Second Life's "unusually strong" September

Linden Lab's CFO, John Zdanowski is better known to Second Life users as Zee Linden, though we think of him more as a Zeno, after Zeno of Elea, who baffled, annoyed and amused pre-Socratic thinkers with a set of seeming paradoxes, many of which revolved around the adjustment of frames of reference and measurement -- and, whatever their original intention -- amply display the follies that arise from doing so.

You can pick up all of that from yesterday's Q3 2008 world metrics from Zdanowski, entitled 'Q3 closed on a high note with an unusually strong September'. You might want to check September's published figures against that report, and see if you agree with 'unusually strong'.

The primary criteria for Zdanowski's assessment of the September performance were user-to-user transactions (U2UT). A figure which Linden Lab has told us over and over is irrelevant, not meaningful and to be ignored. Instead they usually steer us to examine user-hours, which notably fell in September.

It is a little confusing, we grant, to be told to ignore the U2UT figure for so long, and then suddenly have our attention drawn to it in a month where it is one of the few figures that looks good.

Indeed, Zdanowski says, 'The user to user transaction numbers are at best a rough estimate of what is actually happening. The have stayed relatively consistent relative to the money supply and relative to the LindeX volume certainly since we banned games of chance. LindeX volume may be a better measure of activity because there are transaction fees and real money involved.'

Very rough, actually, since any two users with at least one Linden Dollar between them can cause the U2UT figure to rise more or less at will. We'd venture so far as to agree with Linden Lab's official position on the matter that U2UT is economically meaningless.

So, taking Zdanowski's advice on the forums, we should be using LindeX currency exchange volume instead as a measure of economic activity. Unfortunately that also fell in September; and again in October, as it happens.

Unusually strong September? Zdanowski says yes, but Linden Lab's own published figures care to differ.

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