AviWorlds turns off hypergrid — again

AviWorlds, a commercial social grid with a history of experimenting with business models, is putting a stop to its latest experiment with the hypergrid.

This is the fourth time, by our count, that AviWorlds has turned hypergrid connectivity on and off. The last time was this spring.

Hypergrid is the system that connects many OpenSim grids together — more than 150 at last count — allowing avatars to teleport between grids as easily as they do between regions on a grid. The hypergrid also supports friends, instant messages, inventory access, groups — and also has access to the Kitely Market.

In fact, according to this week’s OpenSim hosting survey, 81 percent of respondents said that the hypergrid was their favorite feature of OpenSim.

Alexsandro Pomposelli

According to AviWorlds CEO Alexsandro Pomposelli, the important stat isn’t the 81 percent who appreciate the hypergrid — but the 19 percent who don’t.

“Which is probably composed of shop owners,” he told Hypergrid Business.

“I see no problem with hypergriÂ travel if the grid is a free grid like OSgrid or Metropolis,” he said. “But when the grid is a commercial grid there are problems. Trust me I know because I have tested this over and over.Â The shop owners in the grid are not excited about competing with creators from other grids and especially free stuff. And then people will not buy the currency and will not spend it. The grids economy becomes weak.Â Plus, I want to create exclusivity for my residents.”

AviWorlds rents out regions, currently at $20 for 15,000 prims, which could be arranged on one region, or a four-region variable-sized region.

These hypergrid gates on AviWorlds are all shutting down. (Image courtesy AviWorlds.)

In other news this week, Pomposelli briefly announced that he was selling the entire grid to one of the grid’s creators — but that sale fell through.

“I’m back as the founder and CEO,” he said. “AviWorlds needs me.”

Author
Recent Posts

Maria Korolov

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.