Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts…..

This sounds similar to something I explored in the essay ‘Ctrl-q’. Here (in abridged form) is the passage…

In what sense is it impossible to log off from SL? You select ‘quit’ and you are indeed logged off. But only partially, as a careful consideration of the way the mind works will reveal. To believe that SL is rendered by, and exists on, the computer is nothing less than a delusion. The computer does not render SL at all, it merely uses information encoded in binary language to send photons from the monitor to your eyes. These photons stream information to your brain and this enables it to construct a model of reality. Now, the way this model is put together naturally leads us to compartmentalise imagination, SL and RL. It appears as though imagination occurs in the mind, Sl exists on the screen and RL is ‘out there’ in physical space. But really, both SL and RL (in the form in which we perceive them, at least) exist where imagination does — in the mind…It is once you appreciate that both SL and RL are electrical signals interpreted by the brain that you begin to understand why you are not necessarily logged off from SL after you quit. In order to be truly logged off from SL, all information impinging on the brain that is related to the virtual world would have to cease. Do you ever wonder what your SL friends are up to, or devise plans to make your in-world business a success, or wonder what events you might attend when you next log on? I bet you do. And whenever you do that, information related to SL is active in the brain.

Moreover, your existence in SL is part of an ever-growing network of relationships. So it’s almost inevitable that parts of this network will be affected by your offline status or actively thinking about you. If I am online, and my plans to visit you for some reason must be altered, then part of your social network is adapting its behaviour. So long as you are thinking about SL or somebody in SL is thinking about you, that means the electrical signals related to your existence in SL are active and you are not ‘logged off’.

‘I actually pity them — what will their personal credibility be in, say, 2009? What will they report next? “Although LL has developed the second version of SL — dubbed by its users as ‘SL 2.0′ — a version that has no more lag and is easy to use — we predict that, in spite of their 100 million registered users, no one is going to use it next year.”

Hate to come across all pessimistic, but I think SL and the metaverse will always give us cause for complaint. This is simply because, no matter how advanced it becomes, whatever it is capable of NOW will hint at what it might be capable of if only such-and-such improvement could be implemented. Solving the lag problem will afford our creative drives more freedom, which will see us raise the bar and therefore hit some other technological obstacle. Some people will consider this obstacle to be a fundamental limitation that can never be overcome, and they will quit. Others will understand that one cannot take the limit of their own vision for the limits of the world and defy all the naysaying by putting in the effort to overcome the obstacle. Seems almost Darwinian to me:)

Extropia DaSilva- who, when all the matter in the universe is converted to energy with each photon storing a binary digit a total computing capacity of ten^122 bits, will be complaining about the lack of raw power.

No conspiracy, I don’t think, but reporting on a failing enterprise and predicting its failure, is likely going to sell more articles than one predicting success. Safer, too.

The only reason would be the launch of a multi-billion-dollar platform to eclipse Second Life by Christmas — but seriously, who is thinking that this might be not only possible, but a profitable venture?

Really, I just think that the media doesn’t know what to write more about SL, and since several journalists are making a living out of it, this is the only thing they manage to get out of their brains.

I actually pity them — what will their personal credibility be in, say, 2009? What will they report next? “Although LL has developed the second version of SL — dubbed by its users as ‘SL 2.0′ — a version that has no more lag and is easy to use — we predict that, in spite of their 100 million registered users, no one is going to use it next year.” Well, if I were an editor, I would never publish that

Anyway, another story about media… month ago, a friend who is also a journalist had to do an article about SL and asked me for an interview. Have in mind that I have fair knowledge of basic facts of SL and that we are friends for a couple of years… Next week I see the magazine, read the article and don’t believe my eyes. And I know what happened. If he go to metrics and into details, then he lose his story. And story is what sells the newspapers, and his article, and what gives him his paycheck. Simple as that.
Going into differences beween 9 million users and less than 2 millions logged in last two months can kill the reason of an article. Telling a common reader that something on internet has average of 40000 users cannot make much interest. Nine millions is a number. And that is just simple thing that you can see on SL’s web page. We are still far away from real metrics you are writing about.

Now, a word about Google…
If we are really into measuring Google (search engine, not iGoogle and all the other things) pageviews doesn’t count. It is not just that Yahoo! gives something to read and spend some time on the site… most of my Google searches are done without visiting the page, just typing into that field next to address bar. And those searches are not counted by Alexa.

Somebody was very clever not to put anything on Google’s page. Cause that page is not importaint at all. Google never intended to make money from ads on their page. It is the information we all make that counts. And it is still far away from getting its full value. Yes, Google business takes time and asks for patience, but it will (and is) pay a lot.

Metrics of Sl….
Lot of problems about those numbers are because Lindens are messing with them. When I rezzed, there were something about two millions of us. It was last autmn, just before that hype started and before number of accounts doubled very quickly. It was Linden’s campaign. They pushed the hype based on registeres users number. They made a mess, cause campaign was more successful than they hoped, and SL couldn’t stand that amount of new residents. Then, somebody got the illusion of that high number, and their own weapon turned against the SL.

Real metrics of SL…
As you said… it is hard to measure. Cause whatever we take, visits, number of residents, time spent… it is impact that counts. But, that is not quite good thing for SL in this times when everything is based on numbers and masses. Yes, SL event can really make an impact on potential buyer, but how to explain that to somebody who has never been on the grid, or spent two unquality days there?