I think the great thing about OpenSim is whatever feature it doesn’t have — desktop and application sharing, for example — anyone can write a module for.

And once we HAVE desktop and application sharing, I think we’ll see a big take-off in using this for training environments — especially if the screens are “live” — you can point and click on them…

– Maria

Indeed I think that the Lindens are well aware of that. They have no strategy, their platform is technologically stagnant, and they seem to be spending all their money in issuing press releases void of significant content but full of spin and in bragging about how great immersion is for the enterprise — but they are offering zilch to the enterprise. Webex, for example, is infinitely superior to Second Life for meetings, and it’s much much cheaper — oh, and it offers what people need for meetings: desktop and application sharing, an interactive blackboard, simultaneous sharing and video… When Second Life offers all that AND immersion, I’ll reconsider it as a platform for meetings. Till then, I’ll continue to believe that having to exchange “immersion” for all these features is simply not an option. Oh, and at the moment most people are simply not interested in “immersion”. I am, but then I am 1) a PLAYER, and 2) a technically-oriented person.

Of course in some years all that might have changed. Or not. At the moment, and for businesses, the Lindens are selling nothing more than vapour — incredibly expensive vapour at that. Understandable. If I were an early backer, I would also like to get some ROI back for my dollars

The hippo client is using the Second Life Open Source client as is the RealXTend client. So you are still using the client supplied by Second life to access your OpenSim. So again you are using Second life for Enterprise use.

But aside from that, I see Second Life as being where AOL was at that dawn of the World Wide Web. AOL provided that there was a large potential audience for the Internet. Companies that wanted to reach had audience had to be on AOL, and get those “AOL Keywords.”

Today, AOL is nothing more than one of many portals and online content providers, though many of its ideas have become ubiquitous — email, instant messaging, a graphical interface.

Second Life is doing the same for virtual worlds — proving that there’s a market out for the the average user, not just for the fantasy WOW player, in virtual worlds.

But the fact that SL is a big, fully-featured platform is actually part of its problem. There’s too much stuff there. Specifically, too much stuff I don’t want to see. If I run my own grid, I don’t get the PR baggage that comes with Second Life, and I can set my own codes of behavior. For example: real names for avatars. Business casual dress code — and suits for client meetings. I can create my own, friendly log-in process for employees and clients new to OSGrid — and make it easy for them to teleport in if they already have a business-friendly avatar.

I am jumping the gun a little bit — mass adoption won’t come for another five years or so, and it might be to OpenSim, or it might be to another platform. But I really believe that the future 3D internet will look more like OpenSim than like Second Life.

Meanwhile, for anyone looking to build a Web 3D business, they’ve got to get in now before all the competitors rush in. We already have two venture capitalists as members of our Hypergrid Entrepreneur Group. The funding is there. And with the down economy, this is a great time to get fantastic employees, good deals from vendors, and operated unnoticed by the big guys — until you yourself are too big to catch up with.

– Maira

The important thing though, in my opinion, is that we need to not just have one monolithic virtual world. SL’s greatest weakness is that it has a single point of failure; LL’s policies. Don’t like LL’s policies, SL just doesn’t work for you. With OS, set up your own grid if you want to, run it how you want. On the other hand, the fact that SL is a relatively known and fully featured platform (well, unless you want to get anything in or out of it) is a major win.

Actually, I’m using the Hippo client (download here: http://forge.opensimulator.org/gf/project/opensim-viewer/frs/).

The Hippo client is pre-configured to access multiple grids, and to view the larger prims that are possible in OpenSim. Also, the next version of the client is expected to do away with the annoying 4096-region jump limit.

So the Hippo browser is better for enterprise use.

But you’re right in pointing out that there’s more to Second Life than just the server platform — there’s also the browser, and some people do use that browser (by tweaking the file path) to access other grids. My technical skills weren’t up to that, however — it was easier for me to just download Hippo.

- Maria