OpenSim grids grow 10% this month

The world’s top 40 OpenSim-based grids gained over 900 regions over the past month, from 8,626 to 9,533, an increase of more than 10 percent.

As usual, OSGrid was the single biggest gainer, with 609 new regions. The biggest growth was at OSGrid, which gained 847 regions. OSGrid allows anyone to connect a region for free, and also offers an automated region launcher, making it even easier for home-based users to set up their own worlds at no cost.

The grid that showed the single largest percentage point increase was Germany’s Metropolis grid, which increased 50 percent in size, from 118 to 178 regions. France’s FrancoGrid grew 44 percent, from 198 to 285 regions.

Lee Oldrich's hides a Shamrock for the St. Patrick's Day scavenger hunt on OSGrid.

New public grids continue to hit our radar. This month, we begin tracking Tertiary Grid, New Zealand Virtual World Grid, Austia Grid and Psychedelia. We’re no longer tracking OpenLife Grid or Legend City Online, as we haven’t been able to get confirmed region counts for these grids. In addition, OpenLife Grid is not compatible with standard OpenSim and Second Life browsers and has diverged significantly from the standard OpenSim code base. If this changes, we will begin tracking it again.

In other major grid news last month, Virwox has created a new multi-grid virtual currency, Open Metaverse Currency (OMC), which works much like Linden Dollars do on the Second Life grid. OMC even works with hypergrid teleports, allowing users to shop for products across multiple grids — and bring their purchases home with them. Four grids have already signed up with the system, which is free to grid owners, merchants and shoppers — the company makes its money whenÂ the currency is exchanged.Â The four grids are GermanGrid, Grid4Us, OpenNeuland, and WilderWesten.

March Region Counts

OSGrid: 5,485 regions
ScienceSim: 617 regions
The New World Grid: 395 regions
FrancoGrid: 285 regions
ReactionGrid: 252 regions
MyOpenGrid: 230 regions
Cyberlandia: 221 regions
Open Neuland: 216 regions
WorldSimTerra: 198 regions
Meta7 (K-Grid): 186 regions
Metropolis: 178 regions
3rd Rock Grid: 144 regions
Avatar Hangout: 142 regions
InWorldz: 130 regions
Role Play Worlds (formerly Gor Life): 128 regions
SpotOn 3D: 124 regions
Grid4Us: 104 regions
Virtyou: 96 regions
Twisted Sky: 46 regions
Pseudospace: 41 regions
Your Alternative Life: 39 regions
GiantGrid: 38 regions
German Grid: 28 regions
Eden Realm: 26 regions
ONGENS: 22 regions
Tertiary Grid: 18 regions
Unica Universe: 17 regions
New Zealand Virtual World Grid: 17 regions
Virtual Univ. of Edinburgh: 14 regions
V-Business: 13 regions
UFS Grid (formerly DSGrid): 11 regions
TlÃ¶n : 11 regions
Jamland: 10 regions
AnSky: 9 regions
Open Kansai: 9 regions
Emerald Network: 9 regions
Austia Grid: 8 regions
Wilder Westen: 6 regions
2lifeGrid: 5 regions
Psychedelia: 4 regions

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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.