Maria Korolov is editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business. She has been a journalist for more than twenty years and has worked for the Chicago Tribune, Reuters, and Computerworld and has reported from over a dozen countries, including Russia and China.
After months of delays — months in which its users enjoyed free premium OpenSim hosting — Kitely begins charging today.
The pricing plan is a bit different than what the company initially outlined,...
With some help from scripters, designers, and other hypergrid travelers, we’ve been bringing the Hyperica directory up-to-date.
As part of the process, I travel to a lot of grid welcome regions —...
Today, Hamlet Au wrote a column suggesting that the OpenSim user base is shrinking — and used Hypergrid Business numbers to support his position.
The short answer to his question is: No, OpenSim...
There’s been a lot written lately about how SOPA and PIPA would affect virtual worlds including Second Life.
The legislation would allow copyright holders to shut down access to Internet domains...
Game developers in Singapore now have a new avenue to try to find publishers — showcasing their games in the Singapore Games Village, part of the Media Development Authority of Singapore’s...
New research released today dispels the myth that OpenSim is the sole product of work by people who expected no personal financial gain — academics, employees of large corporations, and volunteers...
OpenSim’s top 40 public grids gained 1,056 new regions over the past month, hitting a new record high of 22,651 regions. Meanwhile, the total number of active public grids is now over 90, with 16...
I have a problem. I want to be able to see who visits my region in a nice spreadsheet. Specifically, a Google spreadsheet.
There are reasons for this. For example, I want to be able to track who sees a...
My son wants to design space stations for a living. But he also wants to raise cows — he will inherit the family farm.
My son wants to follow in the footsteps of both his grandfathers — the...
Ever since Vivox made its hosted voice service available for free to small and non-profit grids on December 23, OpenSim grids and individual region owners have quickly adopted the technology.
Large commercial...
The number of people using the hypergrid-friendly OMC currently rose by a factor of five over the course of 2011, from just over 500 people at the start of the year, to 2,859 at the end. Meanwhile, the...
Last week, our readers told Hypergrid Business that what they most wanted to see in OpenSim was vehicle physics.
Of course, vehicle physics. Everyone — or at least 52 percent of everyone —...
A few days ago I saw a Tweet, that said something like, “I looked at OpenSim, but some guy said he would steal all my stuff. So, no thanks!”
In fact, that attitude comes up a lot on discussion...
Update: Island Oasis grid co-founder Karl Dreyer tells me that he’s keeping an eye on new developments in OpenSim that allow grid owners to filter content before it’s saved into an OAR file...
Last night, hanging out on OSGrid waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s Eve, I resolved — among other things — to exercise more.
But I’m the kind of person who thinks of herself...
New Voice — the company that brought us $5.95 regions on OSGrid and its own Nova grid — just dropped the starting price for regions even lower. To zero.
That’s right.
These are full regions....
I’m tired of naysayers complaining that Second Life — and, by extension, OpenSim — has no mass appeal.
That it’s too hard to use.
That regions take too long to load.
That there’s...
We’re running a survey today about OpenSim hosting providers, and I’m getting the sense that there’s a lot of confusion about OpenSim hosting when it comes to renting land on a grid,...
Earlier this month, little-known Island Oasis showed up in our survey as the grid with the most satisfied residents.
Now, Island Oasis is tiny — it didn’t even break our top 40 list this month....
There are a lot of stargates floating around OpenSim. Most are copies of one of the gates that show up in the StarGate movies or television shows.
Others are unrecognizable as gates — they’re disguised as...
Vehicle physics topped the list of missing features in our survey of OpenSim hosting providers this week.
Because of the holiday — and the short notice — only 70 people responded to the survey,...
Open Wonderland — an open source, Java-based alternative to OpenSim — is now available on a tablet. According to WonderSchool, a subsidiary of Germany’s THINSIA, clients can now access...
Now that Vivox voice is available for free to small grids and to non-profit grids, there’s going to be less pressure on the OpenSim developers to finish integrating Whisper voice.
And that’s...
Merry Christmas, grid owners — Vivox is now available, for free, to any grid owner.
You get the same voice as in Second Life — with lip synching and directionality and speech indications. Hosted...
First of all, an apology.
In May, we wrote that Redwood City, California-based virtual worlds company Teleplace, Inc. open sourced its platform in order to grow its market — and that the company...
Kitely became the second commercial OpenSim grid to roll out Vivox voice today.
Boston-based Vivox Inc. is currently the gold standard of in-world voice, used in Second Life, EVE Online, EverQuest, Star...
Second Life had the potential to be the 3D AOL, to usher in a new age of immersive 3D environments.
It failed not because it was too complicated or difficult to use or tried to do too much at once.
After...
The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 915 new regions since this time last month, bringing the total number of regions on these grids to 21,595, a new record high.
OSGrid was the single biggest gainer. The non-profit...
Two new social worlds announced launches today — SmallWorlds, which is live, and Interactive City, which still seems to be the process of getting off the ground.
SmallWorlds is a cartoonish, Flash-based,...
The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly...
I belong to a business group in my area that recently expressed interest in setting up a virtual space for its members. The idea is that they could have meetings there, and individual members could get...
The results of the 2011 Hypergrid Business grid survey are in, with mid-sized grids serving language communities dominating the rankings. A record 459 people submitted responses this year, with a total...
Cloud-based OpenSim vendor Kitely Ltd. rolled out two features today aimed at improving the social aspects of the grid — a list of publicly-accessible regions, and a maturity ranking system.
Kitely...
The top 40 public OpenSim grids passed the 20,000-region milestone this month, with a new peak of 20,680 regions, after gaining 1,155 net regions over the past four weeks.
Growth on OpenSim's top 40...
ReactionGrid was the early favorite in the race to provide a stable and safe OpenSim environment for educators and corporations.
Over the last couple of years, however, the company has been falling behind...
Three years ago today, on Oct. 26, 2008, Crista Lopes fired off the email that marked the birth of the hypergrid.
Crista Lopes
Lopes, an OpenSim core developer, is also a professor of informatics at the...
A total of 3,208 visitors came to this month’s World of Warcraft fan convention, held online, on the Utherverse immersive environment platform.
They spent the in-world equivalent of $14,250 over...
The Island Oasis social grid has rolled out a custom fishing game, a vampire role playing game, an urban combat system and a speedway, and turned on hypergrid connectivity last week as part of a grid-wide...
Today’s OpenSim grids all have a static idea of a world map. So does Second Life.
There’s nothing wrong with that — I love having a virtual environment that I can navigate, that makes...
OpenSim developers are discussing ways to combat damaging patent litigation, including changing the OpenSim license to deter potential patent trolls.
The Overte Foundation, which holds the OpenSim licenses,...
The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly...
The top 40 OpenSim grids gained 144 regions over the past month, for a new record high of 19,525 regions.
OSGrid was the big gainer in land area, adding 243 new regions for a new total of 8,160 regions,...
The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly...
US $35 (25 Euro) for a 15,000-prim region on OSGrid, with no setup fee. Payment via PayPal or OMC. $5 (4 Euro) for a 1,000-prim region. $14 (10 Euro) for a 3,500-prim region. $70 (50 Euro) for a 45,000-prim...
Back when I incorporated my first company a few years ago, I tried to learn as much as I could about the entrepreneurial process and mind set. I joined entrepreneurial organizations and attended events...
The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly...
Freebies are plentiful throughout OpenSim grids, where uploads are free and land is cheap — anyone can put up a freebie store.
But most freebie stores can’t guarantee the provenance of their...
On-demand hosting provider Kitely Ltd. has eliminated a major OpenSim scalability obstacle by moving its asset database to the Amazon storage cloud.
“This is the most significant change we’ve...
The premise: I believe that we’re about to see the massive growth of a metaverse in which people can easily travel from one public world to another. Over time, the technology will become increasingly...
Several major OpenSim features, including mesh, which were previously available only in experimental releases of OpenSim are now part of the standard OpenSim release, numbered 0.7.2.
Justin Clark-Casey
“Despite...
