As the hype surrounding the three-year-old virtual world generates news story after news story and attracts big business, the number of "residents" actually logging on may be much fewer than everyone thinks - and to investors and advertisers, numbers matter, writes CNET.

As of Wednesday, Linden Lab reported that there were 2,325,015 "residents" of Second Life. The company defines each of those as representing "a uniquely named avatar with the right to log in to Second Life, trade currency and visit the community pages."

Yet most of those residents try it once… never to return. And some players have more than one avatar - up to five - each of which counts as a resident.

The real number of active, individual users who log in regularly is more likely 200,000 to 230,000, according to internal metrics used by Linden Lab and calculations by others in the industry.