Unofficial fourth quarter economy statistics

This blog post is regarding unofficial fourth quarter economy statistics. These statistics were not published by Linden Lab.

Tyche Shepherd has previously given us the statistical brilliance of the grid survey, which details the amount of land in Second Life and whether it's owned by Linden Lab or a resident, whether it's mature, PG or Adult etc. Tyche has also given us the statistical brilliance of the incident report data. This provides data of when and where incidents were reported as well as showing which are the most popular types of incident. Then came the awesome mainland census. This provided details on how the land lies on mainland with a vast array of statistical data....now Tyche has turned her attention to the economy statistics.

Linden Lab haven't yet published their fourth quarter economy statistics, but due to the powers of modern technology we have a good idea of how they will look because Tyche "Statto" Shepherd has published her fourth quarter economy statistics over at SLUniverse. The full report can be read here.

Some key points from this data, the number of parcels for sale is down, I'd attibute this due to policy on ad farming and micro parcel plots, there are definitely less of them around and although some people feel there's been a lull in enforcement, there are less of them.

Over one hundred and twenty five million metres of land was sold in Q4, 4.4% down on Q3 but still a healthy 13.5% higher than Q4 2008. Interestingly though are the serious indicators of how land sales are far less important to the economy than they once were. In Q1 2007 land sales accounted for just under 22% of transactions, by Q4 2008 this had dropped to 2.63% and in Q4 2009 it accounts for just 1.01% of all transactions, the plummeting land prices probably indicate this trend too.

Linden dollar sources were down 1.4% on Q3, but are still 6.2% higher than Q4 2008. Stipend payments on the other hand show a rather encouraging increase of 11.4% on Q3, indicating an increase in premium memberships. However on the downside, Lindex sales were at their lowest level of the year.

In terms of sinks (classifieds, upload fees, group liabilities etc.) they were down 3.7% overall on Q3 and more worryingly they are at their lowest level since Q3 2007. However this needs to be looked at from a perspective of this being a declining area for whatever reason. Classifieds are down 8.3% on Q3 and a staggering 27.4% on Q4 2008. I should add here that when Linden Lab were discussing the new search (as it was then) I told Robin it would kill classifieds, I was wrong but I still think classifieds today are less useful than they were prior to the new search being introduced. What these stats can't tell us is whether classifieds are being moved from the official classified listings and into inworld advertising.

Group charges showed a decline of 3.9% on Q4 and 2.4% on Q42008 whereas upload charges are pretty much the same as Q3 and showing a 3.7% increase on Q4 2008, so people are still happily creating new items!

Resident to resident transactions show a 1.8% drop on Q3, but are still a very healthy 33.5% higher than Q4 2008. There were fewer customers spending L$1 or more in Q4, down 2.1% on Q3, although still 13.8% higher than Q4 2008. However there's no need to panic because those 2.1% of customers managed to spend more money than those in Q3, up 3.4% and a very healthy 21.9% more than Q4 2008.

In terms of positive monthly Linden dollar flow, we saw an increase of 2.5% on Q3 2009 and 7.9% higher than Q4 2008. More people were making more than USD$5,000 this quarter, up 9.1% on Q3, although I don't see a numerical figure for how many users that entails in the report but I can tell you it's 229 (i'll explain at the end). I'm not a fan of PMLF as (as its name suggests) it only deals with Linden dollar flows, so it's perfectly feasible to be in profit in terms of Linden dollars and then see those profits and more wiped away with US$ tier payments. However as a comparison they serve a useful purpose on past quarters.

Now I suggest that if you're interested you go and read the full report, which can be found here. I linked this at the start and it's full of extra information and goodies such as pie charts and graphs. However I also said that I could see no numerical figure for the number of users with PMLF greater than USD$5,000 and then added that it's 229. I didn't make this up! All the data used for Tyche's report can be found here. I heartily recommend visiting that page.