Opinion

Neighbor me!

Neighbor me!

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Language school

HG Biz Plan: Language school

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Event calendar

HG Biz Plan: Event calendar

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... 

What kind of entrepreneur are you?

What kind of entrepreneur are you?

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Hyperport

HG Biz Plan: Hyperport

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Virtual fishing

HG Biz Plan: Virtual fishing

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Virtual book world

HG Biz Plan: Virtual book world

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Virtual psychics

HG Biz Plan: Virtual psychics

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... 

HG Biz Plan: Virtual gym

HG Biz Plan: Virtual gym

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 coming sim-com boom

The coming sim-com boom

We are going to have a metaverse of interconnected virtual worlds. Whether it evolves out from the current OpenSim and the hypergrid, or from the new crop of Web-based virtual platforms, or some combination,... 

I’m building a virtual memory palace

I’m building a virtual memory palace

Back before I became a business journalist, I was a war correspondent. And I accumulated a few psychological scars as a result. In the past, I deal with some of my ghosts by lighting candles in church... 

How real is real enough?

How real is real enough?

How real does a virtual environment need to be for users to feel presence? This is a question educators have been researching in the attempt to implement virtual spaces to expand the classroom. For those... 

Unity a road to un-united worlds

Unity a road to un-united worlds

As the number of Unity-based virtual platforms proliferates, and a decent viewer for OpenSim and Second Life still remains a pipe dream, we’re getting close to the point where the center of gravity... 

What I look for in an OpenSim host

What I look for in an OpenSim host

The OpenSim hosting industry is still young, and, though it is developing quickly, still lacking in experience and maturity. But it doesn’t mean that customers have to settle for substandard service. I’ve... 

The hypergrid is not the next Web

The hypergrid is not the next Web

I am a big fan of the hypergrid. I love logging into my personal grid. Then teleporting to my company grid, or visit friends on OSGrid, or go shopping on GermanGrid. But I don’t have any illusion... 

Five ways make money with a viewer

Five ways make money with a viewer

All existing OpenSim viewers are based on the GPL-licensed open source version of the Second Life viewer. All derivative viewers also have to be open source — which makes it hard to build a business... 

Virtual Events: The New Marketing Frontier

Virtual Events: The New Marketing Frontier

The economic downturn has put a damper on tradeshow activities worldwide. Travel budgets have been tightened across the board. Attendees are less willing to hop on a plane halfway around the globe for... 

How SWIFT reduced virtual world training to 30 minutes

How SWIFT reduced virtual world training to 30 minutes

An interesting quesion arose from my ALT-C talk last week. It was basically “How can you use Second Life for teaching when it takes two hours to learn how to use it?” Which isn’t really a question,... 

Why free land is good for OpenSim

Why free land is good for OpenSim

Will free land destroy grids? There will probably a winnowing out of grids that continue to charge for residential land without offering enough additional perceived value. But the end result will, I believe,... 

Getting attention in a virtual world

Getting attention in a virtual world

A few days ago, I heard a brief talk by marketing expert Steve Harrison in which he talked about how to get attention for your message. It turns out he was speaking about how to get the attention of journalists... 

A modest proposal for hypergrid security

A modest proposal for hypergrid security

As John Rogate pointed out today, the 4096 bug — which limits hypergrid teleports to no more than 4,096 regions in any direction — is a significant impediment to hypergrid travel and to the... 

It’s time to move all grids south

It’s time to move all grids south

Hypergrid is probably one of the greatest and unifying features for OpenSim, and virtual worlds in general. Basically, virtual worlds cannot be what they should be without the hypergrid. It is the same... 

5 missing pieces in OpenSim

5 missing pieces in OpenSim

OpenSim development — like that of any open source project — is very much focused on what developers want to do. They are, after all, volunteers, they don’t take orders. That leaves business... 

Medical simulations can benefit healthcare, pharma industries

Medical simulations can benefit healthcare, pharma industries

Healthcare and the pharmaceutical industries can benefit from using training simulations and serious games in everything from sales and customer relations to helping medical professionals work with upset... 

Avaya trains sales reps virtually

Avaya trains sales reps virtually

The flight simulator celebrated its 100s anniversary a couple of years ago. A training rig was developed in 1909 to help pilots operate the control wheels of the early monoplanes in a safe environment... 

Whose side am I on?

Whose side am I on?

I’m regularly asked why I give more coverage to one company or another, or why I’m biased against particular grids or platforms. And, it’s true. I do have a bias. You see, in my day job... 

Free land might kill your grid

Free land might kill your grid

Any grid owner that makes a living by renting out premium residential regions should start planning ahead — for a future in which the effective of residential regions drops down to zero. Free is... 

5 tips for pro builders moving to OpenSim

5 tips for pro builders moving to OpenSim

Second Life builders and designers coming over to OpenSim might think that it’s the same thing, except for the lack of support for some high-end vehicle physics scripting commands — and bigger... 

OpenSim needs an installer bundle

OpenSim needs an installer bundle

I attended UMass in the early eighties when access to DARPAnet first became available to students. In the beginning, all we had was terminal-based FTP access to download TeX markup documents that we could... 

SpotON3D’s five PR mistakes

SpotON3D’s five PR mistakes

SpotON3D is a small commercial grid, with more money and programmers than customers. It has developed three innovative pieces of technology, two of which nobody cares anything about, and one, a browser-based... 

11 tips for successful virtual training

11 tips for successful virtual training

Over the last three years I’ve planned, designed, and orchestrated a dozen learning events in the virtual world of Second Life. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with extremely experienced and talented... 

Five steps to OpenSim at your school

Five steps to OpenSim at your school

I have been using OpenSim since October, 2008. The software is still in an alpha stage of development, but it has come a long way, and its usage has exploded, and will continue to do so. Linden Labs has... 

Putting SpotON3D’s patent into perspective

Putting SpotON3D’s patent into perspective

The recent furor over patents by SpotON3D is understandable. However, we may be overemphasizing that issue while staying naïve about other formidable developments. Let me begin with a specific illustration. Back... 

Why grids should still consider licensing SpotON3D’s plugin

Why grids should still consider licensing SpotON3D’s plugin

Despite the patent controversy, and public relations problems that ensued from it, SpotON3D has a good product. It’s viewer plugin wrapper might not be a technological breakthrough, but it feels... 

How to lose your copyright in three easy steps

How to lose your copyright in three easy steps

At a public forum today, an OpenSim grid executive told the audience that creators could lose their intellectual property rights if their work is copied. This is a common — and harmful — myth... 

Iggy’s rules for moderating virtual world meetings

Iggy’s rules for moderating virtual world meetings

The good folks at the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable are training new people to host our meetings, and they’ve asked us veterans to share our ideas. The following  principles have worked... 

5 reasons why OpenSim is innovating faster than Second Life

5 reasons why OpenSim is innovating faster than Second Life

In recent months, the amount of innovation coming out of the OpenSim community has been staggering. Hypergrid travel is not only more secure, but now supports cross-grid friendships, messages, and landmarks.... 

Katalab’s OurBricks shows 3D with no plugin

Katalab’s OurBricks shows 3D with no plugin

For years I have been wanting to see 3D on the web become ubiquitous and with Katalabs‘ OurBricks, I am closer than ever to seeing that dream come true. Leveraging the power of WebGL and its supported... 

Kudos to SpotON3D for viewer plugin

Kudos to SpotON3D for viewer plugin

A lot of folks sit around complaining about not having a decent Web-based viewer for OpenSim and Second Life. (Okay, maybe just me.) The existing stand-alone viewers require that users download and install... 

SpotOn3d releases browser plugin for OpenSim

SpotOn3d releases browser plugin for OpenSim

There have been several attempts over the past year to create a viewer for Second Life and OpenSim based virtual environments that would run in a browser. I’ve tried to write about them all, from... 

The ‘official’ real me is legion

The ‘official’ real me is legion

Until yesterday, I’ve been keeping up with — but haven’t been particularly concerned about — the Google Plus real names controversy. After all, I already used my real name in all... 

Freebies need licenses

Freebies need licenses

First of all, I’d like to thank all the creative folks who are creating original products and distributing them in freebie stores on OSGrid, JokaydiaGrid, GermanGrid, FrancoGrid, and many other locations. OpenSim... 

5 grid design mistakes

5 grid design mistakes

I’ve been traveling around the hypergrid a lot lately enjoying the new hypergrid landmarks, friends, and messages — and updating the Hyperica directory. And I’ve been amazed at how far... 

5 reasons not to rush to Unity

5 reasons not to rush to Unity

Yesterday, I wrote up 5 reasons to rush to Unity 3D (with an extra bonus reason). Yes, the platform is technically advanced and easy to use, great for marketing and business applications — but Unity... 

5 reasons to rush to Unity 3D

5 reasons to rush to Unity 3D

Two major players in the OpenSim community have recently joined ReactionGrid in promoting the Unity 3D platform. In addition to ReactionGrid’s Jibe environment, we now also have Second Learning’s... 

Free campus released

Free campus released

Educators and companies looking for free, Creative Commons-licensed starting regions for their corporate or school campuses should take a look at Universal Campus. These four regions were originally created... 

Five top metaverse blogs

Five top metaverse blogs

I subscribe to a lot of virtual world-related blogs in my RSS reader (click here for the bundle) , and follow a lot more on Twitter (click here for the list). Here are the five that I check in on daily. i... 

Jibe vs. OpenSim

Jibe vs. OpenSim

Jibe is a new, Unity 3D-based virtual environment created by ReactionGrid, one of the leading OpenSim hosting vendors. Many people confuse the two platforms, but they are very different environments. In... 

10 marketing triggers

10 marketing triggers

As the number of new grids proliferates, grid owners need to look beyond “cheaper than Second Life” as their key marketing ploy. Instead, why not try one of these time-tested strategies? 1.... 

The Machinimist Marketer: Low-cost book promotion for authors

The Machinimist Marketer: Low-cost book promotion for authors

Machinima isn’t just for music anymore. People from all different walks of life are finding ways to take advantage of the virally spread mini movies, the latest being writers. I discovered that on...