Official demographics for Second Life have just come out on the Second Life blog, showing an active user base of 538,400. The average in-world time for these users is 45 hours a month, which is pretty formidable.

However, over at New World Notes, Wagner James Au reminds us that that active users number, while less than that in August, was slightly more than that 538,400 number in July. He points to recent trends of stagnation even in spite of increased Second Life promotion, like the two TV shows (CSI: NY and The Office) that featured Second Life in the month of October, and states that Second Life has reached a plateau phase.

Au continues:

"The main reasons for this stagnation, of course, are obvious: constant system failures, a confusing user interface, and disorienting first-time visitor experience. Improvements to the first hurdle will surely grow the populace, though I'm beginning to wonder how much the latter two can really be addressed: OnRez, despite its many strengths, coupled to a highly polished introductory experience, did little to improve overall retention rates. It may be that the conceptual barrier will always remain constant at 10%, and the remaining 9 and 10 who try a user-created 3D world without imposed guidelines and goals are fundamentally, intransigently incapable of embracing it. That may be."

[Via New World Notes]