How Many People Will be in Second Life One Year From Today?
In the process of pitching Second Life to various clients, I decided to answer just this question. Of course, I don't have a crystal ball, so instead I resorted to using Excel (I think there's a marketing slogan in there somewhere: "The next best thing to a crystal ball: Microsoft Excel".
All jokes aside, I think the results of simply
applying a compounded monthly growth rate are surprising (we all know
how hard it is to calculate compound interest). What this shows is
that if the current rate of 22% monthly growth continues, we're looking
at 3.6 million residents by July 1 2007. If things slow down and SL
grows at just 10% monthly, there will be 936K residents.
If we decide to split the difference, we're still looking at a couple million users a year from now. Pretty mindblowing.
Quarter Bet Watch! http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/03/the_future_of_v.html
Posted by: Jerry Paffendorf | July 18, 2006 at 05:20 AM
Define: "Residents"
Accounts created?
Accounts created and used once? Twice? Ten times?
Accounts used actively for 1 month? 3 Months? 6 Months?
Accounts currently active?
Not a meaningful metric, as currently stated. "Caveat Lector."
Posted by: Chuck Staples | July 18, 2006 at 09:48 AM
Looks like we're growing faster than the charts!
Posted by: Nimrod Yaffle | October 18, 2006 at 04:28 PM
I have a Second Life population counter you can copy-paste to your site. Than you can keep track of the SL population.
link: http://www.counttheworld.com/?counter=secondlife
Posted by: Thiemo Walrecht | February 27, 2007 at 10:42 AM