Over 62,000 avatars were online in Second Life at the same time last weekend, another new record in a recent series of boosts to the concurrent population of Linden Lab’s virtual world.
But the rise in concurrency — the technical term for simultaneous online users — hasn’t left Second Life’s statisticians cheering. Statistics available from Linden Lab show total hours spent in Second Life flat, while the count of distinct active users has dropped sharply in recent months. The numbers suggest that Second Life is more appealing, and more time-consuming, than ever for its most dedicated users even as its attraction fades to a general audience.