Sim Total Number Growth, Slight Decline In Private Estates, Continues

 

The current number of sims is 27,735 according to the Second Life Grid Survey. That's more than the number there were at the start of the year according to an article by Daniel Voyager, 27,659. But there is one small detail with the statistics: the number of private sims.

 

As most residents know, some sims are outright owned by Linden Lab while the majority are run by private residents. At the start of the year, January 1, 2023, there were 18,370 private sims and 9289 Linden-owned sims. By July 2, the number of private sims had dipped to 18,330 and the number of Linden owned once had rose to 9360. As of the last report in November 19, the number of Linden run sims had once again risen, to 9542. But once again, the amount of private sims dropped slightly, to 18,193. 

 

So there are 177 fewer private sims and 253 more Linden-run sims than at the beginning of the year. This trend isn't necessarily a bad thing for Linden Lab. While private sims do bring in a lot of money, $210 USD a month, the Linden Home sims on Bellisseria can hold plenty of Linden Homes, and plenty of Premium residents, who pay $12 each a month. And then there's the money they spend, of which the easiest way to get is to buy Linden dollars. On the other hand, private sims can be used to create great and interesting builds, which can attract curious people to Second Life by word of mouth.

So will these trends continue? Time will tell.

Sources: Daniel Voyager's Blog, Second Life Grid Survey

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Video: "Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times - Official Trailer"

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From Draxtor Despres on March 26. "Since March 2020, Draxtor has been following UC Irvine Department of Anthropology researchers Tom Boellstorff, Evan Conaway, Chandra Middleton and Sandy Wenger around Animal Crossing and Second Life to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping online interaction. 

In the film, protagonists from all over the world open up about their anxieties and everyday challenges during the last two years, and share what virtual worlds and social games mean to them in the context of a global health crisis. 

Many hours of mixed reality interviews, group discussions in Second Life and a comprehensive survey filled out by over 4000 players/residents provide the basis for a sprawling narrative. What emerges through participant observation is a mosaic of impressions, voices and worlds belonging to people from all walks of life, who are actively engaging in community building in the digital realm as they are trying to make sense of a new age dominated by uncertainty and physical isolation. 

The film premieres April 2nd right here on YouTube and in Second Life at Film Threat. More information = https://www.draxtor.com/virtualcultures 

(This film has been made possible with support of the National Science Foundation, award number 2028560, “RAPID: The Role of Emerging Virtual Cultures in the Prevention of COVID-19 Transmission”)"
 

Announcement: A Grad Student Asks For Help With A Survey

 

Hello my name is Besitaa. 

I am a graduate student at Çağ University in Turkey currently majoring in Business Administration and Marketing. I am working on my Master's Thesis. My goal is to write about other Second Life users besides myself to learn more about the metaverse and our future in it.

For this reason, I would be very happy if you would support me by taking the survey. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

The e-mail addresses of my thesis advisor and myself are available in the survey link. You can also contact one of my university professors,Magua (Magua Theriac), who can confirm my work in SL.

My online profile is available at :
www.linkedin.com/in/beste-demirci-a43b41172

The survey link : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeo4H6E7gLn_VXjpqk6OEhx-ZPnMOP5LU_JgcmJJKvRmuV-Ng/viewform

Please respond by the end of March, and the sooner the better so I can finish my research.

Thank you so much for your help.
 

EOTB: Linden Lab To Email Survey About Second Life to Residents

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For those who feel, "Linden Lab needs to listen more to it's residents," some of you will get a chance to have your say. A few days ago on the official Second Life blog, the Lab announced they would be emailing "thousands" of users, "an invitation to complete a survey and give feedback."

As 2022 begins, we are looking to set new goals and make Second Life Residents happier! 

Later today and in the following weeks, research@secondlife.com will be emailing thousands of Residents with an invitation to complete a survey and give feedback. Please keep an eye out for it, and feel free to share your thoughts on how to make Second Life a more pleasant experience for all. We’ve also been conducting qualitative research with a smaller group over the past few weeks. If you participated in that research, you are still eligible to take part in this survey.

There was also a mention of Flickr and how it's team was also doing "its own independent research on the Second Life community." Second Life has it's own official group on Flickr. And there was a mention of the upcoming Lab Gab episode with both Philip and Oberwolf Linden.

To read the blog post in full, Click here.
 

Announcement: "Research Surveys About Our Second Lives"

 

"Tom Boellstorff and his students have designed a survey to ask about how we are using SL during the COVID pandemic. (There is a second survey to take if you are in Animal Crossing.) There is more info in the notecard. Thanks for helping with this research.

"Hello! I have exciting news to share. As part of my research project on 'virtual cultures in pandemic times,' my graduate students and I have created a survey. I’d love you to take it and to share it with anyone and everyone! We worked to make the survey as fun and brief as possible. For each there is a place at the end where if you wish, you can let us know that you’d be interested in participating in an interview. We also have a survey for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If you’re in both places, do both surveys, and feel free to pass along the Animal Crossing survey as well."

Second Life survey link: https://ucisocsci.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b1QNAZ5rxiA9LA9

Animal Crossing survey link: https://ucisocsci.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_26sKrRubahncwPH

Safe Waters Foundation Survey

Grace Wrigglesworth recently decided to conduct a poll as to what the interest in underwater virtual life Second Life residents have. So she made the following questions for people to copy/paste to a notecard inworld, fill out, and send it to her via her profile (GraceSWF Wrigglesworth).

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My Full SL Name and Nickname:

Community/entity represented:

Your status in the community (e.g. owner, manager, officer, etc.):

Community sim locations:

What time zone do you live in (RL)

Please provide contact information.  When is the best time to reach you (SLT) and best methods:

What is your perception of the current state of underwater life in SL?:

What aspects of SL underwater life would you like to see improved?:

In your opinion, what are the strengths of your community in what it brings to the global underwater community?:

Are there any aspects of your community that could be improved by collaboration with other underwater communities?:

Do you have any questions about how Safe Waters Foundation can help your community?:

In your opinion, how can Safe Waters Foundation best help the global underwater community?:

_______________________________________________________

Thank you for your time and cooperation!
Please complete this survey, save a copy and rename it to include your name.  Please drop your renamed notecard on GraceSWF Wrigglesworth.

News and Commentary: Second Life Revenue Reportedly Down By Half In Eight Years, Number of Sims Drops Below 24K

Some troubling news was posted on the SL Universe forums by Tyche Shepard, and passed on by Hamlet Au. In Tyche's private estate survey in January, she estimated that the revenue Linden Lab makes from Second Life sim tiers had dropped to just under three million US dollars a year, or 36 million a year. Hamlet Au when seeing this information calculated that as the Lab makes about 80% of it's money from Second Life through tier payments, the rest through premium accounts, Linden dollar purchases, and fees, their total income from the virtual world was about 50 million US dollars.

While that is a lot of money, consider that in 2009 Linden Lab's income was estimated to be about 100 million dollars. This represents a drop in income of fifty percent. The Lab is making only half now what they were eight years ago.

This drop in revenue can easily be seen as an explanation for certain actions Linden Lab has taken over the past year and a half, such as reducing the set-up fees for getting sims, lowering sim tiers for a time (in exchange for a fee), and increasing the prim capacity for sims. It's also a partial explanation for why Linden Lab is making a gamble with Sansar. They're not making the money they used to.

But according to Tyche's statistics from January 2, despite the moves Linden Lab has made, the overall slow decline of the number of sims in Second Life continued throughout 2016. In the first quarter of 2017, the total number of sims dropped below 24,000. Linden Lab may very well conclude Sansar is their sole chance for stopping their revenue slide. Hamlet's earlier observation that Sansar was starting to remind him more and more of the old Blue Mars virtual world, which after less than two years was pretty much on it's way out, is not exactly an encouraging sign.

While Sansar may not be "do or die" for Linden Lab as Hamlet also suggested, it's failure would be a huge blow as it would mean a significant investment in resources would get no return, and limit the Lab's options. In the short term, it might mean more tier reductions and more advantages for premium account members as Linden Lab takes more steps to try to stop the decline. In the long term if the decline continues, the Lab may decide to let some of it's members go in a "restructuring," reduce customer service, and other steps to reduce their overhead. And if that doesn't work, well, that may be best left unmentioned.

Sources: New World Notes, SL Universe, Second Life Grid Survey

Bixyl Shuftan

World Space Week in Second Life

It's World Space Week this week. It was 61 years ago today in which the Russians (then the USSR) launched Sputnik, the first satellite into space. Second Life has numerous space-themed locations, the best known being the International Space Museum at Spaceport Alpha (114,142,23).

Another place is the Sagan Planetarium at Aspen (199, 119, 3729). which has a small museum and a Planetarium. One can also find a laser tag maze on the sky platform at (133,168,3720).

The National Space Society is having an activity of their own. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, they're doing a kind of poll in which residents are asked to rank the probability of certain kinds of Trek technology from warp drive, to transporters, to replicators. You can head there to take part, or just look around, at National Space Society (128,152,1261)

There's a lot more to see space-wise, but part of the fun of space exploration is, well, exploring.

"See you later, space cowboy."

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: Linden Lab Asking Residents Their Opinions About Marketplace

For those residents whom have had problems with Marketplace, here's your chance to sound off. Linden Lab says they'll be making some changes to the online shopping site, and are open to opinions on what needs to be fixed.

Next year, we'll be making some improvements to the Second Life Marketplace search functionality. To help focus those efforts, we'd like to get some feedback from Marketplace users (both buyers and merchants) about how Marketplace search is working for you today and, more importantly, what you’d like to see in the future.

For feedback, Linden Lab had a link to a survey, which can be found Here (click here). It will be up until January 6.

For the blog post in it's entirety, Click Here.

Linden Lab Survey at the SL9B

Linden Lab never took part in the SL9B festivities, but is apparently interested in seeing what the residents liked about it and what they didn't. The link was in: https://my.secondlife.com/second.life .

Did you attend SL9B this year? If so, take this short survey and tell us about your experience! http://bit.ly/N56GWZ .

The SL9B blog commented, "Some of the questions do seem to reference the SL9B 20-sim Community Event, but many of them can be applied to other events if you want to comment on those (it might be worth specifying which event you are referring to in the comments!)"

The SL9B blog had it's own survey as well, which you can find Here.

The Return of "There?"

Longtime users of virtual worlds may remember “There.” Founded about the same time as Second Life, it didn’t do quite as well despite promoting itself as family friendly and full of games. In March 2010, “There” closed down citing lack of funds due to the lasting recession. A year later, the company behind it Makena Technologies is considering relaunching the virtual world as “There2.” On the website, one can find a link to a survey.


This is just a survey to see if there's enough interest, financially, to re-open what we're calling for now, "There2". ... "There2" would be a PAID service. There would be monthly charge for everyone, except people with lifetime beta accounts. ... "There2" must be an 18+ site. One of the biggest expenses was supporting a PG-13 environment. This does not mean we would allow pornography, hate speeches, or copyrighted materials-- we just won't be responsible for people under 18 using the service.


Makena CEO Michael Wilson published the survey results on his blog “I Am So There,” and about 80% of the 2400 who answered were willing to pay at least $10 a month to be able to get to There2. He also answered a few questions. Asked about avatars with corporate brands on them, they would come back as ordinary as the sponsorships were gone.

It should be mentioned that Second Life began without the option of free accounts, those coming about later when the Lindens wanted to expand their population. And of course it was officially adults only until a few months ago. It’s interesting that returning as “There2,” the virtual world is making a big departure from it's days as being teen-friendly, and going to policies Second Life put aside.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan