How many people have a Second Life?

Stephen Withers
Monday, 07 May 2007 06:35

Your IT - Home IT

Linden Labs claims over 6.1 million Second Life 'residents' in total, with 1.6 million logged in sometime during the last 60 days. Online market researcher comScore says nearly 1.3 million people logged in during March, adding credence to Linden's sometimes disputed numbers.

Since comScore monitors an international panel of 2 million people and Second Life is a popular service, the comScore results are probably reliable. Since comScore's numbers are for a single month and they show substantial growth in user numbers (46 percent worldwide), Linden's claim of 1.6 million active users doesn't seem so outlandish after all. Some commentators have suggested the official count is inflated by a number of people operating two or more accounts, but comScore's figures are based on people, not accounts, so Linden's claims could be closer to the truth than some thought.

Assuming comScore's methodology is sound, the geographical distribution of Second Lifers makes interesting reading. The majority - 61 percent - of Second Lifers are European, compared with 19 percent from North America. Germany (with a population around 82 million) provides 209,000 of Second Life's active residents, compared with 207,000 from the US (population 300 million).

But active resident numbers are growing more quickly in the US than any other nation identified by comScore. Between January and March 2007, growth rates were 92 percent for the US, 70 percent for Germany and 53 percent for France.

Despite their huge populations, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa together only account for just over one-fifth of active Second Lifers. Computer ownership is low in some countries in these areas, and comScore's exclusion of traffic from Internet cafes and other public computers could understate their involvement.