Linden Lab's virtual world got a BusinessWeek cover story in May, and hired Lewis as their PR agency in October. This graph, of press mentions of Second Life tracked by Nexis.com, shows the short-term benefit of a press offensive. David Kirkpatrick has a another piece coming out in the next issue of Fortune, we hear. But it's always dangerous for an internet venture when media hype gets too far ahead of audience growth. Benchmark-backed Linden Lab claims 2.7m "residents" of Second Life but concedes only a tenth of that number visit the 3D environment each month.