These overall scores are useful for Linden to track the growth of their business but do not help businesses and brands within Second Life to track their own success metrics.

Second Life used needs to be treated different to standard web metrics partly because it is able to report on the increasingly important metrics of ‘Engagement’ with visitors.

The recent - and weekly - stats that are reported on The Project Factory’s website show how successful the top brands in the world have been with their Second Life presence each week.

Engagement (or Dwell) is a measure of how long a visitor has spent interacting with that brand, normalised over a 24 hour period. This gives as accurate a reflection as currently possible of the tactical success of the brand’s strategic move into Second Life.

Pontiac overtook Telstra last week largely due to some major race events that pulled the crowds. Microsoft launched their Second Life presence also so when the new stats are run on Monday I’d expect to see them to appear in the rankings as an ‘interest factor’. Whether the build of their world has been a success or not will be seen in the coming weeks.