Second Life's "unusually strong" September
Filed under: Economy, News items, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds
Linden Lab's CFO, John Zdanowski is better known to Second Life users as Zee Linden, though we think of him more as a Zeno, after Zeno of Elea, who baffled, annoyed and amused pre-Socratic thinkers with a set of seeming paradoxes, many of which revolved around the adjustment of frames of reference and measurement -- and, whatever their original intention -- amply display the follies that arise from doing so.
You can pick up all of that from yesterday's Q3 2008 world metrics from Zdanowski, entitled 'Q3 closed on a high note with an unusually strong September'. You might want to check September's published figures against that report, and see if you agree with 'unusually strong'.
The primary criteria for Zdanowski's assessment of the September performance were user-to-user transactions (U2UT). A figure which Linden Lab has told us over and over is irrelevant, not meaningful and to be ignored. Instead they usually steer us to examine user-hours, which notably fell in September.
It is a little confusing, we grant, to be told to ignore the U2UT figure for so long, and then suddenly have our attention drawn to it in a month where it is one of the few figures that looks good.
Indeed, Zdanowski says, 'The user to user transaction numbers are at best a rough estimate of what is actually happening. The have stayed relatively consistent relative to the money supply and relative to the LindeX volume certainly since we banned games of chance. LindeX volume may be a better measure of activity because there are transaction fees and real money involved.'
Very rough, actually, since any two users with at least one Linden Dollar between them can cause the U2UT figure to rise more or less at will. We'd venture so far as to agree with Linden Lab's official position on the matter that U2UT is economically meaningless.
So, taking Zdanowski's advice on the forums, we should be using LindeX currency exchange volume instead as a measure of economic activity. Unfortunately that also fell in September; and again in October, as it happens.
Unusually strong September? Zdanowski says yes, but Linden Lab's own published figures care to differ.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rightasrain said on 2:51PM 11-13-2008
really what is even more amazing about the Q3 announcement is that they are continuing to hype a stat of user hours--when they even admit that a percentage of it is bots. Worse will be when they are forced to admit the amount of camping inside those hours.
And still they led with land mass growth...? Well, will be last time they use that one for awhile.
and price on Nautilus? Is because people value that? come on..is amateur speculators. Look at all the happy residents at Bay City--is a ghost town (ok, no campers at least).
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Tharkis said on 4:36PM 11-13-2008
Gotta love spin.. I'm pretty sure that October and November are going to tell an entirely different story.
Personally, I am not so sure the lindex is a number you should look at period.. I think I have used the Lindex once to perform a transaction. I found out there was a limit to the amount of lindens I could sell. From that point on, I use SLXchange/xlstreet/whatever they are calling themselves today.
I have lost a lot of interest in SL, haven't been a paying account in like 3-4 years.. Not to mention, I don't go in but once or twice a week to deal with business matters. The Lindens in general have made bad decision after bad decision for quite a while now. The funny thing is that if they started listening to the user base, worked on the bugs a bit more, and didn't pull crap with the land/sim pricing like they have done for the last couple years they would have retained many more users, possibly some paying ones as well..
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Ugkul said on 6:54PM 11-13-2008
Second Life has lived on hype for a long time. I installed it, played for ten minutes, left and never went back, and never will.
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mark c said on 12:18AM 11-25-2008
*** Second Life has lived on hype for a long time. I installed it, played for ten minutes, left and never went back, and never will. ***
Oh well that makes you the real expert then. Tell us all more -- we're fascinated.
Linda said on 7:34PM 11-16-2008
September's unusual figures is very possibly due the effect of the beginning of 2007 ( hype ).
At that time accounts doubled per month.
Since 2007II the growth of accounts is in a steady downtrend ( i keep stats ).
It is now at 50% compared to Dec 2007.
Meanwhile user hours grow.
Conclusion: early 2007 signup accounts are spending more and more time in sl, due to addiction.
(it is why we see relatively many 2007 players in high traffic regions in sl).
More virtual worlds are now on the market, so sl is loosing market share.
In other words: it could very well be that the product life cycle of sl is over its peak.
Technically sl is still bumping to it's limits.
62000 online had been seen in Dec 2007, however with huge problems.
At this moment, ~64000 are online as a peak and we are running exaclty into the same technical problems at this very moment.
To me it looks like a dead track at this moment for sl.
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