Second Life citizens spend $1 billion in first life cash

Industry Gamers reports that Linden Lab, developer of Second Life, has announced that citizens of the virtual world have exchanged over $1 billion in digital goods and services with one another. Furthermore, said citizens have also logged over one billion hours of their first lives in Second Life. The creators elaborated that the game currently has "the largest virtual economy in the industry" generating $50 million per month in user-to-user transactions.

Linden Lab drops some other Second Life statistics, including the fact that over 250,000 virtual goods are created every day, 1,250 text messages are sent every second and that the world now occupies 2 billion square meters of virtual land. According to Linden Lab, that's roughly the size of Rhode Island.

It's not stopping there either, as CEO Mark Kingdon notes that the company is "positioned for reinvigorating [its] growth in 2010 with a range of strategic initiatives that will enhance the experience for existing Residents and propel [its] expansion with new users." We're not sure exactly what's planned for Second Life, though we hear cataclysms are all the rage these days.