The Two Year Effect: Confirmed?

A few weeks ago I described a theory I had regarding SL population that I called “The Two Year Effect.” The theory went something like this:

Without a defined requirement to stay, people tend to maintain interest in volunteer or hobby activities for a length of time between 18 to 30 months. About two years. If that’s so, then one reason for the apparent declining SL population is that the large bulk of folks who showed up in 2007 during the SL media hysteria are now expiring.

It was merely a theory, and I had no data to back it up.

Until now.

It turns out that reader Louis Platini took an interest in the theory and actually happened to have suitable data available for analysis. If you don’t know Louis, he’s the owner of Metaverse Business, makers of a wide variety of statistical counter devices for use by in-world businesses. His products range from free traffic counters to highly sophisticated systems capable of handling multiple regions and delivering far more than simple user counts. Do check them out!

The data collected by all these machines is safely stored by Metaverse Business so that their clients can make enquiries of their own statistics.

But Louis can also analyze this stored data, and he decided to do so after reading my article on the Two Year Effect. His results are very interesting, and you can read them in detail right here. The data should provide reasonably accurate results, as Metaverse Business has data on over 1.2M unique avatars. Louis employed data collected over all of 2008 and most of 2009 for the analysis.

The analysis attempted to determine the “lifetime” of avatars. In other words, the number of days between their first and last appearance. Some avatars “lived” only briefly, less than 100 days, whereas others have existed for many years. Louis then graphed the result, shown here:

The data shows an extremely steep departure rate right from the start. It appears that many people try SL for a few months and then depart (Give up? When is that easy-to-use viewer version 2.0 coming out anyway?)

Louis shows that the departures seem to follow an exponential rate for the first 400 days or so, then slow a relatively linear rate for the next 1000 days. After that departures slow right down to a trickle. Be sure to read his analysis where this is demonstrated with several explanatory graphics.

So where does this leave my Two Year Effect theory? It seems to be both wrong and right. Consider the exaggerated theoretical Two Year Effect on the chart above superimposed onto Louis’ actual data.

It’s wrong because it turns out that people are constantly leaving, not just after two years. The younger they are, the faster they tend to leave.

It’s right because almost everyone is gone after two years, and the large mass of 2007 signups must indeed be leaving (or already gone).

The fact that avatar lifetime is effectively only 2-3 years must be of grave concern to Linden Lab. A business that has temporary customers must have a strategy to get new ones to replace those departing, and that must be why Linden Lab is so focused on the experience of new residents.

An ARC From Here to Infinity

I’m obsessed with a number. Not just any number, but those amazing new ARCs. Avatar Rendering Cost!

What, you don’t know what that is?

It’s a new feature in the viewer that hatched a few weeks ago. You can access it via this tortuous and finger-straining mouse path: Advanced Menu ->Rendering->Info Displays->Avatar Rendering Cost. Once you’ve ticked that mysterious option you’ll see strange numbers appear above everyone’s head. Yeah, it’s been well described before. First here, then here and a bunch of other spots too.

It’s great sport to check out the ARCs of a crowd to see who’s got the “heaviest” ARC. Or the lowest. A visitor to Electric Pixels the other night was a mere 33, while some of my friends consistently haul around in excess of Five Thousand ARC (you know who you are!) At the Tonight Live taping last weekend someone in the audience was over Ten Thousand – so unbelievably heavy that my LCD screen actually started warping whenever she was in view.

Nevertheless, my interest in ARC lies elsewhere, specifically regarding the bit about particles found in the Official Blog:

16 points added if prim is a particle emitter. Rationale: Particles create even MORE CPU overhead and consume graphics bus bandwidth.

Hmm. Evidently particle effects take up a unit count of 16.

But do they really?

I don’t think so. In fact, I suspect the 16 is merely a guess. Why? Because all particle effects are not created equal. They vary considerably in their behaviour. Here’s what I mean: I can write a particle script that issues a single particle once every 20 minutes. Your poor viewer will no doubt strain and begin smoking under the tremendous effort required to draw that little puff. If you wait the 20 minutes for it to appear.

On the other hand, I can write a particle script that might emit 1000 particles every 0.01 seconds, and keep each of them visible for a full minute. In other words, after 10 seconds of that, your snappy viewer must draw (1000 / 0.01) * 10 = 1,000,000 particles! Yeowch! Actually, your viewer would stop drawing them after you hit the particle limit as set in your preferences, typically 4096 (although I once met a guy who preferred to set his to 4. Yes, 4. I hope they were the Best Four Particles.)

Ahem, back to the analysis we were developing.

So, a particle effect can develop a workload for your shiny PC of something between say, INFINITY and well, NOTHING! But we gotta count particles as something for the ARC statistic. Let’s see. How about SIXTEEN? Yeah, that’s it!

The Official Mandarins had little choice. They had to plug some number, perhaps based on some statistics or empirical experience. And so sixteen it is.

But you and I know that it is really a guess. So when you are in that sandbox and see a newb setting off a phalanx of sim-cracking blockbuster nukes, mentally add a few more ARC points to ‘em.

Elderly Visitors

Last October I wrote about a strange phenomenon occurring at my store, Electric Pixels. I had examined my traffic counter and found that the age of my visitors was gradually increasing over time. At that time I speculated that it was perhaps due to:

• The same set of customers continues to visit, and they simply get older over time? (This can't be true because inspection of the transaction log shows few repeat long-term customers. Yes, there are repeats, but the majority of customers are new to the store.)
• Perhaps as my avatar gets older and more experienced, he makes more sophisticated products that attract a more sophisticated clientele? I'd like to think so!
• As knowledge of these products increases via word-of-mouth, older avatars become aware of Electric Pixels and come by to shop? If so, where did the young ones go? This graph might be indirect evidence of word-of-mouth viral promotion, which is typically not easily measurable.
• Perhaps the more recent arrivals to Second Life simply don't buy as much as those who joined earlier? We know that Linden's policy changes have affected the makeup of the Second Life residents somewhat - maybe this is one of the side effects?

I thought it was time to revisit the data, especially after reading this paradoxical article in New World Notes. Here's the result in 2D graphical form: the customers are continuing to get older. Virtually no newbies come by, as the majority of the customers are now 1+ years old. In SL, I mean!

The NWN article suggests another cause may be at work: there simply aren't as many newbies any more! Also, I suspect another factor may be at play. The new signups may have a disproportionate number of alts created by existing avatars, and they do their shopping with the main avatar that has the fattest wallet.

We all do this, don't we?

My Customers are Getting Old!

I've been using one of those "Traffic Meter" gadgets at my store in Caso Milo to track the number of visitors. It's a very interesting device because it sends the data to a website which records the information regardless of whether Second Life goes down or not. You can visit the website (http://slbuzz.com) to obtain a detailed report of visitor counts from your Traffic Meters.

The TrafficMeter can be obtained at no charge in Dirty, courtesy of the developer, Mark Barrett. By the way, you can also pick up the very useful SLStats wristwatch near that same location - it automatically tracks the places you visit and the people you encounter. According to my SLStats today, I've visited 839 sims and encountered 5,788 people so far.

Up to now I've really just been observing the total number of visitors per day. Generally the traffic has grown over time, but it's always up and down.

However, I noticed a strange effect taking place over time. In June when I installed a Traffic Meter at my Caso Milo main store there was a very typical mix of ages among the visitors. In subsequent months the ratios changed - in a consistent pattern. The ages of the visitors are definitely increasing as you can see in the chart.

Why would this be happening? I have a couple of theories:

• The same set of customers continues to visit, and they simply get older over time? (This can't be true because inspection of the transaction log shows few repeat long-term customers. Yes, there are repeats, but the majority of customers are new to the store.)
• Perhaps as my avatar gets older and more experienced, he makes more sophisticated products that attract a more sophisticated clientele? I'd like to think so!
  
• As knowledge of these products increases via word-of-mouth, older avatars become aware of Electric Pixels and come by to shop? If so, where did the young ones go? This graph might be indirect evidence of word-of-mouth viral promotion, which is typically not easily measurable.
• Perhaps the more recent arrivals to Second Life simply don't buy as much as those who joined earlier? We know that Linden's policy changes have affected the makeup of the Second Life residents somewhat - maybe this is one of the side effects?
  

I think a combination of the latter three are causing this aging effect at my business. But it is a little disturbing to think that new arrivals are not spending as much as they used to. Is this happening elsewhere in other stores?