For most of the last week, Linden Lab's public data/statistical feeds have been showing signs of being a bit ill. Starting on Wednesday evening, concurrency information started to fall ten or fifteen minutes behind actual data - an unusual occurrence. It's only in the last 24 hours that the system has started to catch up again.
At the same time, the figure for active users ceased updating entirely, with the most recent update to that figure being Wednesday night (24 October), at midnight SLT (US Pacific). Perhaps these subsystems are considered relatively minor, but Linden Lab have said themselves that they consider the accurate and ongoing publication of this data critical to their program of transparency.
Linden Lab's public statistical data feeds all went down at 3:40PM SLT (US Pacific) yesterday. The sudden cessation of data updates led to some unreliable figures in our reporting, so we marked them as such at the time.
The problem was today traced to the faulty deployment of a backend script, which was fixed and redeployed at approximately 11:40AM SLT today. As such, today's statistics are also going to be a little out of whack, but the numbers should all be on the mark again for tomorrow.
In the month of July, Meta Linden tells us, Linden Lab saw an actual fall in the number of premium accounts for the first time on record. The ballpark figure is approximately 5,800 accounts, many of which are on hold due to an "inability to pay".
This appears to be due to inability for Linden Lab to bill due to lost or incorrect billing information, and incomplete account information that is preventing Linden Lab from contacting those account-holders - presumably broken email addresses and the like.
We're expecting July's metrics to be published later today, where we'll get a better, overall picture of the state of Second Life through the month last month.
Concurrency statistics have been reporting very nicely since last night, that is until the concurrency hit 33,931 just over 90 minutes ago. Since then, the Linden Lab statistical data feeds have been reporting the same concurrency value over and over.
We've raised the issue with Linden Lab, and will report anything we hear back. You may reasonably consider today's statistics to be unreliable. We do not know at this stage if only concurrency data is affected at this time or if all the other statistical information is suffering similar problems.
It might be a little too early to say, but it looks a lot like Linden Lab are once more finally able to tell us how many people are using Second Life. Plus, I'm seeing signs that some of the financial data may be starting to report correctly as well. You're not going to see any sensible figures today, still - I mean, I can present you with an average signup rate per hour of 5,672 (which is junk) or a median of zero (which is useless).
If the data feeds continue to operate correctly we should be able to start reporting useful numbers again from tomorrow, though any useful trend predictions have been pushed back by the junk data that the system's been spitting out - as that junk gets further and further into the past, we'll be able to do more accurate trending. Anyone doing a thesis on SL's population statistics is probably weeping into their pillow at the moment.
Concurrency data from Linden Lab's public data feeds stopped serving about two and a half hours ago (6:30PM SLT). While signup, transaction and active-user figures still appear to be updating (but for how long?), the concurrency data suddenly started reading zero. You can see it yourself on the Second Life front page, or login screen.
No word from Linden Lab as yet about this problem, though the likely cause is backbone overload, which would be consistent with the on-again-off-again asset issues today.
[Update: The concurrency feed snapped back to life, and has remained functional since 10:26PM SLT]
The latest metrics and statistics are out from Meta Linden this month, covering April. Remember that period of troubles last month where many said that Second Life was crumbling and that they expected to see some serious falls?
Did the predicted doom come about? Time to look at the numbers.
After weeks of approaching the 40,000 mark, and having grid problems sap away the login numbers before it gets there, the login concurrency has finally crossed that notional barrier, topping out at 42,234 today.
The curves are relatively smooth today, showing few signs of the recent showstopping problems, though as Eloise noted, there are still hassles with group IMs. That the grid handled this with few noticeable breakdowns suggest that there's more work going on behind the scenes than we're necessarily aware of. Will it hold together, and will growth resume, or have we just advanced to a new set of limits - another plateau?
Meta Linden, the new statistics/metrics Linden has released the statistics for the month of February (in a week, we'll be looking for the stats for March). In a very useful move, the statistics are available in OpenDocument format, making them much easier to deal with and process.
The chart above (linked to other charts of my devising) shows the percentage monthly growth of premium accounts each month since February 2005. February 2007 saw flat growth in line with January: 15% (now at 66,800 premium accounts). If the growth of premium accounts remains flat, we should tip over 100,000 premium accounts in May.
Three times during the day today, so far, the Second Life grid broke past 20,000 concurrent users. For less than 60 seconds each time.
These were at 3:23pm SLT (the one Linden Lab noticed, which peaked at 20,015 for less than 30 seconds) and two before that that they missed seeing at 2:53pm and 2:58pm SLT.
In the last twelve months the mainstream media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines) and the connected media (blogs, news sites) have made much of Second Life, either talking it up or talking it down. It's pretty plain that very few of these outlets actually care what is going on in Second Life or what the actual numbers are, so long as they've got plenty of digits and are reasonably round.
It's probably fair to say that virtually everyone else cares less about the accuracy of those numbers than Second Lifers themselves do. Certainly some of the numbers are not all they could be.
Signups could be interpreted to be a disappointing figure. It cranks up hourly now, leaving us wondering how many stay and how many go. The logged-in-last-60-days figure is barely working, updating wheezily and erratically, giving results that don't make any sense, and don't seem to be borne out by Linden Lab's other statistics.
But do you really care about the numbers? Maybe it's your experience of Second Life -- your personal world-view -- that's more important, or maybe you care more about the what's going on beyond your own circle and wonder about the future.
Do you care about the numbers -- about one million, or two million or seven million? Or is your own experience of Second Life, and the experience of those around you what really matters to you, whatever else might be going on?
Is the health of Second Life measured in numbers, or in your day-to-day experience of it?
For most of the last week, Linden Lab's public data/statistical feeds have been showing signs of being a bit ill. Starting on Wednesday evening, concurrency information started to fall ten or fifteen minutes behind actual data - an unusual occurrence. It's only in the last 24 hours that the system has started to catch up again.
Linden Lab's public statistical data feeds all went down at 3:40PM SLT (US Pacific) yesterday. The sudden cessation of data updates 
The latest 
Concurrency statistics have been reporting very 
It might be a little too early to say, but it looks a lot like Linden Lab are once more finally able to tell us how many people are using Second Life. Plus, I'm seeing signs that some of the financial data may be starting to report correctly as well. You're not going to see any sensible figures today, still - I mean, I can present you with an average signup rate per hour of 5,672 (which is junk) or a median of zero (which is useless).
Concurrency data from Linden Lab's public data feeds stopped serving about two and a half hours ago (6:30PM SLT). While signup, transaction and active-user figures still appear to be updating (but for how long?), the concurrency data suddenly started reading zero. You can see it yourself on the 
Three times during the day today, so far, the Second Life grid broke past 20,000 concurrent users. For less than 60 seconds each time.
In the last twelve months the mainstream media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines) and the connected media (blogs, news sites) have made much of Second Life, either talking it up or talking it down. It's pretty plain that very few of these outlets actually care what is going on in Second Life or what the actual numbers are, so long as they've got plenty of digits and are reasonably round.
Do you care about the numbers -- about one million, or two million or seven million? Or is your own experience of Second Life, and the experience of those around you what really matters to you, whatever else might be going on?
