Massively

Total signups increased by 535,227 (4.57%) compared to a growth of 529,224 (4.73%) in December. New-user retention to 90 days is still about 10% according to Linden Lab, having apparently remained more or less unchanged over the last 12 months.

Total premium accounts declined by 1,123 in January compared to a gain of 624 accounts in December (0.67%). This eliminates the gains of November and December last year - basically, more premium accounts were lost during January than were gained in the prior two months, combined.

The three most active regions by average time spent per active user in January were the Netherlands, Japan and Bermuda (basically the same list as December, though the Netherlands replaced Japan for the top spot in January). Overall, active users spent an average of 51.78 hours each in Second Life during the month of January, up from 49.17 in December.

The Second Life map grew by 39.05 square kilometres (4.05%) in January compared to 24.55 square kilometres (2.6%) in December. The total at the end of January was 1,002.71 square kilometres of simulated space, of which 22.3% is Linden mainland and the remaining 819.69 square kilometres are non-Linden estates. The amount of resident owned mainland declined by 2.43 square kilometres in January.

Under uniform growth, you can expect to see the percentage land growth continue to diminish each month, as each new simulator represents an increasingly smaller portion of the total area. However this was not the case in January.

January's Lindex activity was US$8,231,371.95, up 8.7% from the previous month's US$7,566,723.

Overall age demographics continue to trend towards us crusty oldies. 82.89% of the population is 25 years and older - a large gain from December, and the older users spend far more time in Second Life than younger users with those over 44 years old continuing to be the heaviest users on average, and teens and under-25's spending the least time.

Females spent nearly twice as long online in Second Life in January as the boys - another trend which continues steady each month.

Total user hours for January totaled a record 28,274,505 hours, an increase of 10.24% over December.