Some Stats on Second Life Users

Browsers in Use

Since this blog is primarily about Second Life™ I think it fair to say my visitor stats are representative of SL Users. If you are interested in knowing what hardware and screen resolution other SL residents are using, read on.

The stats are from my Google Analytics account. If you use both Google’s and WordPress’s stats you’ll notice considerable difference in how they count visitors and page views. Google is much more conservative. In general Google reports visitors and WordPress page views. Since my readers read 1.76 pages per visit my Google stats are about half what WordPress shows.

Google provides stats that are not available from WordPress. For instance, how many people visit your blog every day? In my case: 80+%. Every second day? Third? Longer? Once a month? In my case: 2.2%.

Browser Stats

Depending on who you read, either Internet Explorer or Google is the more popular viewer. In some cases Firefox leads Google. My readers are a subset of the world wide browser users. So, I don’t expect my stats to match up to the general stats.

It appears that Second Life users are more technically oriented and tend to change browsers.

Browser Detail Stats

Operating Systems

Everyone has their favorite.

From the stats we see Windows is the dominate OS used by SL residents. Mac users make up only 11% of my readers and I’ll assume users of Second Life, plus or minus a couple of points.

Linux users are a small group, 3.3%.

Operating Systems in Use

Breaking down the Windows users we see Windows 7 is the dominant operating system. I am surprised. With 83% of Windows users having moved on from Windows XP, it is hard to justify providing large efforts to maintain XP compatibility.

Windows OS in Use

I doubt the sample of Mac users is big enough to be definitive, but the stats could represent the SL Mac users.

The Linux users in SL that read my blog are probably a small portion of the Linux users in SL. But, this may give us an idea of what system they use.

Linux OS in Use

Screen Size

I suspected that Second Life users would have larger screens and run them at higher resolutions. That appears to be the case.

Windows Screen Sizes in Use

Summary

The stats give us some information to understand which group of users the Lab will cater to. I’m not sure it provides much information for building in SL.

For bloggers it suggests that while small mobile devices are significant, the huge majority of readers are using desktops.

 

 

8 thoughts on “Some Stats on Second Life Users

  1. “Since this blog is primarily about Second Life™ I think it fair to say my visitor stats are representative of SL Users”

    A small percentage of SL Users read blogs, and a small percentage of those read technical blogs. I expect some significant sampling bias here.

    • You could well be right. I’m less inclined to think the bias is enough to create a significant distortion.

      • I think you underestimate the ranks of the clueless. I frequently meet ppl who never read blogs and when I talk about the major issues being discussed in the blogs they have never heard of them.

        • Maybe. But I deal with politics in RL so I am very aware of how massive ignorance on even the most important issues can be. Did you know over 2/3’s of the member UN countries are one ruler countries (kingdoms and dictatorships)?

  2. This is interesting data. Though I primarily access SL via a Windows Desktop or Laptop, I also use a Mac as a backup. I occasionally read your blog using a desktop, laptop, or tablet. However, I mostly do my daily blog reading using a reader app on my iPhone. I suspect that many of your blog readers may also be versatile with access to a number of desktop and mobile devices.

    I agree with McGroarty that you probably have a specific type of readership here that may not reflect the full SL audience.

    Thanks, btw, for providing such an informative, thoughtful blog!

  3. “Linux users are a small group, 3.3%.”

    “About 2% of the readers here are using mobile devices.”

    Your readers use Linux 3.3% of the time, and mobile devices 2% of the time, but no one uses _only_ Linux or _only_ mobile devices. I read your blog on a Windows PC most of the time, and on an Android phone some of the time — but I consider myself a Linux user 100% of the time, because that is the only OS I have at home and use for SL. Keep in mind that many Linux users work in IT jobs where they have to use Windows. It’s not by personal choice.

    Without this “workplace bias”, the stats would look very different.

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