After months of controvery over the real population of the virtual world Second Life, parent company Linden Labs has released a census, of sorts. Most importantly, the company has addressed "Resident Population vs Unique Users vs Log Ins vs Active Users." Maybe now we can answer the question, "How big is this world?" that has been plaguing those of us who are trying to figure the relative importance of Second Life as a technology lab.
"With this report, I’ve released some more detailed population information including a comparison of total resident population to unique residents who have logged in - both grew approximately 38% over December," wrote 'Zee' Linden in the Second Life blog.
Note: The report is in Excel, though a PDF will be posted at a later date.