Survey: How do you use OpenSim?

More than 100 people responded to our survey of how people use OpenSim, and the results are in — the majority of people use OpenSim for work and for creative self-expression.

The first question of the survey asked people who they were.

OpenSim user roles
Who uses OpenSim. (Hypergrid Business data.)

The single biggest group of respondents, or about 40 percent, only used OpenSim for personal uses.

But about 60 percent, or almost two-thirds of the user base, also uses it for work or study. This could be a reflection of the readership base of Hypergrid Business, however, since we focus more on the enterprise, development, and education side of OpenSim than on in-world socializing.

These numbers were roughly similar, to within one or two percentage points, of when this same survey was conducted back in 2013.

Overall OpenSim Uses
Percent of respondents who use OpenSim for each of these purposes. Numbers add up to more than 100 percent because people were allowed to pick more than one choice. (Hypergrid Business data.)

We also asked people how they use OpenSim, and creative self-expression was in the lead, which makes sense given the heavy weighting towards personal users, and the fact that many other users, in addition to their work or school-related use, also used OpenSim creatively.

To see more clearly how different groups of respondents used OpenSim, I broke them out by individual roles.

How different groups use OpenSim. (Hypergrid Business data.)
How different groups use OpenSim. (Hypergrid Business data.)

Personal users were most likely to use OpenSim for socializing, for example, followed by creative self-expression and then role playing.

Designers were more likely than all other groups to use OpenSim to create products, which makes sense. Meanwhile, developers and educators were more likely to use OpenSim for virtual walk-throughs and rapid prototyping than other groups.

And educators and business users were more likely to use OpenSim for virtual meetings, as well as for training and simulations.

One random survey respondent has won their choice of a Google Cardboard-compatible headset, and has been notified. Congratulations!

Maria Korolov