Tag: Stats

Blogger’s Dozen: My Top Twelve Most Popular Blogposts from the Past 365 Days

An egg is always an adventure; the next one may be different.

— Oscar Wilde (source)
Photo by Kelly Neil on Unsplash

One of the things I love about hosting a blog on WordPress is that I can review my statistics over time, to see which posts are more popular and which ones aren’t. I have completely given up on my ability to predict which ones will fall into the first category, and which ones will fall into the second! A blogpost I dash off in a hurry without much thought can blow up on me, while a second one I slaved over and post in high expectations goes pffft! It just happens. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, on a whim, and to get a better sense of what’s trending overall, I ran some stats today on my 12 most popular blogposts over the past 365 days (Feb. 16th, 2021 to Feb. 15th, 2022). I do hasten to assure you, gentle reader, that all links in this list are safe for work, so don’t be afraid to click on them 😉

  1. The Dirty Little Secret of VRChat: Hidden Adult Content – I am endlessly bemused by the fact that it is still, far and away, the most visited blogpost on my blog, with 72,351 visits over the past 365 days, which works out to almost 200 views per day, mostly because it is usually the top result when people search Google for “VRChat sex” or “VRChat adult”, or something similar…and I hate to break it to you, people, but you are not gonna find NSFW worlds in VRChat using the Google search engine!
  2. Welcome to the Metaverse: A Comprehensive List of Social VR/AR Platforms and Virtual Worlds – this popular, constantly-updated alphabetical listing has seen a surge in visits since Facebook rebranded to Meta in October 2021
  3. A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Get Started in Decentraland (and Some Caveats for New Users)
  4. Clip and Save: Ryan’s All-In-One Guide to Freebies in Second Life – this is a constantly-updated compilation of my best tips and tricks for finding fabulous fashion freebies and bargains in Second Life
  5. Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: The Meshbody Offers Free Versions of Their Classic Mesh Bodies for Men and Women
  6. 3DX Chat: A Brief Introduction (and the Biggest Problem with Most Adult Virtual Worlds)
  7. Second Life: Maitreya Releases Version 5.0 of the Maitreya Lara Female Mesh Avatar Body
  8. Second Life Steals, Deals and Freebies: Free and Inexpensive Mesh Heads and Bodies for Female Second Life Avatars
  9. LGBTQ Spaces in Social VR and Virtual Worlds
  10. Shopping for a New Penis in Second Life: Any Recommendations? – this link is safe for work
  11. List of Non-Combat, Open-World Exploration/Puzzle/Life Simulation Games
  12. How to Change Your Avatar Name in Second Life: A Step by Step Guide

So, what trends do we see in this list?

Trend 1: Sex (As Homer Simpson would say: D’OH!)

Well, it would appear that sexual/adult content and activities are perennially popular in virtual worlds and social VR, regardless of platform (#1, #6, perhaps #9, and most certainly #10 on this list).

There almost seems to be some sort of rule that if you can get two avatars together on a platform—any platform—they are going to try and have sex. In fact, to prove my point, the BBC reported today on sex “condos” in Roblox!

Strip joints in Roblox proves my point: if you can get two avatars together on a platform—any platform—there will be sex! There appear to be no exceptions to this rule, even on platforms intended for children’s games.

So I was not terribly surprised when Meta’s Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues social VR platforms recently implemented a hard-coded, four-foot boundary between avatars, after several women reported being sexually harassed (even though the avatars literally have no lower body!).

Trend 2: Lists of Metaverse and “Metaverse-Adjacent” Platforms

Secondly, people seem to be looking for comprehensive lists of metaverse platforms (#2) and what I like to call “metaverse-adjacent” content, i.e. non-combat, open-world platforms like Fortnite Party Royale and The Sims (#11). Of course, the line between the two is becoming ever more blurred.

One of my major tasks over the next few months is to complete a thorough reorganization and recategorization of the well over 160 entries on my increasingly popular list of social VR, virtual worlds, and metaverse platforms. I also want to update my equally popular, but by now somewhat dated, spreadsheet of what I consider the “top” social VR platforms (and a shout-out to Dr. Fran Babcock for doing some updating of the latter over the past few months; it is much appreciated!).

It would appear that there is lots of interest in my big-picture look at the metaverse and all the companies busy building it, so I intend to make both of these tasks a top priority, once things die down a bit at my full-time paying job as a university librarian!

As I have said before, I never expected to become a prolific Second Life blogger, but it’s clear that my coverage (with a focus on Second Life steals, deals, and freebies) continues to be popular with my readers, and among the most-viewed content on my blog. While it may seem weird to write both about 18-year-old SL and then switch to writing about much newer platforms, I see everything as part of a seamless, whole history of the metaverse.

Of particular interest, I note a lot of traffic to my posts about both free and paid-for Second Life mesh heads and bodies (#4, #5, #7, #8, and of course, #10!). Therefore, I will continue to provide that coverage, and I may restructure my now-sprawling blogposts about free and inexpensive male and female mesh heads and bodies in SL, to make them easier for people to navigate…but only after I tackle the long-delayed reorganization of my metaverse list, mentioned under the previous trend!

Finally, people seem to value good, step-by-step instructions on how to do things in SL, like rename your avatar (#12), so I will be continuing to write up more blogposts in that vein.

I notice that my step-by-step instructions for getting started in Decentraland (DCL) is an increasingly popular blogpost, even though the instructions may already be a bit dated (#4). As I have mentioned recently, DCL and all the NFT metaverses are seeing a huge surge in interest (and in financial speculation!), ever since Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, and Mark Zuckerberg announced that they would become a metaverse company.

And, as promised, I will be writing about all these platforms in 2022:

Although I have mentioned and written about a number of virtual world/social VR platforms on this list which DO incorporate blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), please note that I have, up until now, tended to focus only on those projects which ALREADY have an actual working platform, where you can create an avatar to visit and explore NOW: NeosVR, Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, and Somnium Space. I have not really written much about projects which have yet to launch, because frankly so many of them are vapourware!

However, given the current burst of enthusiasm for all things blockchain/crypto/NFT and metaverse (particularly after Facebook/Meta’s repivot to become a metaverse company in October 2021), I will endeavour to expand my coverage of such platforms in 2022.

And I remain highly concerned about the number of poorly-thought-out NFT metaverse projects (and frankly, just flat out scams) that seem to be proliferating by the day. I will also be writing a lot about that topic in the next 365 days, I suspect.

Trend 5: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer Spaces in the Metaverse

My blogpost about LGBTQ spaces in virtual worlds and social VR (#9) is becoming more and more popular over time, an indication that queer people are actively looking for community in the metaverse. Therefore, I will write more articles about that, too!

white and multicolored love is love banner
Photo by 42 North on Pexels.com

What People Are Searching For When They Visit My Blog: A List of the Most Popular Search Terms Used by Visitors

Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash

Among the absolute bonanza of detailed statistics WordPress offers up on my blog, are a list of search terms which people are using when they stumble across one of my blogposts, as shown here in a screen capture of today’s stats:

So tonight (because it’s 8:30 p.m. and I am tired and cranky and it’s -25°C outside and I OBVIOUSLY have nothing better to do with my time), I have decided to share with you what people have been searching for when they visit the RyanSchultz.com blog over the past three and a half years. Think of it as a glimpse into the zeitgeist of my readers, or visitors, or whatever you like to call yourselves…so, let’s dive in, shall we?

Top of the list is a bit of a surprise to me: a search for “amazon”. Now, I have absolutely no idea why people searching for Amazon land up on my blog, but yes, they do! (Perhaps I should consider setting up a sales affiliate link of some kind.)

Next up is certainly zero surprise to me: people searching for “vrchat sex” and all its variations. This is not a surprise, since my perennially-popular blogpost about adult content in VRChat is now the top Google search result when you search on “vrchat adult”. (Now, if I could just get off my raggedy ass and add some targeted advertising to that particular blogpost, I could probably rake in a few more pennies…aah, but I disgress.) Search terms related to “vrchat sex” include:

  • “vrchat nsfw avatar worlds” (even though I don’t link to any!)
  • “vrchat nsfw”
  • “vr chat sex”
  • “adult vr chat”
  • “vrchat adult”
  • “nsfw vrchat”
  • “vrchat nude”
  • “vr chat nude”
  • “vr chat nudity”
  • “18+ vrchat worlds”
  • etc. etc. etc.

I mean, people, come on, already…do you really expect to find not-safe-for-work content in VRChat with a Google search?!??

Photo by Julio Tirado on Unsplash

Number three is also a bit of a surprise: “livcloser”. The last time I checked, LivCloser was a virtual world still very much in the alpha stage of development, if it still exists at all (here’s a link to all my blogposts about it), and I haven’t even visited it since April of 2018. It turns out that, in some cases, blogposts I wrote about some of the more obscure virtual worlds I have visited end up rather high in the results of Google, Bing, and other search engines; who knew?

Much like LivCloser, among the other little-known-about platforms which show up in the search terms people use to land up at my blog are:

  • InWorldz and its short-lived successor, Islandz (because I had written at length about the final, unexpected, dramatic shutdown of the OpenSim-based virtual world, and its attempts to resurrect itself);
  • 3DX Chat (an adult virtual world)
  • AviLife
  • Utherverse (another adult virtual world…seeing a trend here in what people are actively searching for? 😉 )
  • VIBEHub
  • Avakin Life
  • Twinity (THIS old chestnut? Really?!??)

Next up is something which I did very much expect to find: “second Life freebies”, as well as related search terms about my extensive and popular coverage of steals, deals, and freebies in Second Life. I note with no lack of amusement that one intrepid searcher actually entered “ryan schultz’s 2 blog posts packed with info on the free or cheap mesh bodies/heads” into a search engine no less than 17 times, with the exact same wording every time! (It’s a newgfangled browser feature called a BOOKMARK, sweetheart…look into it. 😉 and, if you are interested, you can always find my constantly-updated compilations of free mesh heads and bodies for Second Life avatars here: male and female.)

Among the rest of the (sometimes mystifying) more popular search terms people have used are:

  • “sars covid2” (perhaps not such a surprise)
  • “ninja suits”
  • “second life name change 2020” (again, not a surprise, as my step-by-step guide to changing your avatar name in SL is pretty popular)
  • “sansar user statistics”
  • “open world non combat games” (referring to this list, no doubt)
  • “genus project dmca” (about the whole Genus Project mesh heads DMCA saga)
  • “how to remove a default head in second life” 😉
  • “free second life female vagina” (a topic about which, I do hasten to assure you, I have written ABSOLUTELY NOTHING)
  • “10 reasons why you should quit social media”
  • “second life millionaires”
Ninja suits??? Really? REALLY?!??

I hope that you found this deep dive into my WordPress stats enlightening (or at least, entertaining)!

1,500 Blogposts!

Today I reached a new milestone for my blog: this is my 1,500th blogpost! I have made 1,500 posts over 830 days, which works out to almost two blogposts per day!

Here are my Top 15 most popular (i.e. most viewed) blogposts since I started this blog on July 31st, 2017:

  1. Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free and Inexpensive Mesh Heads and Bodies for Female Second Life Avatars (originally published on Sept. 24, 2018, and with 12,101 views to date)
  2. The Dirty Little Secret of VRChat: Hidden Adult Content (March 28, 2019; 10,647 views)
  3. Meet the Man Who Has Lost 200 Pounds Playing Beat Saber in VR (August 6, 2019; 10,207 views)
  4. More Details on the Upcoming Ability to Change Your User Name in Second Life (March 22, 2018; 7,009 views)
  5. Linden Lab Announces a Mix of Good News and Bad News for Second Life Users (May 29, 2019; 5,689 views)
  6. RyanSchultz.com Reader Poll: What Social VR/Virtual World Do You Spend the Most Time In? (Feb. 21, 2019; 5,553 views)
  7. Oasis: A Brief Introduction to a New, Adults-Only Social VR Platform (Aug. 7, 2018; 4,670 views)
  8. Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: The Four Best Freebie Stores in Second Life (May 15, 2018; 3,830 views)
  9. Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free and Inexpensive Mesh Heads and Bodies for Male Second Life Avatars (Oct. 4, 2018; 3,541 views)
  10. The Mesh Project Releases New Mesh Male and Female Mesh Bodies for Second Life Avatars: Why I Won’t Be Buying One (April 23, 2019; 3,402 views)
  11. Comprehensive List of Social VR Platforms and Virtual Worlds (which is a constantly updated page; 3,092 views)
  12. Second Life Versus Sansar: Why Linden Lab Can’t Win, No Matter What They Do (March 9, 2018; 2,816 views)
  13. Linden Lab Lays Off 30 Staff (Nov. 4, 2019; 2,697 views)
  14. Lindsey Stirling to Perform in Wave Monday, August 26th (Aug. 22, 2019; 2,556 views)
  15. Earning Money Creating Custom Avatars in VRChat: An Interview with Ghoster (April 27, 2018; 2,435 views)

I still find it somewhat amusing that #2 and #7 are ranked as high as they are; obviously, people keep searching for adult content in virtual worlds, and they keep finding those two blogposts in their search results! And #3 somehow got picked up by Google News, which explains the spike in viewers. Most of these posts were made in 2018 or early 2019, with the notable exception of #13, which was posted only three days ago!

Seven of my Top 15 entries are either fully or partly about Second Life. Two (#2 and #15) are about VRChat. And only one is about Sansar: #12, which lends further support to my decision to cut back on the volume of reporting I do about Sansar on this blog.

Recent Statistics Show a Slow But Steady Increase in Sansar Users (Also: The Most Popular Worlds in Sansar)

Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay

I do find it somewhat ironic that the two Sansar users who have posted user concurrency statistics for the platform in the past—Galen and Gindipple—have both largely moved on from Sansar to other projects.

However, I did receive a recent statistics chart generated by Gindipple, courtesy of Medhue (thanks!), which I wanted to share with you:

Gindipple’s stats show slow but steady growth in the number of concurrent users on Sansar. The monthly average concurrent Sansarians figure (bottom chart) has roughly doubled between March 2018 and October 2019.

Galen’s statistics page shows a similar growth in users, including peaks of up to 150 concurrent users at one time:

Even Wagner James Au, of the long-running blog New World Notes, who has often criticized Sansar for its low user concurrency figures in the past, posted the following “infographic” based on Steam usage figures (drawn by the talented artist Danielle Feigenbaum, creator of the regular feature Nylon Pinkney is Online comic on his blog):

Now, I do have a couple of criticisms of this image.

First, it is not an infographic; it is a cartoon. The zig-zag graph in the background is purely decorative, not informative.

Second, the small print along the bottom is almost impossible to read. It says:

Total concurrent users across all platforms potentially 2-3 times larger than Steam CCUs (concurrent users). Numbers based on Steam stats in September 2019 – Source: Steam Database Info

Even Wagner cannot deny that Sansar has had a recent jump in usage:

As of last month, in terms of peak concurrent users, VRChat remains the 800 pound Knuckle [a reference to the Ugandan Knuckles meme], with Rec Room maintaining its distant second place.  There was also a small surprise bump for Linden Lab’s Sansar… After concurrency rates that averaged in the mid two figures (yes, that low) for most of the year, Sansar peak concurrency for September jumped to 220 last Friday. Thanks, at least in part, to a VR dating show hosted by online celebrity Jesse Cox and probably more key, the launch of an official Hello Kitty experience…

The problem with relying solely on Steam statistics in the case of Sansar is that there are two different ways that people can download the Sansar client software:

  1. Via Steam (which does publish public statistics on usage);
  2. Via the Sansar website (Linden Lab does not publish user stats).

We have no way of knowing what percentage of Sansar users downloaded their client software via Steam. Therefore, we still have to guess at the total overall level of usage of Sansar, using imperfect tools such as Steam stats and Galen’s and Gindipple’s statistics.

However, all three sources do show a slow but steady increase in the number of concurrent users in Sansar, which I’m sure Linden Lab is pleased to see. Of course, they also have their own internal statistics, which they do not release to the public, which I am sure confirm this trend.

Gindipple also released a pie chart showing the most popular Sansar worlds. Unsurprisingly (since all incoming users spawn there by default now), the Nexus is the most visited world, with 70% of the total number of recent visitors (I believe that these stats cover the past seven days):

Following the Nexus, the most popular Sansar worlds (formerly called experiences) are:

  • Skyway Avenue (3.69% of total recent visitors)
  • The Point of No Return – Chapter I (2.65%)
  • Susan’s Diary (2.39%)
  • Orphanage of Angels (2.35%)
  • Fire Goat’s Free Avatar Store (1.96%)
  • Ultimate Disc (1.93%)
  • The Slewhouse (1.85%)
  • Once Upon a Midnight Dream (1.77%)
  • Scurry Waters (1.57%)
  • Monstercat Call of the Wild (1.52%)
  • Sanrio World (1.44%)
  • Camp Goonies (1.24%)
  • 114 Harvest (1.07%)

I do have rather mixed feelings about Linden Lab’s recent design decision to have users automatically spawn in the Nexus when they log into Sansar. On one hand, it does make it much easier for avatars to encounter other avatars in-world, and I often see groups of people gathered having conversations with each other, which is good.

But on the other hand, it is an absolute pain in the ass to have to keep going back to the Nexus when you simply want to explore the various Sansar worlds. If you are in desktop mode, you can still use the Atlas on the Sansar website, but if you are in VR mode, you pretty much have to keep cycling through the Nexus to find and select new experiences to visit, which quickly gets tiring.