Interesting changes in key metrics

Zee Linden published a new set of statistics for Second Life on Friday, which includes some very interesting information. You’ll need an excel viewer to be able to read the raw information at present, although a pdf is promised.

Not being an economist, or one of the people who spend a lot of time analysing the published figures in order to challenge the Linden Lab view, I just looked at the metrics I find interesting: the people. In particular, the breakdown of the population by country, and the age bands.

The country breakdown shows that the US population in Second Life has dropped to 31.19%. Still the largest number from one country, but now in a minority overall. Even more surprising for me is the information that France, with 12.73% and Germany, with 10.46% have now overtaken the UK, with 8.09% and the Netherlands, with 6.55%. As Oclee said, the Le Pen situation appears to have turned a lot of eyes to SL. Perhaps their best marketing ploy is to entice a controversial political figure from the lower performing countries to come into SL and set up shop….

I am not sure how reliable the figures on age can be, because I know that many teenagers opt for an illegal account on the adult grid rather than a legal one on the Teen Grid, and that is bound to inflate the figure for people in their early 20s. Whether women of a certain age will deflate their ages on sign up I have no idea: I have never had any problem with people knowing my age, but I know many women who refuse to divulge it and remain 29 indefinitely.

The age group mostly strongly represented in SL is the 25-34 age group with 38.78%, with the 18-24 age group, notwithstanding inflation with teens, standing at 27.46%. The teen grid is a paltry 1.24% due to parental concerns about safety, lack of publicity, and the fact that most teens who are in SL join the adult grid. I am reliably informed that almost all the Germans unable to speak fluent English must be teenagers, as it is one of the requirements for the German education system that you are able to converse fluently in English before you are allowed to graduate high school there. Apparently they lock you in until you can.

Here in England, almost everyone would still be at high school if speaking another language was a requirement for graduation. I thought I spoke conversational French, but contact with a few resolutely incommunicative French avatars has led me to believe this was an illusion: they use incomprehensible abbreviations which must equate to text speak, and I do not have the vocabulary for file, folder, click, reload, relog, drivers etc.

The 35-44 age range comprises 21% of the population, and 45+, 11.52%. As I don’t pretend that no teens are in Second Life the way that Linden Lab has to, to cover their backs, I would therefore divide the population into three chunks on the main grid: teen to 24: 27.46%; 25-34: 38.78%; and 35+: 32.52%. Obviously as 35+ encompasses anything up to 103, the 35+ age group is scattered about around 70 years possibly.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this changes over the next few months. From personal experience, there are Luddites who are so anti any sort of virtual world it is going to take a catastrophe to make them try it. There are people who try it and hate the free form nature of it, and those who try it and love it. Time is one factor in how well one immerses in SL, as I think it rewards time spent learning how to use the UI, how to navigate the world and how to create. The 65+ group may well be an expanding group over the next few years. Not only does SL allow them to regain their youthful figure and have some fun, they have the time to devote to learning about it.