Is it just ‘Summer’ Doldrums?

Since the release of the June metrics, there’s been a general consensus that a peak has been reached. The only conjecture is when growth is likely to increase again. Or if it will at all. The northern hemisphere commentators are calling it summer doldrums but not ruling out a deeper change.

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Australian users are contradicting the trend, with a jump from 1.93% to 2.61% in active Australian users. That’s arguably because the Australiam media’s interest in Second Life is recent when compared to the USA and Europe. As media stories increase their focus on user growth, some will argue the media are spooking potential new users. That may be a risk, however any product lives or dies on its usability and Second Life is no different. Imminent enhancements like voice will determine in a large way that perception of improving usability.

Aussie population update – a dozen thousand

Meta Linden has once again given an update on SL metrics.

Linden state there’s now 12,910 active aussie users, meaning that Australia has moved from 11th to 10th place in the world with 2.61% of the active SL population.

As we stated last month, the definition of active is fairly generous but growth does indeed continue. The rate of growth has slowed in recent months however it’ll be interesting to see the impact of the 60 Minutes / Australian Women’s Weekly coverage on registrations.

The inaugural SLOz Traffic Index – June 2007

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As mentioned previously, we will be providing a monthly snapshot of popular aussie locations in Second Life. We’re pleased to provide the initial SLOz Traffic Index (STI) for June. Being the first one it’s a fairly modest list. A few important notes on methodology as well as a couple of disclaimers:

1. The number linked to each presence is a standard average based on dwell statistics provided to all SL users via the Search Places option.
2. For large presences we’ve chosen the most popular area rather than add up total dwell – this means larger presences may have overall larger numbers but that’s not what we’re measuring (see also point 5).
3. Each presence, unless an addition since the start of the reporting period, has had their traffic stats measured at least ten times with each instance at least 24 hours apart.
4. The individual times and statistics can be found here
5. The STI is indicative only – yes we know there are much more detailed methodologies and that ours is a rough guide only for the SL community – we think of it as a ‘what’s hot’ measure. Discussion / criticism on the STI here.

Onto the STI:

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Telstra’s Billabong Bar and the ABC Island Sandbox are no surprises as popular haunts. Armory Island by its very nature has a wide international popularity hence its number one position. The Australia Sim is garnering a lot of traffic for a new build and Lord Coalcliff’s Skyhome Resort is a stayer. Another relatively new presence is Sofia’s furniture and its popularity isn’t to be sneezed at either.

If you have a presence in SL that you’d like added to the index, let us know. It just has to be owned / operated by Australians for inclusion. We look forward to any feedback and watch out next month for a more comprehensive index.

Aussie population update – stable at 10K

Meta Linden has again given an update on SL metrics. This month there’s been a number of changes including the addition of a “Countries By Active” category which takes a little more of the guesswork out of estimating the Australian SL community.

Because the measures have changed since last monthit’s difficult to provide a trend. Australia has maintained it’s ranking at 11th in the world but the percentage of the overall population has ‘dropped’ to 1.93% under the new measure. This translates to 9779 active users – active is defined as being logged in for more than one hour during the reporting period. This is a fairly generous definition of active – the numbers of users logged in more than once per week would obviously be much lower again.

Major credit to Linden Lab for their transparency on the figures and it certainly quashes some of the wild claims we’ve heard over the past couple of months about there being closer to 20 thousand active aussies in SL. Last month we claimed an active Australian population coming up on ten thousand and that’s been born out by the Linden figures. The rapid growth has continued to slow and we don’t believe there’ll be any significant change in the coming month, just slow but steady growth.

Aussie population update for May – 10K here we come

Meta Linden has once again provided an update on SL metrics. In the past month, Australia has continued its growth to 2.59% of the overall SL population (up from 2.41%), which makes it the 11th largest country represented:

1. As at 30th April there were 3,768,092 unique residents (up more than half a million on last month)
2. Ten percent of that is 376,809. (the ten percent rule is the rough guide on active users)
3. 2.43% of THAT is 9759.

As we stated last month, we expected the growth to continue, albeit at a much slower rate after the large jump in March. Our prediction for next month is continued growth but at an even slower rate.

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