1. Though I hesitate to make this comparison, I suppose it might help to put it in real life terms...

Practically, what matters most to me is that my friends are there, things work as they should, and if I need something, it's available. I spend most of my social time in a handful of estate sims, and most of my building time in one or two mainland sims with no people in them, perhaps a 50/50 split, though I can build on the estates without trouble as long as they're not crowded. So yes, the way I care most about SL is through my day to day experience.

Realistically and widely speaking, the numbers DO matter, and matter a lot. Think of Linden Lab and their computer farm as the environment. There are a finite number of Lindens who can keep the world up and running, and a finite amount of resources and time to devote to an apparently ever-increasing population.

If the population falls too low, LL suffers (lack of funds/publicity/whatever), and as a result, the world and population may suffer. On the other hand, if the population grows too quickly (as it seems to have been doing, though I have no hard data), then the environment can't support the population growth, and the result is residents voluntarily choosing to leave their Second Existence. Second Suicide?

Pardon my philosophical aside:

If you enter a new world, expecting it to be as grand as advertised, then find out it's slow, overcrowded, crashing all the time, you lose things, etc... no doubt this would leave a bad taste in your mouth. I suspect that only the most curious or persistent or desperate new users make it past this point - I'm itching to see the real numbers here. Personally, I probably would not have stuck around if SL was as unstable when I started as it is now (early 2005).

Those people who come, don't see what they want to see, decide 'it sucks' or whatever, then leave... They probably won't be bringing in new members, and may even tell people 'hey that SL thing sucks. go play WoW instead'.

Fortunately (as I see it), only 2,073,579 people have experienced SL. That's only 2,073,579 first hand opinions, out of an internet connected portion of the world that numbers something like 1 billion. If LL can turn things around and make the first few days or weeks experience as good as mine were, or as good as the starting islands are (I assume they're better now?), or if they want to stretch it, as good as my 14 day trial on WoW was... (I really wanted to keep playing, it sucked me in, even though I couldn't do all that I wanted and would have had to pay for it - I can see why they have 7 million active users.) Then they may have a chance at making the 'ecosystem' - call that economics or ecology, whatever you like - of SL work.

So yes... Numbers don't matter to my day to day experience, as long as my friends stick around. But they matter to us all in the long run, if we want SL to stick around.

P.S.:
Doing a few back of the envelope calculations... as of today, about 290,000 users signed in sometime last month, but did not sign in during this month. Roughly 493,000 signed in from 2-8 weeks ago, but haven't been back in over 2 weeks. Can we consider them dead? Will they ever come back and give it another try?

Furthermore, we know that 542,000 were on in the last 30 days, and since attrition the month before that was 290,000, then the total surviving population from this month should be somewhere under 252,000. These are all very high estimates, and I would love to pin down these numbers some more, but I have a final project to finish right now. :P

Sorry for being long winded. o_o *whew*

Posted at 2:30AM on Dec 19th 2006 by Laser Pascal

2. I'm not concerned about the numbers. All I care about is the people I meet around me these days.

That thing they told you about being able to identify with only 150 people in your life on average is true, sadly.

Posted at 9:49AM on Dec 19th 2006 by Patchouli Woollahra

3. As someone who just signed up last week, I have some insight. I imagine that lots of people will find out (as I have) that they have incompatible graphics cards. They may seem to work, but they really don't. It makes gameplay almost impossible. I didn't realize this until after I signed up, just assuming that I had a good enough card.
A friend of mine tried this. As soon as she left Help Island, she was immediately caged and held for money. She has no desire to return.
I guess that what needs to be determined is this: Of the new people who sign up, what percentage of decent citizens will stay, vs those of a rather evil intent?

Posted at 9:49AM on Dec 19th 2006 by Po_dog

4. Hi Tateru,

I've posed the same question a few different places now and I'm sure you've seen it. I should have come to you directly. You are one of the most reasonable and sensible people I've had the pleasure of reading since I began looking into Second Life back in August.

From where I sit, the numbers do matter. You can view Second Life from the micro realm or the macro realm. For those who do not care about the numbers, they are likely living in the micro realm, i.e. just their own personal experience and that of the friends around them matter.

I care more about Second Life from the macro perspective. I need to understand where virtual economies are going to fit into the macro economic picture in the near and long term. It feels very much like sitting in a position of global concern back in 1993 and trying to determine how this new thing called the World Wide Web was going to impact markets and economies.

Is it exagarating to think we are at a similar precipice? My gut tells me we are. By the time the numbers are reliable enough to bear that out, it may already be too late for certain opportunities.

So, how would YOU define a Second Life resident?

Here is my initial attempt that I just posted over at Terra Nova:

A Second Life resident is someone who maintains a recurring and regular presence within Second Life. Their account must be at least 30 days old and they must have maintained an average of 3 hours in world per week since the creation of their account.

How many Second Life residents are there?

Comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Best regards,
Eric

Posted at 1:17PM on Dec 19th 2006 by IAmEric

5. I say the more the merrier. The more people the better prices on items should be as competition increases. The more people the more diverse Second Life will become, making it easy to find people with your specific interests. More people also means that during those normally dead hours you can find someone to chat with.

It does have it's drawbacks, such as getting a moment of privacy, laggy sims, laggy grid, more griefers, and more junk items to beware, but in the long run, as Second Life grows to fit the masses, more people should be a good thing.

-G

Posted at 5:52PM on Dec 19th 2006 by Gando Thurston

6. Resident by the Linden Lab usage would be someone who logs on at least once each year. What would be called in other places a user and a casual one at that at those low levels.

I know people who are quite active, and quite effective in SL who can only spare the time to log in once in a month, slam out 8-12 hours of time over a day or a day and a half, catching up, running around, tending to their business. Much of the rest is handled by IM/Email. People I know I can send an offline IM to and get a snappy response from via their office PC, or a blackberry or email-enabled phone.

They're there, communicating, organising, burning a hundred hours on creative work (I'm looking at you, young Hyasynth) and then diving inworld to do the things that must be done vacuus substantia tamen per presentia.

I might have a looser definition of Resident than you. I'd say someone who spends time at least once every three months qualifies. Let's put a number on the hours. Say three hours, every three months. If I were running a bar, I'd call that a regular. I'd hope for a lot of those, rather than trying to rely on my die-hards.

Posted at 2:50AM on Dec 20th 2006 by Tateru Nino

7. Tateru, how does Linden define Resident, in their count published on the login page? Is it people, accounts, or avatars (including alts)?

Posted at 5:37PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Clay Shirky

8. Linden Lab defines a resident as a signup, I believe, no more no less. They're rather less promiscuous when it comes to the notion 'active resident', however.

Posted at 8:06PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Tateru Nino

9. An 'alt' so far as second life is concerned is a separate signup/account/identity/user.

For the purposes of tracking abuse and limiting total alt accounts, Linden Lab apparently have data available to tie those accounts together to some degree by being able to track which individual computers logins come from by a process more rigorous than just an IP address. However, I believe that this is not commonly done - that a philosophical underpinning is that someone who has offended can usually start over with a clean slate and 'sin no more'.

Don't ask me to put money down on which way the ball falls there, because I've seen examples of both.

So alts are separate signups. They're a separate account, and a separate person from the Linden Lab side. I know a few people with one or more alts. I know a lot more people who don't seem to have any.

Ultimately there's no data available to suggest how many signups belong to how many people, or how many 'active' residents are alts. Some people will tell you there's only like 8 real people in SL and everyone else is an alt :)

We /do/ know that the number of active residents appears to be growing along the same curve as the overall total signups, and that's material for some discussion and conjecture, true.

As a general rule, pretending you have some magic insight into the true meaning of data that you don't have and can't derive is just plain ridiculous. I'm not talking about you, Clay, or Wagner either.

Posted at 10:20PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Tateru Nino

10. Thanks Tateru.

One other question: over on Terra Nova they are saying that REsidents counts avatars, which is to say signups plus alts. (Scroll down to "Are alts counted" to find the relevant comments.) Are they wrong, and if so, is there anything in the SL FAQ that defines Resident?

Posted at 10:23PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Clay Shirky

11. Tateru, right there with you. I'm asking precisely because I don't know. The numbers I'm interested in involve (first life) people, and I've not yet gotten used to disambiguating among accounts, signups, avatars and alts, and Residents.

Posted at 10:30PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Clay Shirky