Aaron Parker

As we reach the end of 2011, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on some Second Life statistics for the past year. The last time I did this was almost two years ago, where I briefly analysed the Second Life concurrency statistics for 2006 to 2009. This time I'm going to give a brief overview of some Second Life stats for 2011 and see how it compares to 2010. ¹

Sign Ups

The rate of new resident sign ups increased significantly ² across 2011. This followed a flat-lining of new accounts during 2010. The improvements began around April 2011, which coincides with the addition of breast physics to the Snowstorm client. Some other periods of notably large sign-up increases include:

• Sunday 14th to Monday 15th of August, the last day of SLCC and the day following it. These two days saw the most new sign-ups during 2011. However, the Sunday figure is almost twice that of the Monday, indicating a possible error. It does seem odd that an event barely publicised outside of the SL community would result in such major increases.
• The weekend of the 8-9 October saw more sign ups than any other weekend during 2011. This followed a week in which @Rodvik shared "What's New in Second Life", and Shaker, a 3D chatroom service likened to SL, raised $15 million.
• The weekend of the 5-6 November saw the third biggest number of sign-ups during any two-day period. This followed a week of media attention for Philip Rosedale's newest project Coffee and Power, as well as reports surrounding the inclusion of Second Life in an FBI crime dossier.

Daily Concurrency

A statistically significant negative trend was observed for mean daily concurrency during 2011. This followed 2010's much steeper decline. Taken with the increase in sign-ups, this could indicate substantial decreases in new user retention.

Search Interest

Search interest in Second Life saw a statistically significant downwards trend over the course of 2010-2011. A sharp spike in interest was observed during August, which Google attributes to the announced closure of the Dresden Gallery. Removing this spike from the data reveals a significant negative correlation for 2011, albeit smaller than the year prior.

Towards 2012

2011 saw something of an improvement over the previous year. Sign ups increased, and the rate of activity and interest decline lessened. It remains to be seen whether this slow down is a result of actions by the Lab or whether activity is approaching a natural minimum maintained by sheer user habit and curiosity. I suspect the former is true, which leads me to speculate a plateau of activity for 2012, with possible increases closer to 2013. This is contingent on the Lab maintaining or increasing their current rate of platform development, as well as the rate of publicity. I don't think we'll see any reversal of fortunes just yet, but I remain optimistic about Second Life long-term.

Sign Ups and Concurrency from GridSurvey
Search Interest from Google Insight

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