Since Second Life first opened to the public in 2003, users have spent the equivalent of more than 217,266 years in the virtual world, which has seen nearly 36 million registrations to date. To mark the tenth anniversary, Linden Lab has published an infographic highlighting these and other facts about Second Life’s history and the current state of the virtual world, which is available here.

Throughout the month of June, Linden Lab has been celebrating Second Life’s tenth ‘birthday’ (SL10B) with special surprises for the virtual world’s users, including limited-edition virtual gifts, contests, and inworld activities. Second Life users are also organizing a number of special events themselves, including a community celebration featuring art exhibitions, parties, and more. Users are urged to keep an eye on the official Second Life blog and the SL10B category of the Destination Guide, which highlights more than 2,400 locations and events in total for Second Life users to explore.

“Second Life is a vibrant shared creative space, filled with the creativity and imaginations of its users,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “It’s impressive for a user-created world to reach ten years of age and more impressive still for it to see a million monthly active users! As we celebrate this anniversary, Second Life has better performance and is easier to use than ever before, and our customers are making the inworld experience richer every day. We’re very proud to reach this milestone, and would like to say a big ‘thank you!’ to all of our friends around the world who have been a part of Second Life’s ten-year history and will be a part of its future.”

In honor of Second Life’s tenth anniversary, Humble was recently interviewed for a special episode of The Drax Files - a popular video series that profiles creative Second Life users from around the world. The episode can be seen here.