Second Life is one of those companies that just continues to amaze me in regards to how it is connecting with ‘real’ society and also how it continues to be a very profitable and expanding business/network. Always open with their metrics, SL released a newly updated Virtual Economy Metrics Excel notebook document (what no Google Documents or OpenOffice? how 1.0 icky) highlighting their various growth patterns.

Some highlights:

Total Hours Used:
Sept 2003 51,699
January 2007 10,817,668

Currency Exchange Summary
July 2006 USD Sales: $2,203
January 2007 USD Sales: $622,839

TechCrunch is estimating that Second Life is pulling in around $670,000/month in ‘hosting revenue’ or real estate sold in SL. That’s almost 8.1 million dollars per year, and with the kind of growth they have been showing that’s only going to increase in 2007.