Don’t get me wrong, I like the concept of SecondLife. And I know some people are really into it. But wandering around an empty virtual world is pretty underwhelming.

This article about the success of Facebook’s applications platform and its growing population got me thinking… with Facebook’s population booming, and SecondLife’s slumping, I reckon some of those organisations that spent a bundle setting up shop in Second Life must be wondering why they didn’t put their efforts into Facebook instead.

How much taxpayers’ money did the ABC waste building that island, for instance? We do know that a City of Melbourne project cost around $100,000.

It’s not surprising the ABC Island has had barely any visitors: some figures (from February) suggest there are only about 3000 Australians on SL. Compare that with almost 2 million on Facebook, and I know where I’d be building my applications. Do you want to potentially reach a tenth of the population (and growing) or 0.015% of it?

Now, if Facebook come up with a virtual meeting place to chat to your friends (and friends of friends), then I reckon they’d kill SecondLife stone dead.

• 6/9/2007: If SL is really becoming so deserted, I wonder if it has virtual tumbleweeds?