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Folks regularly share textures in the various Google Plus communities, and I’ve long wished that there was a place I could go to look through them all, instead of having to download them the minute I see them because I might not find them again. In particular, I want aRead More →

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A little while ago, I noticed a familiar headline in a Google alert on a topic I follow — it was my own article, reprinted without permission on some other site! I quickly sent off this email: The following article on the website somewebsite.com, hosted by SomeHostingCompany, was reprinted without permission. Infringing article: TheRead More →

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Last night, on In World Review, a major topic of discussion was how horrendously difficult Blender is to use. You can’t just install it and start playing around. I tried, and it almost killed me. No obvious mouse gestures work. The menus don’t make sense. In fact, there are threeRead More →

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In order to write about how to create stuff for sale on the Kitely Market, I’ve been playing around with baked-on clothing textures. In the process, I’ve learned a few more things about using layers to create textures with GIMP. Say, for example, you want to create a piece ofRead More →

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The second annual Silicon Valley Virtual Reality conference is next week, and I’ll be there, representing both Women in Virtual Reality and Hypergrid Business. If any other readers are coming, I’d love to meet up with you. I’m flying in on Saturday night, and have all of Sunday open. InRead More →

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Is there a particular kind of virtual content you need, and can’t find — and are seriously considering making yourself? For example, my time in virtual worlds is all spent working — mostly, attending business meetings, hosting shows, interviewing people. I like to wear skirts when I do this, but most skirtsRead More →

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One-man — and one-woman — shops are putting content in danger across the metaverse. Documentation, code, virtual content, even entire grids are at risk when it’s just one person running the project. Radegast, METAbolt and LibOpenMetaverse One of the key foundations of OpenSim is LibOpenMetaverse — originally LibSecondLife — whichRead More →

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The pages of this site have been loading up in the mobile style rather than the desktop view . It’s happening for everybody, and I appreciate the problem, and thank people for letting me know. So I know it’s not just me, or just one particular browser or computer setup.Read More →

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It’s busy week. So busy, that I almost didn’t even notice when post number 2,000 went up – CloudServe shifts to wholesale market. Hypergrid Business first went live in March with the post The future of the Internet is coming on. Since then, we’ve averaged 32 posts per month, or a little bitRead More →

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There are many reasons to go into the freebie business on OpenSim: Create brand-name recognition for yourself as a designer in order to sell premium content Create brand-name recognition in order to do custom work To attract people to your grid, community, role playing group, casino, or event venue To helpRead More →

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For those interested in learning how to work with mesh objects, there’s a new series of Blender tutorials available online from Ontario-based retired artist Aine Caoimhe — also known as Mata Hari in-world. Blender is a free but powerful 3D modeling and animation program available for download here. It supports theRead More →

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As everyone who has ever tried to set up a hyperport well knows, hypergrid destinations change frequently. Regions move, grids close — staying up to date can be a nightmare. Especially if you’re doing it all by hand. To help people out, and to avoid unnecessary duplication of work, I’veRead More →

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I don’t usually go around telling people what the best grids are. I run surveys, or I punt the question and just say, “What ever grid works best for you” or “Your own private grid” or something like that. The thing is, everybody is looking for something different. Some peopleRead More →

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Monthly pageviews for Hypergrid Business crossed the 100,000 milestone for the first time in its six-year history, according to today’s Google Analytics report. Visitors viewed 101,371 pages in February, up from 97,036 pages in January. Both of these numbers are a significant increase over last year, when monthly pageviews typicallyRead More →

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Are you launching a new grid? I bet you’re looking for some combination of “virtual,” “paradise,” “life,” “world,” and “avatar” that haven’t been used yet. Stop! If you use a grid name that reminds people of other OpenSim grids then you will have triple the branding challenge you would have otherwise.Read More →

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Someday soon, we will have a virtual reality metaverse. A fantastical place, limited only by our imaginations, where time and space mean nothing and experiences are shared as easily as bit and bytes are today. What technology will form the basis of this metaverse? Will it be created by Facebook?Read More →

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I think, looking back, we’ll see 2014 as a pivotal year in the growth of the metaverse. This was the year that early adopters realized that virtual reality was on its way, the hypergrid came into its own, Google Plus became the social platform of choice for metaverse residents, theRead More →

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First of all, if you despise Kim Kardashian and all that she stands for and have no appreciation for her business model, I’m telling you right up front you’re not going to appreciate this article. Also, if you don’t like it when people look at you, point their fingers andRead More →

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We all know that qualified tech staffers cost money. But how much money, exactly? It’s not like you can look up the going rate for an OpenSim grid administrator … or can you? A grid admin is a lot like the webmasters we used to have back in the earlyRead More →

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I’ve been following the drama surrounding AviWorlds much, much closer than I would have liked — because I keep getting emails from the folks involved, and also because it’s my job. And I can honestly say that I don’t know who owns AviWorlds anymore, who runs it, and why peopleRead More →

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You may have seen the recent flood of announcements from companies jumping on the virtual reality bandwagon. Movie studios, hotel chains, car companies are releasing virtual experiences at a furious pace. Most people are either excited or confused by all the attention, but a few have been upset at theRead More →

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Seems that there’s a mania for mergers going on. Next Reality and SkyLife Grid merged with AviWorlds. 3D Grid merged with Metropolis. And now Lost World grid is merging with AviWorlds, too. Is there a merger in your grid’s future? Take this quiz to find out!Read More →

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I just noticed that KZero has an excellent new design. Perfect timing, too — as interest in virtual reality is exploding, so is the need for virtual worlds consultants of all kind. Arch Virtual also has an excellent new site, as does Designing Digitally. Of course, lots of vendors in ourRead More →

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This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article about the rules of grid competition. So you’ve decided to avoid self-sabotaging, unproductive, negative types of marketing and competition. What’s left? Lots of stuff! 1. Market your cool new features Don’t expect people to notice it when you add a major improvement toRead More →

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As OpenSim grows bigger and bigger, some grids might think that an easy way to gain customers would be to bash other grids. For example, AviWorlds grid owner Alexsandro Pomposelli said in a recent comment, “For me a competitor is my mortal enemy.” Now, I’m all in favor of competitionRead More →

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Now that the Hyperica hyperport is starting to get into shape, I’ve set out some free hypergates for people. Just teleport over to hg.hyperica.com:8022 and pick them up. I’ve got some all-in-one gates, like the one from The Hypergates, and a Blamgate from Pathfinder, and Diva Canto’s teleporter. The gate fromRead More →

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The Hyperica hyperport gets a decent amount of traffic, and has a few scripts running on it. Plus, I recently rearranged the grid, and my hosting company updated our software. Let’s just say that region restarts are common place. And my gate scripts kept breaking. It’s turns out, this wasn’tRead More →

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The hypergrid turns six years old on October 26. On that day in 2008, Crista Lopes, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, sent an email to the OpenSim developers mailing list. “I started working on an extension to OpenSim that makes it work in peer-to-peer mode… I’mRead More →

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I just spent an hour Googling around for this because half the tutorials out there are for older versions of GIMP, so they no longer work! But I needed some quick gold and silver textures — and this technique works for silks, as well. Here’s how to do it. CreateRead More →

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We all love OpenSim. That’s why we’re here. But some of us aren’t as good at communicating it as others. One reason could be that a large part of the human population, especially the technically savvy and the creative folks, hate the idea of marketing. They’ve been the victims ofRead More →

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For my hypergate portals, I’ve been using a texture I made a few years back, before I really knew my way around GIMP. So it’s a little jerky. Tonight, I made a new texture and it’s much simpler and easier than the first time I did it. First, you makeRead More →

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The Fifth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey is closing tonight and many of the smaller but still worthwhile grids still haven’t received enough votes. So later on this year, I’m doing another survey — one of favorite hypergrid destinations. What is the best place to go shopping? To hang out withRead More →

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One annoying problem I’ve had with hypergate teleport scripts is that some regions have the right threat level settings to run walk-through scripts, while others don’t, and require a different command to activate the teleport. Users had to know what their threat levels were — and who knows that? AndRead More →

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Avatar Social Network has recently passed SL Universe in Alexa traffic rank, making it the leading dedicated platform for avatars to discuss virtual world topics. “Now of course at the moment it may not mean much,” Avatar Social Network founder Arkad Baxton told Hypergrid Business. “But if it’s maintained or getRead More →

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I have served on my share of non-profit boards. Still do, as a matter of fact. And most of these nonprofits have one thing in common: they spend money. Sorry, they have two things in common: they also raise money. In fact, raising money is usually a core function of theRead More →

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Folks who’ve tried to add destinations to the Hyperica directory in the past often complained about the length of time it takes to add their regions and grids. The old form used to go to a Google Spreadsheet, was difficult to use, and often did not notify us when aRead More →

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After I created yesterday’s Hillary Clinton Avatar and uploaded it to the Kitely Marketplace, Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner reminded me that, with an adult skin, it needs to go into the “Adult” category — I would need to create a new skin for a “General” listing. He pointed me to aRead More →

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Last week, I wrote about how I updated my avatar look and copied my shape across grids. I updated my skin, as well, to more closely resemble my actual face without being too creepy. Here is how I did it. Step One: Start with a good freebie skin If youRead More →

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I’ve read on Ener Hax’s blog that you can use Imprudence to copy shapes from Second Life. This month, I redid my skin — using my much-improved GIMP skills to combine an actual picture of myself with a Linda Kellie skin template. And then used that same photograph to tryRead More →

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If you are a grid owner or event organizer looking for more hypergrid visitors, you can submit your calendar for inclusion in the Hyperica website. Just email me the iCal link or your Google calendar link, at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. For recurring events or major events, you can also include a linkRead More →

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Everybody talks about the fact that we need better search functionality in OpenSim, but there are few solutions out there. Why today’s automated searches don’t work Keyword search is what Metaverse Ink does, created by hypergrid inventor Crista Lopes, also known as Diva Canto in-world. Searching for “shoes,” for exampleRead More →

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Justin Clark-Casey’s monthly OpenSim development update reminded me that OpenSim now has a new command for grid owners — “show grid size.” The command counts up all the land area on a grid, including the land of variable-sized regions, and gives the answer in terms of square kilometers. And afterRead More →

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A grid’s welcome region is like the home page of a website. It’s where new users arrive for the first time, and where hypergrid travelers land if all they know is the grid’s loginURI. For example, OSgrid’s welcome region is LBSA Plaza. Its full hypergrid address is hg.osgrid.org:80:lbsa plaza  but hg.osgrid.org:80 worksRead More →

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So you’ve decided to start a commercial grids, hosting company, or consulting firm. Congratulations! But customers aren’t breaking down the doors like you expected. You could blame the customers for not being smart enough to appreciate what you’re offering. Or you could check and see if you’re making any ofRead More →

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In a recent comment thread, some readers have asked questions about OpenSim’s long-term goals and road map. I’m going to offer some suggestions now, and ask you, my readers, to contribute others in the comments. Then I will do a survey of our readership to find out which long-term featuresRead More →

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There’s a number of things to be said about the publicity Linden Lab recently attracted for moving developers towards a next-generation version of Second Life. It’s bad for OpenSim. OpenSim still draws the majority of its users from Second Life due to the fact that it uses the same interface.Read More →

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I’ve recently switched my advertising management platform from AdSpeed to Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business. It was a big change — I’d been using AdSpeed almost since Hypergrid Business was first launched five years ago. Since grids — especially commercial grids — can offer advertising to their customers onRead More →

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I’m a big believer in OpenSim. One reason is that I get to hear about large projects and deployments that use OpenSim that I’m not allowed to talk about. There are organizations out there paying sizeable sums for OpenSim builds and custom development work. Meanwhile, I also talk to vendorsRead More →