Second Life Economy Booming
By Anna Johnson on May 19th, 2010The Second Life economy is booming. In the first quarter of 2010, user-to-user transactions in the virtual world jumped 30 percent since last year to reach $160 million, breaking all previous company records.
Tom Hale, Chief Product Officer Linden Lab, which owns Second Life, said total sales on Second Life’s marketplace, Xstreet, reached USD $2.3 million in Q1 2010, an 82 percent increase year-to-year and a 24 percent increase over the previous quarter.
Active Second Life users – or ‘residents’ – reached 517,349 in March, a 2010 high, while monthly unique users with repeat logins peaked in March at 826,214, a 13 percent increase over 2009 and an all-time high.
The results augur well for Second Life, which reached USD $567 million in user-to-user transactions, and had gross resident earnings of US$55 million in 2009.
Source: Tom Hale, “Second Life Economy Hits New All-Time High in Q1 2010,” April 28, 2010
