Second Life’s 1 Million Users

Earlier this week, we told you about the Reuters reporter who set up shop in Second Life. That action seems to have caused a spurt of sign-ups, because the virtual community has now hit the one million user landmark. 70,000 of those one million users have signed up within the past three days.

Pete Cashmore of the excellent social networking blog Mashable has this analysis:

I've been highly skeptical about how large Second Life is compared to social networks, but the number of active users is actually looking pretty good - almost 406,000 of those residents logged in within the last 60 days. You've got to remember, however, that 60 days is a long time period for "active" users. Other interesting stats: there are currently 11,000 users "in world" and more than $400,000 USD worth of transactions have been made in the past 24 hours.

That's a lot of money changing hands. No surprise that some legislators want to start taxing virtual economies, a move that's being met with strong resistance.

And be sure to read our Second Life Travel Guide.

[via Mashable]