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In addition to the official distribution of the OpenSimulator software, there are several variations of the open-source virtual world platform, including the mini-grid Diva Distro version, the easy-to-install-at-home DreamGrid version, the HalcyonGrid distribution from the now-defunct InWorldz grid, the AuroraSim distribution which hasn’t been updated since 2014, the still activelyRead More →

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Nearly 400 valid responses came in for the Tenth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Craft World received the highest overall scores, followed by Encore Escape, Utopia Skye, and 3rd Rock Grid, in that order. Craft World, which will turn ten years old on January 27, is not only one of theRead More →

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If you, like me, are looking to launch a little OpenSim grid of your own — or even a big commercial grid — but you don’t want to mess with all the details of setting up and configuring servers, installing and patching the software, managing the network connections and loadRead More →

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Kitely rolled out its virtual private grid service at the beginning of the year. Today, I finally decided to try it out. The bottom line? It looks like a good option for schools, non-profits and companies that need a way to handle lots of different users and regions, and needRead More →

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The Kitely Market, OpenSim’s largest commercial content marketplace, has passed the 30,000 item milestone this month. The market currently delivers to 345 different grids, both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. (Instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.) According to Kitely co-founder and CEO IlanRead More →

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  Kitely rolled out their new private grid service yesterday, and there’s a lot of information there to take in all at once. It’s not a full separate OpenSim grid, like you’d get from DigiWorldz or Dreamland Metaverse. Instead, it seems more like something halfway between a Kitely region and yourRead More →

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Kitely  is now offering private grids for organizations, the company announced today. For more information, check out this Kitely support thread. There are a lot of questions about how this will work. I will be posting a longer article tomorrow. If you have any comments or questions, add them below,Read More →

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The Second Life-based Community Virtual Library is opening two branches in OpenSim next summer, on the Kitely and Avacon grids. The two new library branches will be CVL Hypergrid Resource Libraries with content designed to help people navigate virtual worlds across grids with various viewers. How to help Many peopleRead More →

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Elf Clan, one of the largest themed communities in OpenSim, has found a new home after the collapse of InWorldz. It will now be headquartered on OSgrid, with hypergrid linked locations on DigiWorlds, Kitely, and other hypergrid-enabled grids. Full list of affiliated locations is here. “After our experience with SecondRead More →

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In the comments section on one of the several InWorldz-related articles these past few days, I saw some people talking about whether OpenSim is safe for content. The idea being that InWorldz was somehow safer because it’s not OpenSim. First, InWorldz IS OpenSim. It’s just another fork off the OpenSimRead More →

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OpenSim grids are welcoming former InWorldz residents with open arms, offering technical support to get their OARs uploaded, discounts on region rentals, and even free homes and stores. Scroll down for details about special offers. Where to go For people looking for a closed, commercial grid — no hypergrid travelRead More →

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Kitely will soon offer the option of hosting Virtual Private Grids on top of the Kitely grid, the company announced this week. According to the company, this new offering will enable groups and organizations to benefit from Kitely’s stability, performance and ease of use while gaining a new level ofRead More →

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After Europe’s new data privacy regulations, GDPR, went into effect on May 25, OpenSim users saw a flurry of requests from grid owners asking them to agree to new privacy policies. Sometimes, those messages would pop up in the middle of a hypergrid trip, hindering travel. DigiWorldz, for example, hasRead More →

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The public OpenSim grids lost the equivalent of nearly 4,000 regions, for a new total land area of 80,671 standard region equivalents. The number of active monthly users dropped by 2,580, to reach a total of 35,399. Most of the land area losses were due to a regular cleanup on OSgrid,Read More →

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OpenSim land area and users rose slightly this month, despite outages and maintenance on several grids. Atek was down for a while before later resuming, as was Virtuality Grid, while Kinky Grid also went under construction temporarily. Tangle Grid is currently still down for maintenance. And Gevolution was doing loadRead More →

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Child avatars are a sensitive topic in virtual worlds. For some users, the presence of child avatars opens the possibility of inappropriate sexual roleplay, which is at best extremely creepy and, at worst, illegal. For other users, child avatars are a necessity for grids with an educational focus. And forRead More →

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OpenSim land area continued to increase gaining a total of 3,400 standard region equivalents this month — after gaining more than 9,000 regions last month. The number of active users also increased by 1,300. OSgrid is still the biggest grid with a total of 20,203 standard region equivalents, followed byRead More →

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About a week ago, a social media post accused a region on the Kitely grid of distributing infringing content. Strictly speaking, any infringement complaint needs to be made by the original content creator, through official channels. That wasn’t the case here. It was a pseudonymous user, DMCA GridSkipper, claiming that the FashionistasRead More →

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OpenSim land area fell by the equivalent of  8,667 standard regions, and active users dropped by 3,473 due to combination of school holidays and fewer grids reporting stats than in the last couple of months. In addition to InWorldz, Great Canadian Grid, and The Adult Grid, other grids that did notRead More →

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This May, a major new regulation goes into effect — the European General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. It affects any company anywhere in the world that collects data on Europeans. And yes, that includes emails and IP addresses, and there’s no minimum company size required. If you’re an organized grid,Read More →

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One of the most important numbers in OpenSim is how many new people sign up for accounts each month. New people means new customers for merchants, new creators and performers who help improve quality of life on the grid, new people to interact with, and, of course, potential new landRead More →

Hypergrid Business Data December

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OpenSim’s public grids reached a new high in active users this month, as traffic went up more than 7 percent, or nearly 2,500 actives. There are now 34,881 active monthly users on the grids that report these figures. The OpenSim Community Conference last weekend accounted for 335 of the new actives,Read More →

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OpenSim land area grew by the equivalent of 3,905 standard regions last month, a new record high of 88,225 regions. This was despite the fact that several large grids have stopped publishing land area stats, including InWorldz, Great Canadian Grid, and The Adult Grid. The biggest gainer was OSgrid which addedRead More →

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Although many creators do not speak up, theft and illegal distribution of their content is hurting their morale and creativity, and may even be driving some out of OpenSim altogether. One creator of mesh avatars, who did not want to be named, saw her products distributed full perms across multipleRead More →

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The total land area of the public OpenSim grids fell by more than 1,000 regions this month as ZanGrid shut down and Genesis Metaverse moved its hosting. Total active users numbers continued to rise, however, with about 2,000 new actives. Zangrid, which had 439 regions as of last month, is closingRead More →

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OpenSim’s public grids gained 2,546 active users this month, and land area increased as well, by the equivalent of 2,475 standard region. OSgrid gained the largest land area — 4,440 new standard region equivalents, followed by DigiWorldz with 848, Virtual Worlds Grid with 441, Kitely with 411 and Atek Grid with 256Read More →

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[Editor’s note: In this opinion column, Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner is responding to High Fidelity’s content protection plan, which uses the same blockchain technology as that which powers Bitcoin. Tochner previously managed an identity rights protection company, IDChoice, and worked in Unit 8200, Israel’s equivalent of the NSA.] First, I’d likeRead More →

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Starting your own grid isn’t easy. You need your own servers, membership website, plus, of course, residents. Plus, if you want an in-world economy, you have to put payments in place. There are hosting providers, like DigiWorldz and Dreamland Metaverse, that will do all of this, but it takes quiteRead More →

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The total reported land area of OpenSim’s public grids has passed 80,000 regions — a record high. This is despite the fact that InWorldz, the most popular OpenSim grid, did not report its land area this month. The total number of registered users went up by 9,764, and even the numberRead More →

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The first meeting of the Hypergrid Chamber of Commerce will be at 11 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, July 21 and several major players in the OpenSim economy have officially joined as members, including Gloebit, Podex, and Kitely. Another early supporter is GamesCredit, which offers cryptocurrency-based in-game payments. The group plans to work on standards forRead More →

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Public OpenSim grids gained the equivalent of 1,257 regions this month, while the number of active users rose by 511, after falling for the past three months in a row. Great Canadian Grid, InWorldz and The Adult Grid did not provide full data this data, as was the case theRead More →

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OpenSim lost land area and active users this month — on paper, at least — as one large commercial grid did not report its stats this month, and another grid suffered an outage. The total OpenSim land area fell by 442 regions this month, to reach 72,978 standard region equivalents. ThisRead More →

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Key OpenSim stats fell this month, as two popular grids — InWorldz and The Adult Grid — opted not to report their total land area or their active users. InWorldz has been the most popular grid every month from 2012 on, and had 5,276 active users last month. However, bothRead More →

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OpenSim grids reported a net fall in both regions and active users this month, but the regions drop was due to one grid with server issues, and the active users drop was due to a couple of grids that had problems with their stats. Overall, OpenSim lost 975 active users this month,Read More →

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The Kitely Market has passed the $100,000 sales milestone, the grid announced last week. The Kitely Market, which now delivers to 174 different OpenSim grids, is the leading online marketplace for OpenSim content. It accepts payment in both the in-world currency, Kitely Credits, and through PayPal. Merchants who sell via PayPal canRead More →

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Active user numbers on the OpenSim hypergrid  crossed the 80 percent share mark this month, reaching a new record high, while the hypergrid share of land area reached 95 percent, another new record high. The hypergrid gained 1,781 new active users to reach a new high of 30,655, or 81Read More →

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The total amount of money spent on purchases over the VirTec OpenSim vending machines network nearly doubled last year, increasing by 92 percent from $4,206 in 2015 to $8,080 in 2016, the company reported. Meanwhile, the total number of transaction increased nearly three-fold. In 2015, the company’s first year offering the OpenSim vending service,Read More →

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Public OpenSim grids gained land area, registered users, and active users this month, with active users reaching a new all-time high. Grids reported a net increase of 638 active users, for a new total of 36,330 actives, despite the end of the OpenSimulator Community Conference. That event accounted for a one-time additionRead More →

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Last year was a mixed year for OpenSim grids. Active users were up, but the increase was much lower than in the previous year. The increase in registered users was also smaller, but this was mostly due to a multi-month outage on Avination, which is still down. Land area actually shrank thisRead More →

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OpenSim users can buy legal mesh bodies for their avatars — and the news has helped keep noted designer Linda Kellie from leaving. “Jessica Random and I sat down the other day and made a pro and con list,” she wrote in a post yesterday. “And in the end one ofRead More →

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Kitely has added a complete classifieds system to enable users to buy classified ads using Kitely Credits, as well as new search tabs in the viewer to allow people to search for avatars, OpenSim groups, parcels, events and added classifieds. To access the new “People,” “Places,” “Events,” and “Classifieds” search tabs,Read More →

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Christmas and winter themed events, virtual tours, skating, creative contests, parties, and dances have already hit the ground running in various grids. A number of grids are also offering you to hunt and win cash and other gifts, or buy lands at cheaper prices. Many will also be hosting newRead More →

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Kitely Market sales have increased significantly over the past year, Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. The market now delivers licensed OpenSim content to 162 grids, with 16,364 product variations grouped under 8,551 listings. Of the variations, 11,394 are sold with the export permission, meaning that they can beRead More →

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Update: The data and chart have been updated to include the full 2016 calendar year. Almost every month, at least one person complains about why InWorldz is listed in our stats, or included in our surveys. Some people complain that InWorldz is not on the hypergrid, meaning that people can’tRead More →

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A number of grids are hosting Halloween themed events, destinations, parties and hunts this month. Halloween Dance at Littlefield Grid Littlefield Grid has dedicated the Halloween Themed region to host the event for the entire month of October. There will also be a costume party and Halloween Dance at 8Read More →

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Update: I missed a couple of grids in the first version of the story, AllCity updated their stats, and I removed Alife Virtual’s stats from the report because of questions about their accuracy. Read full story here. Only a small handful of grids had problems this month, while the restRead More →

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A complex mesh object can significantly slow down the loading of a region — as much as ten minutes, in some cases, according to Oren Hurvitz, co-founder and VP of R&D at Kitely. That’s a significant problem for Kitely in particular because the grid’s regions are all loaded on demand. TheyRead More →