $L 25,000 USD a month - over a year's time that is roughly 1000 USD. Sure, I spent perhaps 25 hours making it. My time turns out to be worth 40 USD an hour, after one year.

If Second Life continues on for a second year, my time spent will be worth 80 USD per hour. Will it sell in the third year? Let's say sales cut in half by then.

Ok, so after 3 years, my time was worth 100 USD per hour and total returns were on the order of 2500 USD. But wait... what if Second Life doesn't disappear? Even more money, *zero* risk.

Not bad for 25 hours of doodling, yes?



The ironic part: if there were no Second Life, I probably would have been drawing on a napkin or something anyway.

The strangest part? Happy customers! As they say, for all concerned, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.



Why I am such a Second Life 'fan boy':

Second Life is the shortest line between raw, unfettered creativity and raw, unfettered cash.

You can take me back to MS-DOS 2.11.. w00t

Chuckle.....

Well I still remember the simple joy of discovering how one individual company was "altering" the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to prevent easy loading of Wordstar and I think Wordperfect, in favour of their own useless product!!!"

There is nothing new under the Sun