Some really interesting stats have come to light about the ageing online market. Kim Walker of SilverGroup Asia reports on the fact that:
- According to Comscore, 50% of US Facebook users and 44% of MySpace users are 35+
- Meanwhile here in the UK, 49% of social networking users are similarly over 35
But the figure that really caught my eye though was this one: People in the virtual world Second Life who are over 45 spend on average 70.17 a month in there...that equates to over 16 hours a week or more than two full (working) days!
Well I mean, who can blame them?
Why go to coffee mornings or watch daytime TV when you can basically relive your youth in a virtual world? In fact, a year ago in a column in the Times Michael Parsons talked about a friend of his who had made it his business to keep up with gaming trends as a way of making his eventual retirement more pleasant:
"He's pretty confident that computer-based gaming is going to improve exponentially over the next three decades, which means that by the time he retires he'll be able to get lost in some amazing gaming worlds.
"His business empire may have crumbled but he'll be able to build a new one in Eve Online. His love life may be over but he'll be able to chase girls in the dance clubs of Second Life, and he may have lost his driving licence but he'll still be able to crash spectacularly in Burnout Paradise."
The other day I posted about a Telegraph article predicting Second Life's imminent demise. Maybe there's life in the old dog yet!
Image -McIkey
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