Content tops user wish list

What do OpenSim users want for most of all? Content. According to this year’s OpenSim  Hosting Survey, 35 percent of respondents most wanted an online marketplace, and 30 percent wanted a bigger selection of content — and 53 percent picked one or the other, or both.

In third place was a web-based viewer, with 25 percent of respondents putting it on their list.

Vehicle physics was fourth, at 22 percent, possibly due to significant improvements this year with bullet physics and variable-sized regions.

(Hypergrid Business survey data.)
Most wanted features for OpenSim. (Hypergrid Business survey data.)

Last year, vehicle physics topped everyone’s wish list, with 53 percent of respondents saying that was a feature that they really missed.

Hypergrid most appreciated

For customers of OpenSim hosting providers, hypergrid connectivity was the single most appreciated feature of OpenSim, with 81 percent voting for it.

Having your own grid was second, at 71 percent, followed by low prices and region backups, at 66 percent each. Inventory backups were appreciated by 63 percent of customers.

In addition, 52 percent appreciated the fact that OpenSim was open source software. and nearly half, 48 percent, appreciated having higher prim limits.

(Hypergrid Business survey data.)
Most appreciated features of OpenSim. (Hypergrid Business survey data.)

By comparison, last year hypergrid was in fifth place, after region backups, low prices, open source software and inventory backups. Having your own grid was in sixth place.

This could be an indication that the hypergrid is becoming more robust and usable, and that customers who previously would have been happy having regions on another grid are now looking to be set up on their own.

If so, this survey could be an indication that hosting providers need to adjust their marketing to promote hypergrid and having your own grid higher than they did before.

Plus, given the interest in content and an online marketplace, hosting providers should consider making Kitely Market access a marketing feature, as well.

Any grid, both on and off the hypergrid, can get deliveries from the Kitely Market, but there are some configuration steps that the hosting company needs to handle for grids that are not hypergrid-enabled — instructions are here.

Maria Korolov