Kim Kardashian is Big on Second Life too!

So Kim Kardashian has switched from IMVU to Second Life and posted this screenshot to her Instagram account to promote her new perfume!

The photo already has 1,179,119 likes so that must be good news for Second Life if any of those clicking actually know SL is a virtual world. But it has certainly brought a smile to the faces of those reporting on it  - mine too!

In fact I was so bemused by the use of a voluptuous SL look-alike avatar I had to look on Market Place to see what was actually on offer and it is huge!

So there you go if you are looking for an avatar that is all bum and boob you know where to look. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

By the way, we are told this is not the first time she’s has done it either. Wagner James Au over on New World Notes tells us she did the same thing in the past used the Kimoji avatars that appear to be from IMVU.


Anyway, one can only wish her the best of luck with her product and may Second Life and and all those wobbly avatars strut their stuff to heart's content.

Wagner adds "IMVU, the social network with 3D animated avatars, said that it has provided the technology behind a new version of the popular Kimoji paid app created by Kim Kardashian West... “Kanye and I found this amazing social experience company, IMVU, and worked with them on creating some of our latest Kimoji designs and GIFs. They’re such innovators who have helped me really set Kimoji apart,”Kardashian wrote on her site." 

Kardashian's official @kkwfragance perfume brand on Instagram has even more SL pics

Heck, I haven't blogged in ages and I return with this! Well it was fun to write about.

But really, it is about time I got into blogging again. I mean there are all these new VR worlds to write about and Second Life and Opensim are far from dead. They're actually doing quite well despite the arrival of Sansar, High Fidelity and a lot more next gen platforms.

Second Life's Embarrassing Start to 2013 And More Predictions...

If it wasn't for the fact Linden Lab is headed by a game's industry heavy weight like Robvik Humble I think they could be forgiven for marketing Second Life as a game package on Amazon recently when everyone that knows the beleaguered virtual world and has experienced it would, in the majority, be inclined to say it is not a video game. The general consensus around the blog sphere seems to be that the Lab has embarrassed themselves once again with this move. And yet there are those bloggers that want to forgive Linden Lab for this action on the premise it could work to bring in more people at least. Pretty much all bloggers, however,  have expressed a loud sigh of general disbelief regardless.

Second Life offered free on Amazon. It turned up un-announced and has since been pulled off probably because existing residents noticed the free 1000 Linden dollar. Perhaps the Lab will try it on eBay next.

As we start the year 2013 I will be making a few predictions further on but, given that I had something to say about Second Life last year and the Lab continues to make blunders I ought to look back on it see if I got anything right which I will come to. But I can't let go of the present gaff I noted above without taking a closer look. It does seem a bit incredible that, despite having Rod as CEO, the brass at the Lab didn't consider that marketing SL on Amazon as a video game might be an embarrassing mistake that bloggers were sure to pick up on. On the other hand one might consider it was all thought out and quite deliberate given that Rod Humble has already released a bunch of video games under the Linden Label in the past year and announced Second Life will be marketed on the Steam video gaming site. It does seem Rod makes little or no distinction between his concept of "Shared Creative Spaces" and a video game so why would they not market SL as a game? This appears to be squarely what the Lab is focused on these days.

When Rod joined Linden Lab he told us he was trying to get to know Second Life and now he has got to know it he has decided it is, as mentioned above, a shared creative space which, unsurprisingly, it is a another way of calling it a video game! The users or Residents of Second Life I think view their virtual world differently though. I would say, as a long time resident myself that Second Life is, to all intents and purposes, an endless social-economic soap opera where people can get creative. It has no end goal like a video game has and yet there can be goals set by the residents themselves with either commercial or none-profit motives in mind. It can be viewed as an adult playground if anything where grown-up's play out all kinds of fantasies and express themselves in many ways. The residents or users make their virtual world. It's a labour of endless possibilities that grow out of the collective imagination of the residents. It appears doubtful if Linden Lab executives understands this or if they do they certainly don't treat the residents as partners and yet, in my view and by everything they do, I think residents do demonstrate they are partners by being serious contributors. Linden Lab owns Second Life of course and can do what they please but the product is nothing without the residents who spend money, build the sims and make the content. In fact, the residents who interact with each other breathe life into the product and become an essential part of it. That is the part the company dose NOT own. That is where the partnership comes in and Linden Labs have never looked upon their residents as partners - just paying customers. And paying customers buy video games, right?


PREDICTIONS OF 2012...

Last year I said I wouldn't get carried away with my predictions but I'm rather pleased with myself that the first one actually turned out sort of on the mark. I said Linden Lab would pull out all the stops to try and get Second Life growing again and I could say they did by releasing four new video games. Well, those games were not exactly Second Life applications but clearly the Lab is working on trying to save their shirts. Trouble is Second Life itself is not seeing much of the effort unless you consider Linden realms and Pathfinding tools are a big deal. It appears that the residents are not exactly falling over themselves with excitement though. In any event, if the measure of success is region count then it's been a disastrous year with the net loss of regions rising to 2863 which represents a 12% loss. Even more telling is that user login's have declined too and there are a large number of sims for sale nobody wants as well as rentals with no takers. People are not buying and even the strongest fashion stores are struggling to keep afloat.

Turning now to the open Metaverse the situation is not all a bed of roses there either. OSgrid has seen a sharp decline in recent months after sustained growth through the summer months. Avination too has continued to decline while InWorldz is holding out but not growing. On the other hand new grids are still popping up so, while region counts may be down the number of grids is up - double the number since last year in fact! So, for every new grid that means at the very least a few more people are contributing to the growth of the free Metaverse. I some cases the new comers may even represent a sizable little community even. 

Finding the growing number of grids to choose from as the free Metaverse expands is going to require better support with search and other features suited to the growing market. Above I am showing my test version of a search page that can link grids to the main viewer for login which makes it easy for new users to find grids to visit.

The latest trend amongst grid operators seems to be the offering of free plots on commercial grids to get users in rather than making the low cost sims they offer as the main the sales pitch. However, as usual there is plenty of rivalry between grids with flame wars breaking out from time to time. Generally, though, the Opensim platform code continues to improve although Hypergrid 2 has not materialized yet but, that aside, it is looking likely we will see both the core and forks rolling out better physics engines in the new year which is the good news.

I predicted we would get a viewer with grid search in 2012 and that V1 viewers might be disabled in Second Life. Well, we did get some experiments with new grid management but nothing serious yet. On the other hand Linden Lab did pull the plug on V1 and instructed the TPV developers to drop support for Opensim if they wanted to include the client-side Havoc physics. This led to some dropping V1 viewer support and others like Firestorm saying they would release two versions, one for Second Life and one for Opensim. According to the developers it has become increasingly difficult to include the code changes LL are making to the viewer which includes Pathfinding and server-side rebaking to work all this code into the older V1 model. And yet, there are developers that insist it can be done so some of the viewers with a V1 UI are likely to still get support. These include Singularity and a forked development of Phoenix while the Firestorm team have stated they, themselves, will lay Phoenix to rest.


MY PREDICTIONS FOR 2013...

First up I would predict that InWorldz will become the must see grid of 2013 once they get PhysiX fully working. I say this because the team have already rebuilt the scripting engine making it faster and more efficient. One of the key drawbacks to Opensim has been physics, incomplete scripting functions and problems with border crossings. The InWorldz team look like they have solved all the main issues and are on track to launch seriously improved services in the new year. This I would expect will help get the grid growing again.

 

Demo of PhysX at InWorldz race track

Not to be out done my second predictions is that Kitely will become the top grid in 2013 and will even knock OSgrid from it's present position as HUB of the Hypergrid if HG 2.0 or 2.5 actually , finally, gets the export perm and Kitely actually adopts it and becomes HG enabled. If they don't then I don't expect them to grow that much. I do expect them to grow considerably, regardless simply because they have built a great product that gives value and they have a pretty good track record of contributing to core. They have a good reputation and a very competitive pricing structure.

My third prediction is that competition will hot up between Opensim grids in 2013 and we are already seeing this in the form a Free Land offers which will encourage users to login more often and spend time on the host grids and start to build community. This, in turn, will encourage content sellers to open stores and make sales provided the web front doesn't take customers away like has happened in Second Life with the web Market Place. But, anyway, I do expect more commercial grids to come online during the year and I think free land offers could even be tied to paid premium accounts as an alternative to charging tier. However, I think Kitely already has the edge on this approach and smaller commercial grids will find it extremely difficult to compete unless they have a really dedicated core team to make visitors welcome and, of course, provide some form of regular entertainment, gambling, adult stuff, gaming or get a bunch of role players to bring their theme to the grid.

 

Demo of Bulletsim supports large numbers of objects seen here

My number four prediction is that Opensim core will get a decent version of Bullet physics working but I don't think it will be ready that soon from what I have seen and tried. I am absolutely sure it is going to happen but there is still work to do yet.

In previous years I predicted that a web application to stream Opensim to a web page was likely to happen soon but, apart from the patented version, that SpotON 3D brought out so only they can use it all we have seen is the webGL Cloud Party and something similar that I haven't fully checked out yet called Meshmoon. All the others are basically Unity3D web viewers which, of course, are not likely to ever be able to connect with Opensim girds. In deed, it remains a fact that only Opensim has the technology to build independent but interconnected worlds via Hypergrid at the moment.

Finally, I predict Second Life will continue to slide during 2013. The region loss will continue and with education grants coming up for review and the stagnant state of the real world economy I would not be surprised to see some quite heavy losses in the early year but, like I said last year, the summer months should see a leveling out both for Second Life and Opensim before further heavy losses again for SL at least in the Fall.

Here's wishing all my readers and fellow travelers a Happy New Year.

P.S. If you are looking for textures you can use on Opensim grids then check my top links or click here to visit my Textures page for a list of vendors that allow their textures to be used in both Second Life and Opensim.

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3Di Launch Cloud Based Unity for Web Pages

3Di, the Tokyo based company that has been developing solutions to place virtual world's spaces on web pages has launched a paid cloud service that promises to make it easy even for none-programmers to set it up for commercial or private use.

Presently, anyone can get an html code snippet and paste it to a web page that gives immediate access to 3Di's own world known as Teddy town but now customers can download the 3Di web kit (30 day trial valid until September 30th 2012) and make ready their own 3D rooms for the web. Charges announced in the last few days are a personal use version at 1year advance payment of 9,800 yen (about 817 yen/month) and a professional commercial version at 3 months advance payment of 29,800 yen (approximately 9,934 yen/month).

See an example of the working application on the Resources link of this blog.

Click here

Previously the company had worked on version that used Opensim for back end but the results proved unsatisfactory and they switched to using Unity 3D. Unlike Opensim or Second Life the Unity server doesn't offer in-world tools for creating content and requires templates and avatar files developed in 3D modeling software that supports export of FBX or COLLADA files. Unity is a Mesh based world but 3Di has gone to great pains to make it as easy as possible to use. None the less, while they handle the server end in cloud technology there is still a steep learning curve to develop the Mesh models so customizing one's own world is not as easy as getting the world online.

However, according to 3Di they will be providing some basic templates and avatars to get a world up and running quickly. The api kit is aimed at content creators and has been developed as an extension module on top of the multi-platform 3D game development environment Unity. It supports smartphone platforms such as Android and iPhone. The development kit focuses on ease of use through simple drag-and-drop of sample scripts. With some programming experience you can do much more.

For some time now virtual world's owners have expressed a desire to have a browser based window into their world to make it easy for casual visitors to look round without commitment or a heavy download. Having a 1st Look option is thought might encourage people from the web to eventually download a viewer in order to do more. Ideally thought, the Opensim owners wanted a portal to an Opensim world directly and a solution for that was developed some years ago by In Duality which still requires a download and launches a viewer in a web page. This solution was placed in the open source community after In Duality failed to find a market for it at the time but it is not considered ideal anyway even though it dose still enable in-world building tools. However, the In Duality version has now been re-developed by SpotON3D who have taken a patent on their code so no one can use it without a licence from them.

Another company, Tipodean, worked on a browser based Unity solution to view Opensim in a web page some time ago but gave up on it after running into problems similar to the problems 3Di had. Tipodean offers a service now to do conversions of Opensim regions. They can create templates for Unity if you can't do it yourself. A lot still has to be done to get your own unique world up and running using Unity but 3Di have at least taken some of the work out of it with the web Kit.

Another web portal that requires no plugin, Cloud Party is the latest solution that is gaining considerable interest from Second Life residents. The  application is also browser based and uses webGL which presently only works in Chrome and Firefox.  However the Cloud Party developers are updating and launching new features very quickly with an eye on capturing as much of the browser based and smart phone market as they can before more solutions become available. They have now launched their own market place and they have token coinage.

Second Life shrinks as the Hidden Metaverse expands!

Since this time last year Second Life lost 1,384 regions according to Grid Survey but, more worrying for Linden Labs, is the loss of 858 sims in the past two months alone. Now consider concurrency hovering around 60k peak daily traffic which has remained static for several years leaving the grid with no growth despite Linden Lab's claims of over 10,000 new sign-up's per day.  It is clear that people are leaving as fast as they are joining and it is the  creative people, enterprise and educational institutions who are leading the exodus (for example; Rivers Run Red, a virtual design company closed 30 sims and left to join Kitely in the past month). Moreover, if the current rate of loss continues Second Life will loose over 4,000 regions by the end of 2012. In contrast the open Metaverse has seen another sharp rise in regions and traffic according to a Hypergrid Business report "OpenSim exceeds Second Life private regions"

Whatever happens it is clear that the slow decline appears to be gaining momentum and the reasons are not hard to fathom. Linden Lab seems to have been dithering with uncertain priorities since the rot set in back in 2008 during the Open spaces fiasco when the Lab's reputation took a dive they have never really recovered from. Since that time they have consistently failed the residents with exceptionally poor customer services, consistently faltering platform software and the gradual, and to my mind, deceitful undermining of the very premise on which Second Life was built - user participation.

Originally, Linden Labs sold Second Life on the slogan "Your World, Your Imagination" and they built into the system the means to create content and easily capitalize on it by distributing it to a growing population pursuing their own varied gaming and social themes. The Lab provided an economy with token currency and users found they could make money and build business' from selling content, offering services and renting out land. It proved to be a successful business model and the platform thrived.

In recent times, however, Linden Lab's managers appear to have taken a very blinkered course in the pursuit of greater profitability. They don't appear happy to rely on the high land-pricing structure they have in place for sim hosting, nor are they content to earn money off of uploads and other services. The Lab has blundered from one bad decision to another which has left the in-world markets and stores empty while they reap a profit from their web marketplace and they undermine their land market with free homes to gain more premium memberships. What the residents want is a well maintained grid to pursue their dreams and businesses. What they get is instability, uncertainty, profit grabbing and the feeling the Lab could not care less about the residents wishes and needs.

The Hidden Metaverse

The core business of all virtual world operators is the sale and renting of virtual land. Linden Labs earns the balk of it's money operating a vast server farm to run all the sims on their grid and, for the most part, this is how Opensim grid operators make their money too. The operators are all essentially server hosts regardless whether they call their setup platform a grid or admit to being nothing more than a host connecting sims to other grids.

In fact there are a lot of hosts that will set you up in a Hypergrid enabled standalone or connect you directly to some other grid like OSgrid which allows anyone to connect and take part in it's community. Hypergrid Business blog has a good list but, anyway, in the past year OSgrid has grown in leaps and bounds (currently exceeding 11,000 regions) despite periodic culling of unused or abandoned slots (grid coordinates). But, regardless of the culling, OSgrid dose appear to go through periods of growth and decline anyway as communities sprout up then branch out as the owners learn the platform technicalities. Often, after a short "learning" spell in OSgrid we see some create hypergrid enabled standalone worlds while retaining one sim in OSgrid as a gateway. Small satellite worlds have been quietly growing in number in recent years and an example of this would be United Federated Starfleet, a Trekie community.

UFS now supports a grid of 29 regions and a user base of over 700. The Trekies hail from Second Life of course where they still have a community and sell clothes and other merchandise. They branched out to OSgrid a few years back then went on to developed their own grid which appears mildly active. I regularly see traffic of 15 or more on the grid and, of course, these numbers are not recorded anywhere other than the grid itself.

There are many small grids or standalone sims like this - probably in the hundreds if not a thousand or more given the number of downloads of Diva Distro, Sim on a Stick and the core platform code itself. The platform code has been downloaded thousands of times so it is reasonable to suggest that there are thousands of small virtual worlds that quietly make up the hidden Metaverse. Certainly, when you go looking you find them if you search hard enough. The best way to find the hidden Metaverse is to teleport to them via Hypergates and many regions in OSgrid offer stargates (teleporters) that help you on your way but you can type in a grid address anyway and do some traveling. Even better are the type of gate you just walk through and it teleports you to a pre-selected grid. Linda Kellie, the well known content creator who gives her stuff away free has a building on her Airy Bay region which is kinda of like Alice in Wonderland where there are many doors round the room leading to the worlds she has selected for you. All you do is walk right through.

Gaga tries another door at Airy Bay wondering what world she will be teleported to if she dare enter.

In my own travels I came upon Lani Global's world of Dune on OSgrid where those amazing giant sand worms slither across the surface then burst up from the sands with gapping jaws. Lani runs a Sci-Fi role play based on Dune and supporters have built up their own sims in the same cluster. In deed, being something of a Sci-Fi fan myself, I recently added a sim which represents an asteroid on which my spaceship crash landed. Lani's graphic designs are something of a Must-see marvel and there is a freebie store in the Pyramid offering lots of Sci-Fi related content including the LGS combat meter.

Gaga braves the Dune world created by Lani Global

The hosted estates in OSgrid are generally the best resourced and least laggy. Often too, this is where you will find stores selling content for real money using something like Paypal or OMC. OSgrid is serving a growing Adult community too and the managers seem to have become more tolerant to it. In the early days of the grid the managers where more cautious but times have change. I don't know of any gambling sims on the grid although I have seen a few Zyngo type slot machines but the BDSM and Gor communities do seem well

Shock horror as giant spice worm bursts from the sand

 catered for and attracting residents. It's hard to say exactly how OSgrid is going to develop but my guess is that it has a bright future continuing on it's present course. It certainly works as a HUB for the hidden Metaverse and as a learning platform for all those budding builders that come after. I regularly see OSgrid traffic peeking around 200 plus these days and though the community is somewhat floating unlike InWorldz, which has a more stayed community, there is enough support, mentors and help at the Plaza sims to assist noobs settle in. There may even be two factions in OSgrid such as those who encourage the freebie culture and the professional hosting estates, often built on ethic, cultural and language lines. They tend to build their own communities similar to mainland in Second Life then rent out land plots and sims around their islands which often look like their real homeland. The Dutch and Germans seem well represented both on OSgrid and amongst the satellite hypergrid sims.

W.A Fashions at Littlefield.  Gaga shops here for her boots!

The Open Metaverse in general is maturing and Opensim in particular is becoming more stable and feature-rich. There is great opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to build mods or applications for gaming similar to puzzle games and quests as Lani Global has done. Some functions in the German-language Metropolis Grid have been optimized for use on mobile devices like iPhones and SmartPhones. Currently the following functions for smart phones are supported: Grid Status displays online users, News is covered in Metro News and the Metropolis Forum is accessible on the phones too. In the future there are plans to run Metropolis itself on a phone too.

M.A Rentals. One of the vast hosting estates on OSgrid

In the rest of the Metaverse, the walled garden grids which don't allow hypergrid teleports or content to leave their grids continue to gain residents but fortunes are shifting like the sands of time. Avination has seen a decline in the last half of 2011 after it's meteoric rise to leading grid at the start of the year when it had over 1,000 sims and daily peaks in traffic of 300 plus. Since then it has lost over 500 sims and traffic has dropped to peaks around 100. It has been said Avination had more casinos at one time than users to fill them but clearly there were some successful clubs. Many have since closed. InWorldz on the other hand has worked it's way back into the lead gaining sims and user traffic peaking in excess of 200 a day. Both grids are closed worlds for content security reasons so play no part in hypergrid travel and don't enjoy visitors via HG teleports which is unfortunate for their vendors but it is perfectly understandable since they want to attract top class content sellers who don't want their virtual goods copied and resold in Second Life.

Gaga visits the beautiful 1001 Arabian Nights

Infinity Lights Art Gallery

Content security remains an important issue in the development of the open Metaverse and the developers continue to work on solutions. However, It may still be a long time before we see the walls come down and the barriers lifted on the free flow of traffic and content across the whole Metaverse but I believe, ultimately, it must happen and a greater market will open up. Second Life is in slow decline anyway because it's a closed grid and the alternative technology is improving to the point of opening up the Metaverse just as the world wide web was opened up 20 years ago. OSgrid is in a unique position as the test bed for the developers who generously allowed anyone and everyone to connect their sims to it. In my view it has come to represent more than just another grid. I would describe OSgrid as a microcosm of both the visible and the hidden Metaverse in fact since so much of it originates there before branching out. And, mores the point, most of the branching simulators link back just as if all roads lead to Rome.

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SpotON3D: Patent Challange to Open Sim?

Since I published my last bog entry about SpotON3D's application for a patent on Open Sim in a browser a furious row has been continuing which accuses SpotON3D of effectively trying to hijack the open Metaverse by attempting to patent key features in blatant disregard for the open source community and the hundreds of programmers who have dedicated a huge amount of their time and skill for little or no reward. In a recent meeting on the SpotON3D grid called with just three hours notice, co-founders, Tessa Kinney-Johnson and Stevan Lieberman, a patents attorney, gave limited answers to questions put to them by the few who turned up. However. far from settling the concerns of the community, Leiberman revealed the company is seeking more patents totaling five presently but has not ruled out filing for more. All of the patents relate to the emerging 3D Web.

In a recent article on Hypergrid Business, however, Lawrence Pierce questions the motives of those most vocal in condemning SpotON3D and asks why 3D Web related patents filed by IBM has not drawn the same reaction. In December 2010, said Lawrence, HB ran an article indicating that IBM had filed a patent on sim design methodologies here. He noted it drew little reaction from the Open Sim community and certainly none of the outrage characterized by the controversy focused on SpotON3D but he failed to mention that last year Deva Canto ( a core developer and inventor of Hypergrid) had already warned Here that patents could pose a serious threat to the open source development of Open Sim.

Ilan Tochner of Kitely Virtual responded, "While many big corporations hold patents relating to virtual worlds, those companies very rarely try to enforce them against small businesses because the money they could get from licensing would be far less than the potential PR damage that going after small businesses can cause them." He went on to say, "Small companies, however, do frequently try to extract patent licensing fees from small businesses that can't afford the legal costs of protecting themselves. SpotOn3D is a small company that has explicitly stated they intend to do go after other small businesses once their patents are granted."

OSgrid, which is Hypergrid enabled, has served the Open Sim
communty from the beginning and allows anyone to attach
their standalone sim.

Vanish, who runs Opensim Creations, also commented "Personally, the thing that's pushed this over the edge is SpotOn's history of using every chance they get to advertise their own products, combined with taking the platform (OpenSim) their whole enterprise is built on for free and for granted, while calling their own improvements and innovations too valuable to contribute any of them back to the project, and finally filing for patents that could effectively prevent others to contribute a similar technology of their own to the OpenSim project, which would effectively stifle OpenSim itself."

Lawrence Pierce dwells on the wider issues surrounding patents and dose not explore the reasons why the Open Sim community is apprehensive. He appears to take the view that those opposed to SpotON3D's patent bid are just motivated by competitive interest while ignoring the fact that many other advocates of a free and open Metaverse have strong reservations about SpotON3D's aims too and have done since they first announced what their business plan, grid structure and objectives are in a notice to SLUniverse Forums Classifieds back in June 2010. In that announcement Tessa states "By design, SpotON3D is setup to interlink Virtual Environs and Grids in an organic fashion, linking them together via a common gateway, enabling avatars to travel seamlessly from one Metaverse to another." That is clearly a reference to Hypergrid. She goes on, "With context sensitive memberships (reference to Open centralized Avatar IDs), built in Web Window interface (reference to Browser plugin), the ability to purchase items that deliver to multiple grids (reference to multi-grid vendor system) and in essence replicate their inventory legally and responsibly, users can experience a rich network of grids that form the emerging 3D Web." She goes on to list various individuals and business interests that endorse SpotON3D, amongst which I noticed Mana Janus of the OpenSim Hippo Client (the browser plug-in uses a modified version of the light weight Hippo viewer) and Mana has also been posting comments in support of SpotON3D recently.

The references to key features of the emerging 3D web include Hypergrid, Open Avatar IDs, Browser plugin and multi-grid vendor system are all possible targets for patenting and Tessa has made it clear in comments to this blog they will be controlling what viewer can be used too. Moreover, in January of this year, SpotON3D, in a press release, announced, "SpotON3D is most happy to announce our partnership with the Phoenix Viewer team in creating a Phoenix-flavored viewer just for SpotON3D Web Worlds!" In the same statement they listed the following key features...

1. Our BoostCloud dedicated servers to let you entertain up to 125 users without impacting your neighbours, or they you.

2. Our Universal Registration, Avatar & Inventory System

3. SpotONSynergy and Double Dutch Delivery system backed by PayPal® using real USD to create a truly portable economy system

4. Integrated SpotOn3D EZPrezTools and much more coming at you this year.

Above, in the SpotON3D statement they say they are developing a "Phoenix-flavored viewer just for SpotON3D Web Worlds!" And it so happens that Phoenix, which is currently the most widely used TPV (third party viewer), only lists Second Life and SpotON3D in it's grid list when there are much bigger grids like InWorldz and Avination. Moreover, I read that SpotON3D are actually employing some members of the Phoenix development team to work on their viewer and, clearly, there appears to be a partnership or working relationship with Mana Janus too. The statement concludes with, "The teams look forward to the exciting changes that will undoubtedly take place as the Phoenix team helps to further develop SpotON3D’s network of Web Worlds and associated grids." Here again we see SpotON3D staking a claim to the 3d Web when they refer to "SpotON3D's network of Web Worlds and associated grids" SpotON3D's network of web worlds is at the centre, the hub if you like. The associated grids are on the outside paying licence fees for any amount of patented features that the Metaverse depends upon to exist at all. Those who don't want to pay for a licence to connect with each other run the risk of a law suit. So, it adds up to one thing; you can pay SpotON3D licence fees or use their grid services which puts you inside their network. If you chose otherwise then patents will ensure you will never experience anything that can be described as free Metaverse.

Here, the people behind SpotON3D clearly state their long term aims and ambitions...

"CEDA Holdings, the parent company for SpotON3D, began development of their SO3D Grid Systems in November of 2008. With the help of a team of dedicated programmers, web developers, modellers and grid experts they've succeeded in creating an exciting new experience that answers many of the complex problems seen in their contemporaries, with a ten year vision for the development of the 3D Web. SpotON3D's secure and business centric focus caters to an augmented reality experience that embraces existing 2D web assets, real world meeting functionality, attracting a diverse pool of users from the business, academic, technology, and artisan communities online. Short term goals are to provide a stable beta grid platform for early adopter businesses and organizations to use, either as a member of the SpotON3D grid, or on their own affordable private label grids. The long term goals are to create the infrastructure to enable these professional grade grids to interconnect via the SpotON3D's client, a blend of open source and proprietary software."

If there is any doubt the statement above is in their own words for the record. Their long term goals are to create the infrastructure to enable grids to interconnect via SpotON3D's client and, a wealth of ready made open source to utilize as they strive to bring it about. Their statement pays no acknowledgement to the countless hours of unpaid work put in by the developers of Open Simulator, without which they could not achieve any of their goals. It totally ignores the pioneers too who have worked to developed the grids and community, made the content, sent in the bug reports and publicised the whole idea of a free and open Metaverse these past four years. Like robber Barons it appears like, SpotON3D are simply doing the dirty deed and attempting to take over the open Metaverse, or control it, by utilizing a legal devise. The patent.

Novagrid is based on Aurora Sim and is also Hypergrid enabled allowing connections freely to OSgrid and other worlds. Nova sets a model for commercial grids in that they offer low cost hosting for as little as $10 a month and permits anyone to connect their own standalone without charge.

 Lawrence Pierce has written an interesting article but, in my view, he totally fails to understand what the community is worried about and prefers to rather dismiss the whole issue as competitive interest between competing virtual world companies. Well, that may be in part true but it is not the whole story. The whole story goes something like this...

Open Sim has been in development for four years. In the beginning it was just a haven of dreamers and code geeks then came the Open Spaces fiasco when Linden Labs used bate & switch tactics (as they were described) to force though a price rise with the introduction of Homesteads. This out-priced small users who built their labour of love virtual homes and small worlds on Open Space sims. Nineteen hundred servers got returned and land Barons and opportunists bought up the rest at knock-down prices. This resulted in the first wave of refugees seeking affordable sims in the few start-up grids based on Open Sim. Very little worked well at that time but a small community did come into being. These people persevered and overcame the problems of working with alpha software, and many contributed back one way or another. The free Metaverse had a very shaky beginning.

As time passed more things began to work and the platform became more stable. More people abandoned Second Life attracted by the lower costs and the sheer freedom to explore and express their creativity without corporate overlords breathing down their necks telling them what was good for them. Some of us did see that patents could snuff out the dream in it's infancy and we blogged about it warning what could happen. Even I did not notice SpotON3D until now which goes to show how much anyone was interested in their business model. SpotON3D had announced their intentions two years ago and, unfortunately, no one really took them seriously because there has been big talk before from start-ups who promise great things on the back of alpha software and it rarely meets with approval or acceptance.

In recent times Open Sim has become more stable and the level of innovation has grown which is a testament to the pioneers that have seen it through the bad times. Today, Open Sim, the platform and infrastructure of future virtual worlds, be they forked versions like Aurora Sim or as yet unknown developments, are on the threshold of providing the open source software on which to base a truly open, and connected, Metaverse. But, just as the dream is about to come true, the patent Jackals are gathering.

SpotON3D could have kept their source secret. Everyone would have understood that but seeking patents on key components of the free Metaverse to stop competition is clearly going to hurt innovation and impose higher costs through licensing on a community that has been there under Linden Labs. The unemployed, low income people, stay-at-home carers and the disabled are amongst the many that have found an affordable virtual haven to express their creativity and escape the stress of the real world for a few hours. Sure there are commercial grids which have software they keep secret but even Avination CEO and core developer, Melanie has stated her intention to open up to Hypergrid. And InWorldz lead developer, Tranquility has said if the community asks for Hypergrid then we will try to fulfill their wishes. Neither talks in terms of controlling the free Metaverse. There is room for both commercial and none-profit concerns but not for patent Jackals. There are some brilliant coders working to build this free and open Metaverse and they will find a way over those patents. Mark my words!

Content for Open Sim and Aurora Sim Grids

Since I have been getting a lot of hits on this blog I though perhaps it would be a good idea to add some page links at the top with useful content for my visitors. There is actually a lot of grids in the free Metaverse and, as I wrote before here, it seems a shame to me that the viewer developers don't do more with the grid list function to help promote them. After all said finding grids to visit can be difficult for noobs and I am sure many simply chose from the grid menu and don't add grid address' themselves. It's not hard to add an address and most, if not all, web sites run by grid operators generally do explain how but how much better would it be if when you open a viewer you find a search box as well as a menu of suggested worlds?

I spoke to Rev (Revolution Smythe, lead developer of Aurora Sim) about this and he said he favoured the GRID HOP list and, as he is working with viewer developers one hopes something will happen soon. I have, in fact, been asking for this for over a year from the Imprudence developers and, while they have been accepting grid details ready to launch something, it has not happened yet and given the team seems to be bogged down with finishing Imprudence 1.4 and getting onto Kokua I am not exactly holding my breath. Anyway, for the benefit of my readers I am adding my own list to the METAVERSE link which will include some useful information about most of them and a picture and discription for the larger grids.

The next link I am adding - VENDORS - will keep a listing of web sites offering both commercial and free content that can be used in Open Sim and Aurora based grids. Of all the web sites I looked at I think Sunny Whitfield's Total Avatar Shop stands out as one of the best for low cost high quality creations. Sunny supplies to many grids including InWorldz, Second Life, OSgrid, Alpha Towne, Virtual Worlds Grid, My Open Grid, New World Grid, and Kitely. I am sure there are more too but she will deliver to almost any grid if requested and even go to the grid personally to make a delivery. This is what makes Total Avatar Shop one of the best in my view so the site features right at the top of my list.

Another site I like is Opensim Creations run by Vanish Seraph of tgib.co.uk. The store front is run as a none-profit outlet catering to Open Sim residents and anyone may list content on the site if it is being offered free or with a small licence fee attached. The virtual goods come mostly in the form of XML files that can be uploaded to your grid using the Import feature of many viewers including Imprudence and Hippo. The site also offers OAR files of complete regions including terrains, landscaping, objects and textures. Even scripts are included.

Many of the grids now offer content direct from listings on their own sites which may be delivered in-world or come as XML or OAR downloads. I don't want to leave anyone out so all these will be listed too. There are some grids that don't offer direct sales from their web sites in order to encourage residents to shop in-world so they only advertise stores that have outlets in their grids. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, especially for Opensim-based grids. I think it is damaging in Second Life as more people buy from Market Place and have goods delivered in-world rather than shop in the stores and malls that are run at great cost. Certainly, from what I have seen many of these SL merchants are closing their stores for lack of buyers while transferring the main thrust of their business to the web. AvWorlds, a newish Opensim-based grid, has taken the brave decision to protect their merchants so their site only carries adverts direction customers in-world.

Next one along is TEXTURES. I am always on the hunt for good textures and make many myself as and when I need something I can't find. I make templates too for clothes but if I find a site offering them at low cost it will get a mention for sure. Anyway, I am listing some great freebie sites and I shall add some I know offer a licence or permission to use them in Open Sim and Aurora.

Finally, I have the RESOURCES link which will list anything including but not limited to scripts and other useful stuff I have to offer myself or find on the web. For example, I am very much into sailing a boat in Second Life and on my private closed grid. In fact I have two grids running on fairly powerful virtual servers. One runs an Opensim grid and the other, Aurora. For a while now I have been evaluating and comparing both platforms with a view to eventually opening one of the grids to the public. Aurora is hot favourite presently. It runs smoother and faster than Open sim and is feature rich while Opensim is actually quite lumpy so to speak. Anyway, Revolution Smythe has told me he plans a big upgrade to vehicle physics soon so I am expecting some improvement in sailing my boat.I want to offer my boats to users so the RESOURCES link wiIl be a good spot to offer this kind of thing.

The HOME link just brings you back to the blog of course which is always moving on as I write more about the free Metaverse. The other links are static pages making them easy to get to without having to search through the blog if I posted stuff there. I hope the links will be useful and I will try to keep them up to date and add new links and content as I find it. If you know of a site or run one and would like it included in the links then please do leave me a mention on the comments together with the site address. I will visit and take a snapshot of the home page and do a little write up for the link.

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Metrics: A Changing Metaverse

It was interesting to read  Hypergrid Business' monthly survey of the virtual worlds of the metaverse. SecondLife lost 41 regions while Opensim based grids collectively gained 1,102 for the top 40 grids. But HB is actually tracking 144 grids of which 80 report region counts. What is particularly interesting about these surveys is the picture it paints of the changing state of the metaverse which is in a real state of flux.

OSgrid and Kitely lead with significant gains in regions while  Avination, which rose so spectacularly in the early months of the year, lost regions and active users. InWorldz continued slow but steady growth and Meta7 closed due to legal issues. At the same time more grids came online. So it appears users are moving about a lot and new people are experiencing the free metaverse for the first time. The big loser of course is SecondLife which, while losing 41 regions might not seem much, has lost 500 regions in the past year.

There are so many options now compared to a year ago and the cost of setting up has dropped significantly too so it's no wonder Linden Labs, which still charges $1000 to set up a region and monthly tier of $295, is losing out. SecondLife still enjoys high traffic compared to Opensim based grids but no one really knows what the free metaverse traffic figures are. SL can report their traffic as it's all under one roof but the free metaverse is a partially disconnected cluster of small grids with no overseeing server to collect data.

Gaga checking a club out in Avination. Yeah, the dance pole works!

Hypergrid helps to connect grids but a lot of the grid owners keep it disabled to prevent content theft and, of course, partly to keep their residents on their own grid. Commercial grids of course are in competition with each other and since they rely on renting sims to users they obviously have a vested interest to operate on the same business model as Linden Labs which means a walled garden approach. And yet, even that is not stopping users from moving about no more than Linden Labs can prevent it's residents discovering what is out there in the free metaverse.

With the release of Opensim 7.1 at the start of the month things could be about to change still more. With 7.1 there is greater security to prevent content theft while still allowing users to travel to other grids with their same name and appearance. Once someone has found a place to call home (virtual home) and enjoy the community it offers they are less likely to travel so much but with 7.1 the barriers to travelling are reduced. What you spent on fixing up your avatar, for instance, wont be limited to the grid you call home so you wont arrive at some grid you visit looking like crap and having to rush around trying to find freebies to get fixed up for the visit. Moreover, you wont necessarily have to spend any more money to look as good as you did at home. Avatars are vain - believe it!

On the other side of the coin you probably wont be able to take anything you buy with you when you leave a 7.1 grid either unless the owner has the Outward bounds permission set to allow it. Most commercial grids, if they upgrade to 7.1 probably wont allow it anyway but that's not to stop you visiting to attend an event such as a music gig or dance with friends and just hang out. You might want to attend a business meeting or an educational class. Perhaps you are a role player in some ancient theme like Romans or the fantasy realms of Elves, Steampunk, etc, etc. And you set out to interact in war or peace with a neighbouring grid that follows the same theme. It's really little different than teleporting to a neighbouring region in SecondLife. You just find yourself on another grid and can still look the same everywhere.

Role Players at Role Play Worlds grid

The owner of Avination, Melanie Thielker has gone on record saying she will enable hypergrid once the security is better and she said she would press for this earlier this year. As she is also one of the code contributors to Opensim then we have no reason to doubt her. But Avination has not yet adopted 7.1 so it remains to be seen if they will open up to the rest of the free metaverse. Certainly, if Avination dose I think they will benefit with increased traffic and, since Avination has a reputation already for gambling there is another reason to keep the door open. InWolrdz on the other hand is unlikely to become hypergrid enabled even if they could because they have chosen to fork off from the main branch and develop their own code on top of Opensim which means they may be too far removed to be compatible now. This may yet prove a mistake for them as the metaverse becomes more connected.

There are of course still limitations to Opensim which may not please people coming from SecondLife where they are use to most things working after a fashion. Most notable is physics which are still better in SL than OS simply because Linden Labs can afford the commercial licenses. Opensim is still limited to ODE which most developers regard as very basic. certainly, you see it's limitations when sailing a boat on Opensim-based grids which is clumsy at best. SecondLife has Havoc physics which is far superior but this could also be about to change with the rise of Aurora sim. In Fact a lot of things are going to change with Aurora sim!

Decent physics still give SecondLife the edge when it comes to sailing and sea battles

Even Hypergrid Business survey might have to change as a result of the advances in server code that is being rapidly developed by the Aurora team. Most notably, region sizes. You see, Aurora developers have managed to change the structure of regions which they call var-regions. These var-regions can be up to 256 times the size of a standard SL region. Unlike mega-regions in Opensim, which are clusters or child regions attached to a parent region in order to avoid the problem of border crossings, var-regions are just a single region that has been expanded up to 256 times the normal size. So, where Hypergrid Business collects data on total regions on grids this would be misleading in the future when looking at grids running Aurora sim code. On a Opensim grid if you see 256 regions you can certainly count them regardless if some are connected as mega-regions. On an Aurora-based grid you might see just one region and count it as one while, in fact, it covers the area of 256 regions. The metaverse is certainly changing.

I have a big article coming up later this week which is an in-depth review of Aurora sim that I have been working on for weeks so check back again soon. But I will leave you with video from Skidz Partz - one of the Aurora team - to get an idea of just what is on the metaverse horizon.

Kitely: Virtual clouds over deep troubled waters

When I first read about Kitely I thought, what a great idea but the more I looked into it the less sure I became.

Kitely is an Israeli based start-up company financed out of the pockets of it's founders. They are leveraging the user ID system of Facebook to offer cloud-based virtual worlds to it's members and setting up your region is actually pretty easy once you download a small application from their web site. Then, after you login, you simply click a button and the apps calls up your viewer (assuming you have one installed) and you are into your very own region. No need to download anything. No set-up headaches. It's all done for you and you can start building and inviting friends right away.

At first I was reluctant because I didn't want to join Facebook but, apart from Maria of Hypergrid Business 's glowing report all I seem to read were somewhat negative comments about Kitely, mainly centred on the un-signed application and lack of a published TOS statement. But the apparent cheapness (which is probably not so cheap for any more than light use. See my breakdown further on) and it's ease of setup my curiosity got the better of me and I thought, what the hell I can always delete FB after I try Kitley out. So I went ahead and signed up with FB and visited the Kitely web site to download the application. My Norton firewall blocked it straight away because it was unsigned and deemed too new to risk. I had read about this so let it pass my anti-virus and set itself up. I will be absolutely honest now. It all went like a dream!

Kitely web site

First I clicked to enter Maria's sim and my  Imprudence viewer sprang to life called up by the Kitely application. It logged me in with my real life name and the sim rezzed super-quick. It really was happening faster than I expected for an Opensim world. There I stood fully dressed as my new avatar fit to begin my adventure. I started to walk expecting to waddle like a duck but not a bit of it! The sim downloaded an animation to my Imprudence viewer automatically and I was walking normal - perhaps a bit girly but it was a female walk. I toddled off to look around and rezzed a prim box to check that out - no problem, it was fast and efficient. Good stuff I thought and took back the prim (I don't like to litter in someone else's sim) then went to appearance and messed with my shape some to try that out. Fine,,, Perfect.

So, after a while I thought I should really leave now because here I stood for the first time ever with an avatar that bears my real name. What if someone comes along? Yeah, I thought. I best leave and so I did. I returned to the kitely site after closing my viewer and clicked something to get some credits. It told me my Facebook profile was not up to much since I didn't have a picture of myself and 20 real FB friends so all I got was 10 credits instead of the 50 I might have got otherwise. Anyway, so much for that, I clicked to create a sim and, my word! it was ready in, like, seconds or so it seemed. Up came my viewer and I was logging into my new Kitely sim.

Gaga at Maria's world pretendng to be a real world person

I was really quite excited even though I was now standing in the middle of a vast sea on a tiny island. But it was mine and I had gained it so quick I was just left dumb-struck. I just felt this whole thing was marvelous! So now I thought I would raise some land and try that out before doing a bit of quick building. I raised the land very quickly. It was not sluggish or jerky. Up it came and I smoothed it off but, before I could drop a prim on it, Bang! The viewer closed and that was that. I returned to the Kitely site and tried to re-open it in case I had just crashed but it told me my region had been suspended for lack of credits. Ten don't go far.

Having lost my credits and no way to buy any I thought to look at the Feedback which would be the start of my troubles. I saw a comment mentioning the same problems I had just come up against, lack of credits, no pic, no friends. And yet, the nice Mr Ilan was saying no problem, sorry about that, here is 600 credits so you can go right back and finish your trial. Let me have some of that, I thought! And posted a request. Now, what happens is Kitely uses a system for comments and feedback called "Get Satisfaction". Up came a box, I typed my request and it gave me choices of user ID. Now, with hindsight I should have click Facebook but usually with comment boxes it picks up my Google ID and I am so used to that I clicked to accept Google without really thinking. Big mistake! The damn thing posted my comment in my avatar name - Gaga Gracious!

I realized my mistake immediately and deleted the comment then went into a bit of a panic because I knew I might have connected my avatar name to my Facebook real ID, and so I had because when I checked my Google profile it suddenly showed my home location. I removed that and took my real picture off any profile I had it on in a flurry of activity trying desperately to cover my tracks, and all the while cursing Facebook.

Next I returned to Get Satisfaction to be sure that comment had been deleted and it immediately recognized me as Gaga. So I went off to dig around on the Get Satisfaction site to try an close the account. I got up the profile created for me and found I was due to receive daily emails from them. I clicked that off then thought to myself, this is outrageous! Get satisfaction had taken my Google ID, my email address and created an account with spam emails set on by default. So then I found a comment thread where some 90 people were asking to have their account closed. In fact, you can't close the account, you have to post a request and hope an admin dose it manually for you.

To cut the story short I am pleased to say the nice Mr Ilan got in touch and promised they would make updates to address the problems I encountered. He also said they would work on other ways to access Kitely that didn't involve Facebook so I have to thank Kitely for that and, well, as they said, it's a pre-beta test release and they value the feedback. Perhaps they should have foreseen the kind of problems I faced rather than giving themselves the task of damage limitation addressing these issues after the event answering a host of blog and forum complaints.

I can not fault the Kitely product in itself from what I have seen though. Few times have I ever entered an Opensim world and not experience problems or varying degrees of lag, as well as things taken for granted in SecondLife that just don't work on Opensim worlds but given that Opensim is still officially alpha code we have become use to it's failings while it continues to improve. Kitely manages to deliver a sim in super quick time and it runs very well. However, I don't personally think it will come that cheap if put to regular use on a daily basis. The way it works is that your region is called from the Amazon cloud and activated anytime you or a visitor wishes to access it and then it starts to cost you money. It costs you $0.20 for every user hour which doesn't sound a lot but adds up if you spend as much time as I do in my Opensim region or SecondLife (virtual worlds for people like me are very addictive!). I mean around 30 to 40 hours a week just for me! Even this though is not too bad on my own since it adds up to just $8 at most per week which is $32 a month and yet, if I am just working on content, I can still get a sim connected to OSgrid for as little as $10 a month. So now add a little traffic, say as many user hours again for casual visitors, and the cost has doubled. but, it's still not a lot of people.

Now, lets get serious and try to use a region to run a club or mall. Or maybe a role play game with players dropping in for averages of four hours every day. Multiply that by ten which makes a smallish game and the cost would quickly spiral upward. For example, in SL there is a general practice for role play sims to associate where one will send a raiding party to attack another sim (all done in the spirit of role play of course) and the raided sim returns the raid at a later time. This, typically, can involve as many as ten or more players fighting it out for some time but it may even end up involving captures and return negotiations to free prisoners. You think that doesn't happen? Well, I am involved in role play and I promise it dose, and, what's more, it can get even more involved on busy successful regions.

Charting the costs...

• Small store or home: 5 users clocking 50 hrs per week = $40 a month.

• Medium store or venue: 20 users clocking 200 hrs per week = $160 a month.

• Large store or club/RPG: 40 users clocking 400 hrs per week = $320 a month.

• Busy large store, club/RPG: 60 users clocking 600 hrs per week = $480 per month.

On the large store figure you are close to the monthly tier charge of  SecondLife  regions but I can't deny the fact that Linden Labs will charge that fee regardless if your sim sits empty or not. With Kitely you pay for what you use and that's it. Moreover, you don't have to find the $1000 setup fee LL charges so it's added value. Of course it could get more expensive than SL which doesn't seem likely but imagine regular spikes in traffic if you are running a music and dance venue. 60, 70 and 80 users, if Kitely can actually handle that sort of load, could start to clock a lot more hours and one would hope you are making serious money from the traffic to make it worth while.

On all the charges down to the Medium store figure you are still going to be better off in one of the established Opensim grids.  InWorldz will charge $75 a month and  Avination, $60. Even  Meta7 at $105 is still cheaper than Kitely on those user numbers and you wont be paying any setup fees in most Opensim grids either so Kitely looses that as a bonus to it's customers. And, in the short term at least, Opensim grids can offer more support since they have established customer services already and considerable content available not to mention established communities and well built sims and venues to visit.

For light use I definately think Kitely can offer a cost effective and valuable service given the speed and ease with which it is delivered. Typically, I think Facebook people might enjoy having the benefit of a virtual home they can fix up to their taste and have friends visit on occasion rather than relying on forums and text-based chat rooms, or even video conferencing, voice and web cam. Being able to walk  about virtually and emote realistic actions such has hugging, kissing and, well yes, even simulated sex too. I am not convinced though the vast majority of people can visualize themselves in the virtual setting let alone having any form of sexual encounter that way, or even manage the learning curve or embrace virtual worlds as anything more than a novelty. SecondLife has been around for near on ten years. It is perhaps the best known virtual world and yet it has never gained the kind of user base that Facebook has in half the time. Even now, SecondLife gets up to 10,000 hits a day on their web site and many do try it briefly so they are getting the people through. My view is that if the masses really wanted to use virtual worlds then SecondLife has been high profile enough for long enough to have attracted them and it hasn't so why should Kitely succeed where Linden Labs have so far failed?

Perhaps the short answer is that Facebook is basically a web site that offers a useful service. It doesn't require a viewer download or present any technical difficulty to the average person. Facebook provides a service to people engaged in real world activity. The vast majority are just that; real-world people happily net-working in that mind set. Now that is not to say some can't or wont try virtual worlds but the fact is the vast majority know about them but haven't bothered to any great extent. Perhaps it all comes down to mind set anyway. The majority want to socialize and make contacts in the real world while a significant number will happily play in challenge-based virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft purely in a gaming mind set just as others will prance about in front of their Kinect or Wii screen at home. In contrast virtual worlds like SecondLife probably only really appeal to people that live in their minds anyway. Call them actors or the true avatars if you like. I don't think the masses could or would ever want to see themselves as anything other than a real person in a real world.

For those real world people who might venture into virtual worlds given the ease of Kitely they probably wont have the intense interest or dedicated a serious user might have but I am sure they might have more modest needs so I guess the cost might not be so bad for them. Perhaps an occasional business meeting or for schools and collages it might be cost-effective too but I don't go with the argument a Kitely sim would be great for content makers to use as a secure workshop since people with that level of knowledge and dedication to virtual worlds are probably already using sim on a stick or have Opensim on their computer to use securely and at no cost at all. For others Opensim is already cheap enough since you can get a hosted region connected to OSgrid for as little as $10 a month and it's always up and can even be a cheap to run showcase for your work or even a store selling your stuff. In any event I think most would rather know what their bill is going to be from one month to the next and, since Kitely charges for time and user numbers, there is no way to be certain what your bill could be but that's not to say it wont appeal to vendors selling clean PG-rated stuff. Kitely, you see, is tied into the user TOS of the registration processes they leverage and, in Facebook, that excludes Adult content. But, lets face it, mature and adult content is a major part of virtual worlds and their trade.

We have seen Kitely has already nailed it's policy position to the mast while not yet producing a full TOS statement. Currently, like Blue Mars that has largely failed, Kitely has banned mature content. On the other hand, SecondLife is more advanced and has market lead including a degree of tolerance for mature content and a huge content base in place. It is already well known Linden Labs has it's eye on the Facebook minions. It would take very little for Linden Labs to upstage Kitely since all they need is a similar plug in to launch the viewer and LL is in a good position to strike while the iron is hot too. SecondLife has existing traffic, a large user group on Facebook and a viewer that has been re-worked (much to the annoyance of the majority of existing residents) to appeal to Facebook people. And, lets face it, what Kitely boils down to is a cloud server farm and a plug in to launch a viewer which still has to be downloaded anyway!

Would Linden Labs serve sims from a cloud? Hell yes, I'm sure they would if the potential revenue generated looked like it was worth it. I mean, how long would it take LL to develop a plug in given their huge financial resources? I doubt for one minute that LL has not taken a look at Kitely's methods and business model. Nor do I think other Opensim hosting business' are blind to Kitely's operation either. SpotOn3D and Sim-OnDemand have been serving sims from a cloud for some time as well.

I think Kitely has a lot of work to do - and learn even - so perhaps I am judging them harshly but I think they are demonstrating a degree of naivety if they think their policy of shutting out mature content and forcing disclosure of identity will work for them. Kitely is another walled garden that just happens to use Facebook member identity and boldly imposes their own values on potential customers. In that sense they have gone one step further than Linden Labs who still allow alias names in place of real names and thereby actively guards people's privacy. Anyone that is aware of the furore generated by the Red Zone controversy in SecondLife will know right away that many people in virtual worlds have more than one alt name and, for the most part, do so for legitimate reasons - often simply differing role play characters. It's actually a common thing in virtual worlds and it's taken as an assault on privacy if anyone attempts to link alts to a single IP address or a real world name.

SecondLife was not built on any notion of social networking. It was built on the art of making virtual content for money that served all comers with both passive and mature content. This included also a lot of escort venues, red light clubs, BDSM, etc, etc, and some seriously aggressive role play thrown in while making it possible to create a degree of realism that made it interesting and enjoyable. That's why there is a viewer called Restrained Life and the Emerald viewer was so successful with it's bouncing boobs feature. A lot of what SecondLife is about is pure unashamed erotic escapism and even Linden Labs has tried to curtail it some after they started letting kids on the main grid and putting feelers out to the FaceBook community but, while it might be making some headway into FaceBook territory, it is loosing people to Opensim grids which, to put it frankly, are leaving SL because they are sick of LL's ever more restrictive Terms & Conditions. That is to say, paying high prices to Linden Labs and being controlled by the perceived values that suit their current business model.

People want freedom. Not to abuse it although a tiny minority always will regardless of your TOS policy. People can have more freedom by running their own server and sims and, with hypergrid, they can still be connected and not isolated behind garden walls paying good money and lip service to someone elses values. This is what Kitely is going to come up against and it wont be limited to that either. They will need content sellers and the best still resist leaving SecondLife while those that have, well, yes, many sell mature content!

Opensim is still not out of alpha and yet Kitely appears to be selling it as beta software fit for use on a par with SecondLife and established Opensim grids, most of which are advancing the software to improve stability. Teleports are, as yet, impossible and so too are border crossings because their apps is forcing a by-pass of the viewer login process which means there is no grid as such, just a collection of standalones called from the Amazon cloud. Presently they demand fall identity disclosure through FaceBook, picture of self and 20 real friends. And they don't allow mature content. Add to all that the possibility of running up a huge bill while your not looking and I have to say I don't think it will work out that well for more than light use. But, in all honesty, it is too early to tell and I think the jury is still out.