Your (Second) Life Flashes Past You

Although not quite on the level of LWN's comprehensive review of the year, Giff Constable's Second Life timeline is a handy summary of what happened when in undoubtedly crucial year for SL. And for all those getting their knickers in a twist over the issue of SL's user base (you know who you are) he makes an important observation:

There has been a lot of questions and skepticism around the numbers, and retention rates, which Linden Lab estimates around 10% - 15%, but if you just look at concurrent users, a year ago max concurrent users was around 5 thousand. Today it is around 20 thousand, a 300% growth rate, although still a fairly small pond.

I'd underline that this is concurrent users, so the total number in a given day is some multiple of this: if I had to guess, I'd say around six to eight times. This would give an active user base of around 150,000, which is consistent with a 10% retention rate and two million signups.