OK. So I just got back from a week in San Jose at the Serious Games Summit / Game Developers Conference. I have a lot to post about things I saw/heard there and I'll probably split the postings between here and my blog. I did want to throw these numbers out though as a discussion starter...they are from Philip Rosedale, CEO and Founder of Linden Lab 'ne Second Life.

• Number of residents: 166,000+

• Number of ongoing educational or 'Serious' research projects: 100+

• Size of Second Life: 32,000 acres (bigger than Boston)

• Amount of real world currency (in US$) traded annually for goods and services (i.e. paid between residents): $160,000,000 (yes, that's million)

• Number of user-created objects: 10 million

• Size of user-created data: 10 TBytes (yes, that's a T)

• Number of unique items sold/traded monthly: 230,000

• Number of events per day: approx. 500

• 43% percent female

• 25% non-US

Keep in mind - Second Life is NOT a game - it is a platform.