If Web 2.0 is a bubble of hype, then surely Linden Lab’s Second Life is the shiniest bubble of them all. Companies from IBM, CNet, Reuters, American Apparel, Coldwell Banker and many more have established their presence in the metaverse, but a new study of Second Life finds that the expenditure may be wasted.
comScore reports that not only are there more Germans actively using Second Life than Americans, Europeans as a whole outnumber Americans by more that 3 to 1. The figures themselves look even worse than the ratios: only 207,000 people in the United States logged on to Second Life at least once in March. The statistics tracked unique users without considering frequency, so many of those visitors could have easily been one timers, signing up to a free account of the purpose of taking a look, never to return once confronted by sex clubs, casinos and flying male appendages.
It’s not all bad news for Linden Lab, European usage is on the rise with 777,000 active users in March, up 32% across Europe from January, 70% in Germany and 53% in France.
When you compare the billions of page views by millions of users at MySapce, to Second Life’s potential full unique user pool of 207,000 people across the same month, and then you consider that there is only a small chance they may visit your Second Life destination due to clunky in-world search and a smorgasbord of competing choices, the value proposition just doesn’t add up for US based business.