Some time in the last twelve hours Second Life grew to more than one million residents. That’s nearly double the number of residents who were here when I first came in world just over ten weeks ago. While many argue that what really matters is the number of residents who have logged in within the past 60 days (405,931 at the time of this writing).
But what I am curious about is whether this population boom matters to designers and sellers. Does it affect the way you view your old merchandise or your locations? Does it change the way you market your products? Do you even have time to think about any of this?
Hopefully, some of you will let me know. Crossing the one million mark seems like it should have some sort of resonance (the 300 millionth US resident was born yesterday, btw). But maybe it’s just another number.
For Ninja and I, this is not much of a concern just yet. Granted we are not exactly a ‘well known’ store. The major influx of people this morning was due to the feature of Second Life on the Yahoo Homepage and I would have to argue that at least 50% of those people will not continue playing the game for more than a month….if even more than today. For many it just looked like this really cool new FREE game to try and for most of the south this is also Fall break for the kids and many are sitting at home bored while mom/dad is still at work. So I dunno…at the moment..no worries. But I suppose we’ll have to rethink it if these number still stick around in a month or so.
There was also an article in Sunday newspaper about SL this week in the UK which may have helped bring some new members.
Quite a lot of the new people have no L so the influx of new people doesn’t have a great economic effect to business at the moment. There has been a rise in begging since LL began open membership.
Sadly the only thing I notice is a bit of rudeness from some newcomers and resentment because some don’t have much L.
As a smaller designer and not a well known. I have to agree with Zoey & Sachi. I honestly feel that most wont be continuing for much longer and most will probley leave after an Wednesday Update. I doubt the Newer players will want to deal with that. Its just a boom from all the news getting put out there in RL (real life) about SL (Second Life). Best to just keep an eye on the numbers of players that actually play. As for my business to just contiune designing and having fun doing so.
Like those who commented before me, I doubt the latest influx of new users will turn into permanent residents, sadly. I’ve always had the impression that the way SL was marketed, and to who it was marketed, brought in curious newcomers, but few lasting residents.
As for how it changes or affects my business, I don’t think it really does, on a noticable scale. The vast majority of my sales have always been from return customers. I recognize the names, even if I’ve never met the avatar face to face in world. I can usually tell when a new customer stumbles across the store, because they buy a gazillion things at once, instead of just the items on the New Items wall.
Since I try to gear my stock and pricing toward Newbie-Friendly things, I can always hope the influx will be added business, but I don’t count on it.
Glad to see that CJ and I aren’t the only ones scratching our heads over the mismatch between balance and the influx of new residents. We thought it was just us. Not only have we not seen an increase but we’ve noticed a dip since that one bad week with the what, 4-5 attacks?
Ah. Very interesting comments. So far it would appear that the increase in residents does not equal an increase in sales. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Are the residents actually just visitors who don’t become assimilated and, therefore, start buying in our world? Or is it more like the AOL effect where just like the internet ten years ago, so many new users arrive who are ill-equipped for navigating the space. There’s a lot to do here and a million ways to do it. But that doesn’t mean that users have any good way of finding out about it or that they are immersed enough in the culture to find shopping for their avatars to be compelling fun. Interesting conversation. Looking forward to more thoughts on this.
I found shopping, and later creation, to be one of the funnest parts of SL. Something I couldn’t do so readily in first life, but could do willy-nilly in Second Life. Everything fits!
But before the need/desire to shop, there has to be a place to show off the items we buy. Events now are far different than when I joined almost 3 years ago. Then, I could go to any event, and probably know half the attendees. Now, I’d be hard pressed to know 1, if any. I think that the more intriguing events we have, the more people will shop, and the better merchants will fare from it.
Buying a new outfit is all well and good, but you need someone to show it off to.
I have definitely seen an increase in sales, over the past few days in particular. I’m not sure if its because of the massive amount of new members or because I’ve been on a designing spree lately lol.
Also, today I discovered another source of what may be helping with the amount of people joining. Second Life was featured in the November Issue of Blender Magazine that I got in the mail today. Willow’s picture was in it
I joined in July and it took me about a week before I felt comfortable enough and familiar enough with SL to do “serious” shopping. I had help from the blogs too, so those who don’t know about those might take longer, longer still if they don’t want to spend much money.
I think some of the less expensive lines will see upswings before say Simone or Rebel Hope does.
They’re all asking how to make money, but that’s a question I’ve been thinking about too.
There aren’t any “working class” style jobs out there like there are in RL, the SL economy is pretty much Content makers and consumers without a working class.
I’ve got no solutions but I think the Lindens need to get more mentors and such in the welcome areas fast.
I agree with Jonquille that shopping is nice but showing off ones stash to a friend is really fun.
Yeah I think that is an issue, CronoCloud, and not one I ever see marketed. That is that unless you can produce content, then your second life has to be funded by your real world currency. Although there are service sector jobs in SL, I am not aware of any that pay enough to support more than a minor shopping habit.