The total land area in OpenSim fell this month by over 3,000 standard region equivalents, the total number of registered users fell by just over 1,000, and the number of active monthly users dropped by 425 compared to this time last month.
The region loss was due to the fact that Discovery Grid did not report its region totals this month. In April, the grid reported 5,178 standard region equivalents.
The numerical losses were not due to 3rd Rock Grid’s closure yesterday, since that grid still showed up as active for the past four weeks and did report its stats. Its loss will show up in next month’s stats report.
The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 135,700 standard regions this month, down from last month’s all-time high — and still several times bigger that the total land area of Second Life.
The biggest gainer in terms of land area was OSgrid, which gained 1,160 new standard region equivalents, maintaining its status as the largest public grid in OpenSim. It was followed in growth numbers by ZetaWorlds with 1,024 new regions and Wolf Territories Grid with 384 new regions.
At the same time, the number of active users dropped to 47,195.
Wolf Territories Grid retained their first-place position by traffic numbers.
I’m now tracking a total of 2,661 OpenSim grids, of which 307 were active, and 249 published their statistics this month. If you have a stats page that we’re not tracking, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com — that way, your grid will be mentioned in this report every month, for additional visibility with both search engines and users.
Also, I’m no longer sending out a monthly email blast reminding OpenSim grid owners to send me news and updates for this report. If you have news, please email me before the tenth of the month if you want a short item included in this monthly wrap-up. For longer news, feel free to send me press releases at any time.
OpenSim land area for May 2024. (Hypergrid Business data.).
Our stats do not include many of the grids running on DreamGrid which is a distribution of OpenSim since these tend to be private grids.
OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.
Every month on the 15th — right after the stats report comes out — we will be sending out a newsletter with all the OpenSim news from the previous month. You can subscribe here or fill out the form below.
Top 25 grids by active users
When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.
All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.
Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.
Today was the last day of 3rd Rock Grid, one of the oldest grids in OpenSim.
Empty welcome region on 3rd Rock Grid. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)
The grid announced that it was closing back in March, and, since then, many of the former residents have found their way to other grids, with ZetaWorlds being a popular destination.
Start at Sirocco, which is slated to by the administrative hub of the new 3rd Rock Grid expat community once its done. There is already land available for rent, starting at $2.50 a month for a 10,000-prim Second Life-sized region.
The community rented a dedicated servers from ZetaWorlds and, as a non-profit, can offer very low land prices, said Alia Soulstar, a founder of the 3rd Wind Community.
There are also arts and education areas and other public lands, she told Hypergrid Business, with a total land area of more than 800 standard region equivalents.
“We had a month-long series of community meetings where we invited the owners of a handful of grids to come and talk,” Soulstar said. “Then we had a long discussion and choose this grid. A lot of the choice was based around the flexibility of having a dedicated server to design our own community around. The general feeling was that we wanted to stay together as a family, so we made the collective decision to move here.”
Land office on the Sirocco region of ZetaWorlds, with 3rd Wind Community founders Alia Soulstar and Ellemir Maven. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)
She recommends that people start on the Sirocco region of ZetaWorlds, where they can find out about land ownership and get other administrative information.
Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Sirocco.
“We are still under construction so haven’t made a landmark map yet, but will have that up in a few days,” she said.
People also gather on the beach on the Peapod region and Risa on the Anubis region.
Peapod region on ZetaWorlds. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)
Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Peapod.
But the most popular location is Infinity region’s Starfleet Infinity area, home to bars, dance places, space stations, and starships.
Departures on the Starfleet area of the Infinity region on ZetaWorlds. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)
Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Infinity.
Still on the Infinity region. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)
Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Anubis and hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Infinity.
There are also music venues on the Khamsin region, she said, with live performances four to five times per week.
Hal 9000 simulator on the Khamsin region of ZetaWorlds. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)
Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Khamsin.
For those who haven’t yet transfered their regions or avatar inventories, there is still time, said Soulstar. ” 3rd Rock Grid created OARs of all the regions there and will hold them in cloud storage for a year so they can be reclaimed, and a number of IARs for active users, too. And we are able to load OARs and IARs for recovery, so all is not lost if you find yourself locked out.”
ZetaWorlds will upload the OAR region export files and IAR inventory files for users, she said, and the 3rd Wind Community will help with the process.
The OARs will be “kept for the foreseable future,” 3rd Rock Grid board member Tara Dockery, also known as Thoria Millgrove in-world, said yesterday. “We will provide those OARs to the registered owners upon request.”
Her own region, Peapod, is already on ZetaWorlds, along with its events, Dockery told Hypergrid Business.
I have a new OpenSim grid stats report coming out tomorrow, so I’ve been surfing OpenSim grid websites these last couple of days, looking for errant stats pages. And that means that I’ve been looking at a lot of grid home pages.
And there are some really pretty ones out there! And some grids truly use their websites to show off what they’ve got to offer.
But most grids, I’m afraid, miss the mark. If you’re a public grid and want to attract traffic, or a commercial grid looking to rent out land, you’re leaving money on the table by not having these five elements on your home page.
A beautiful picture that shows people enjoying your grid
A picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to your OpenSim grid’s website, the right picture can make all the difference. As I browsed through dozens of grid home pages this week, I was struck by how few of them featured images of people enjoying themselves. In fact, I could only find four examples, and two were avatars from other platforms, not actual grid residents.
This is a missed opportunity. Your grid’s home page is the perfect place to showcase the fun and excitement that awaits visitors. Even if your grid is brand new, you can still create engaging images. Pose some alts in dance animations, have them chatting in a cafe, building a house, working in a garden, or raising farm animals. The possibilities are endless.
Too often, grid slideshows and images focus on empty spaces — a deserted dance floor, a vacant cafe, a barren island, or a lonely rock. Sure, sometimes it’s a pretty rock, but it’s still just an empty landscape. The same goes for pictures of museums or shopping areas — if they’re devoid of people, they look like ghost towns.
By featuring images of empty spaces, you’re sending a subconscious message to potential visitors: “Our grid is an empty wasteland.” That’s not the impression you want to make. Instead, show people having a great time on your grid. Capture the excitement of a fashion show, the energy of a rock concert, or the camaraderie of a community event.
If you don’t have a skilled photographer on your grid, consider reaching out to the OpenSim community. There are plenty of talented photographers who would be happy to take some great shots of people enjoying your grid.
One of the grids that featured prominent images of people enjoying themselves in their world was the New Life Italy grid.
I’m not saying that every grid should put a picture of a dance floor on their home page. OpenSim grids would all look pretty much identical if everybody did this. Hopefully, your grid has more to offer than just dancing, or, if there is dancing, maybe it’s in a particularly special location? And when taking pictures of people enjoying themselves, try to have at least one closeup of an avatar’s happy face.
Again, I’m using an illustration from New Life Italy‘s home page here:
My theory is that many grid owners and website managers are technologists at heart. They prefer to work by themselves.
You, as a technologist, might enjoy a home page that is full of dense text, statistics, details of your server configurations, and capacity utilization charts. But you target audience doesn’t. If they did, they would be running their own grids — they wouldn’t need to rent land from you!
Sure, a percentage of your customers will also be loners, or people who might like a little quiet time once in a while. But most people are going to come to a social grid to socialize.
The bottom line is this: Don’t make it hard for potential visitors to imagine themselves having fun on your grid. Show them what they’re missing with vibrant, engaging images of people enjoying all that your world has to offer.
And this picture should be the main focal point of your home page. The first thing people think of when they see your site should be, “This grid is fun. I want to be there.”
How to get there
Okay, so somebody’s come to your website and thought to themselves, “Oh my God, the people in this picture are having so much fun. I want to join them. How do I get there?”
This brings us to the next essential element your OpenSim grid website needs: clear and easy instructions for accessing your grid.
For most existing OpenSim users, the simplest way to get users to come to your grid is via hypergrid. Give them your login URI as plain text that they can copy and paste into their viewer. Make sure this login URI is prominently displayed and easy to find on your homepage.
Avoid using graphic images for your login URI, as this makes it harder for users to copy the text.
I am always surprised by how often I can’t find the grid’s login URI or hypergrid address at all on the home page and have to hunt around for it.
For people who are new to OpenSim, you’ll want to guide them through the process of creating an avatar and accessing your grid. Consider adding a button or link that says something like “New to OpenSim? Start here!” This should lead to a page with step-by-step instructions for creating an account, downloading a viewer, and logging into your grid.
The goal is to make the process of accessing your grid as simple and intuitive as possible. If you can, try to get someone who’s never been to OpenSim before to follow your instructions.
Remember, every extra click or step you require is an opportunity for potential visitors to get frustrated or distracted and give up.
Rent land
For most commercial grids, renting land is a primary revenue source. The land rental options should be very easy to see on your website. Nobody should hunt around for it. This isn’t something to bury in a sub-menu or hide at the bottom of a long home page.
Unfortunately, many grids make renting land far more complicated than it needs to be. They require users to create new user accounts, or provide technical details like region coordinates and specific server configurations. Unless someone is an experienced OpenSim user or grid owner, they probably won’t know this information off the top of their head. And if they do know exactly how many cores and RAM they need — well, they don’t need you, do they? They can run their own grid, thank you very much.
Each time someone has to make a decision, or look something up, half the time they’re going to say, “I’ll do that later.” And they never do it later. Instead, you will lose about half you potential customers with every additional click, every new page, every form field they have to fill out. Pretend you’re a new customer. How many clicks will it take someone before they can finally send you money? How many decisions do they have to make?
So, if, say, you have 100 visitors who come to your website thinking of getting a region, and six steps to go through before they can buy land — you’ll lose 50 people at the first step, another 25 at the second step, 12 more at the third step, another six at the fourth step, three at the fifth step. And you’ll have just one or two people left, if you’re lucky. You just wasted 99 potential customers. Sure, some of them might come back. Eventually. When they remember. Or they might forget that they wanted to get a region. Or get a region somewhere else. Or they’ll go to Second Life, because at least they know how to buy land there. Though even Second Life makes you click around a lot before you finally get to… $209 a month for a 20,000 prim region??? With a $349 setup fee???
Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t make your potential customers suffer like that! And pay so, so much for so little!
Make things easy for them. And take their money first, then figure out everything else.
Put a big, bold “Rent Land Now” button right on your homepage. When a user clicks this button, they should be taken directly to a simple, streamlined land rental page.
Or you can put a form right on the home page with your three top-selling options.
Darkheart’s Playground was the only grid I found that had a land rental box right on the home page. You do have to scroll down to find it, and the options could be simpler, but they’ve got something! Unfortunately, as of this writing, none of the buttons work. In theory, however, they could bring up a PayPal popup where all a user would have to do is click the “Pay Now” button and be in business. They can create their user accounts and decide on region names later, after they’ve given you the money.
Offer a few pre-configured land packages based on your most popular options. For example, you might have a “Starter Region” with 15,000 prims and 20 avatar capacity, a “Community Region” with 45,000 prims and 50 avatar capacity, and a “Commercial Region” with 100,000 prims and 100 avatar capacity. Each option should have a clear price and a “Rent Now” button that takes the user directly to a payment page. Or you might organize them based on who the customer is — a homesteader, a builder, an events venue, a merchant — and create default region packages that fit their needs best.
If a user wants a more customized land configuration, take them to a simple form where they can enter their desired land size, prim count, and avatar capacity. Avoid requiring technical details like server names or region coordinates — handle these on the back-end after the user has completed their purchase, or give them a default configuration that they can simply agree to.
The key is to minimize the number of decisions and technical details the user has to deal with.
Pretend you’re a newcomer from, say, Second Life, attracted by your grid’s low prices. How many clicks would it take for them to actually make a purchase?
Try to get someone who hates you to go through the process — a teenage child, for example, or a coworker whose lunch you’ve stolen. Will they be able to navigate through to the end without your help?
If your grid doesn’t rent land, replace this item with whatever else a top priority for your visitors would be.
For example, if you’re a free-to-connect grid, you can feature an at-home region-installer download.
If you’re a non-profit, use this space for a donation button. You can use one simple donation button, or have tiers for different levels of support. Explain what the donation will be used for — to buy developers coffee? To pay for backup servers? To reduce lag?
If you have a content marketplace, feature a bestselling item or a new arrival.
If you offer paid memberships, put that in this prominent location.
Latest events
The next thing you’ll want to feature on your home page is an ad for an upcoming event, to give people a good reason to come to your grid. Or you might feature a write-up of an event that just happened, to make people feel sorry that they missed out on something cool.
If you don’t have any events, offer a promo deal, or a how-to article, or showcase a freebie — something new and fresh that will reward people for coming to your website, and make them more likely to share the link with friends.
The goal is to give potential visitors a sense of the vibrant, active community on your grid and to entice them to come and check out what’s happening. This is your chance to show off the variety and creativity of your grid’s residents and events.
Discovery Grid does a great job here, by embedding their calendar right on the home page, with attractive visuals for each event.
Some ideas for types of events to highlight include:
Live music performances
Art exhibitions and gallery openings
Fashion shows and contests
Role-playing events and adventures
Educational workshops and classes
Community gatherings and parties
Charity events and fundraisers
For each event, provide a brief description, the date and time, and a high-quality image that captures the excitement and energy of the event. If possible, include a direct link to the event location on your grid, so visitors can easily teleport there.
In addition to featuring specific events, consider showcasing user-generated content and activities on your grid. This could include:
New and notable builds or regions
User-created games and attractions
Popular social spots and hangouts
Featured merchants and creators
By regularly updating your events and activities section, you’ll give visitors a reason to keep coming back to your website and your grid. They’ll see that there’s always something new and exciting happening, and they won’t want to miss out.
Remember, the goal is to make your grid irresistible to potential visitors. By showcasing the vibrant, active community on your grid and highlighting all the amazing events and activities happening there, you’ll give people a compelling reason to come and experience it for themselves.
Having fresh content on your home page will also help your grid rank higher in search engines. You can also cheat, and embed your social media feed. For example, if you regularly post stuff on Facebook or another social media platform, embed the feed to get fresh new stuff for your home page all the time. Well, as long as you keep your social media fresh.
Littlefield Grid, for example, embeds their Twitter feed on their home page. OSgrid and AviWorlds embed Discord pages. GroovyVerse embeds their Mastodon feed and shared snapshots from residents. ZetaWorlds features their latest blog posts.
ZetaWorlds, by the way, also makes it super easy to grab the hypergrid address with that nice red “Copy” button, the green “Join Now!” button takes you to a signup page with a nice choice of membership levels, and the images on the home page feature people!
Login button
This is one item that nearly every grid has, and it’s where it should be — at the top right of the page.
That’s because they know that a top reason that people come to their website is to do stuff with their accounts, like submit support requests.
Good job, OpenSim grids.
Keep it simple
That might seem like a lot of stuff to put on a single page: a picture of people, a hypergrid address, a land rental box, a new event or announcement, and a login button at the top right.
But if you look through grid home pages, you’ll often find that they’ve got a lot of stuff crammed in there, most of it which isn’t a top priority for either users or grid owners.
Some grids put their mission statements on the home page. In my opinion, these are all identical and a waste of space that takes focus away from the things that you actually want people to pay attention to. Some grids post detailed technical details about their configurations. Some grids post random graphics unrelated to OpenSim.
Many grids post stats boxes. I’m all in favor of grids publishing their stats, but this is one thing you can safely put in a drop-down menu or at the bottom of the page. Stats are a nice-to-have — for me, anyway — but if they take away real estate that can be used to promote an event or a land sale — go with the event or land sale.
There’s only so many things a person can absorb when they look at a website. Too much clutter will drive people away.
You can put everything else in drop-down menus or further down on the home page, where people can scroll to see it.
A note about grid stats
Now, I know that grids don’t have to publish their stats. And some grids probably shouldn’t — there’s no reason for a school grid or a company grid only used by its employees to tell the world how many visitors it has.
But public and commercial grids should publish their stats, because it’s a free inbound link from Hypergrid Business every month. Our monthly stats report is one of our best-read regular posts, and people check the lists we publish to find new grids to visit.
If you don’t have a stats page, or want to make sure that your stats page is as easy as possible for our database to read, so that there aren’t any mistakes, it should have the following information:
Total number of registered users: 123
Total regions: 4567
Unique 30-day visitors: 890
The way the scraper looks is that it searches for a key phrase, then grabs the numbers immediately after the phrase.
I prefer to see regions counted in the form of standard region equivalents, but my database can also handle square meters and square kilometers. And, for active monthly users or unique 30-day visitors, I prefer to have a single total of both local and hypergrid visitors. You can also have other stats on your stats page, but these three are the ones that I track to have consistency for comparison purposes.
I also prefer it when the stats page is as simple as possible, with no tables, animations, or weird graphics to mess up the parser.
If you want to see examples of stats pages that work well for me, check out the DigiWorldz stats page, or the Alternate Metaverse stats page, or the Wolf Territories Grid stats page. That last one is my favorite because there are no thousands separators in the numbers. The thing with separators is that some countries use commas, some use periods, and some use apostrophes. Arrgh!
If you’ve ever wondered why I’m the only one who collects these stats every month, and why there are so many mistakes in them — this is why. It’s pretty much impossible to write an automated system to collect stats because every grid formats them differently. So there’s a lot of manual labor involved, folks.
Why should anyone care about OpenSim stats? They’re meaningless, right? Who cares how many people a grid has? No, there’s no reason to care except… marketing!
Every grid that reports users is more social proof that people are using and enjoying OpenSim. The more grids report their stats, the better. Even if your grid is small — some people prefer small grids.
And don’t forget: other grids aren’t your competitors. Your biggest enemy is the fact that Second Life users don’t know that OpenSim exists. Once they find out, and learn about the great prices we have here, the superb amount of control people have over their own regions or private mini-grids, and the awesomeness that is the Kitely Market, then they come. And they stay. And they’ll visit multiple grids until they find one that fits them best where they can settle down and make their home. And they’ll go shopping, and attend events, and donate to performers, and do all the things to grow the platform.
Every single grid that brings in people from Second Life helps all the grids. Every single article or post or social media share that tells people that OpenSim exists helps everyone.
International Day on Alternate Metaverse Grid. (Image courtesy Alternate Metaverse Grid.)
Alternate Metaverse Grid celebrated its first annual International Day on Thursday, March 7: Celebrating International Diversity on OpenSim.
Grid co-owner Cataplexia Numbers said she was looking of a way to bring together the residents of various countries that are members of the Alternate Metaverse Grid and have them not only get to know each other better but to also interact on a united level, celebrating the music of various countries together. To celebrate the various differences within a multi-cultural grid as opposed to having those differences as a means of dividing.
“It is my hope that this catches on to the other grids as well and that it is celebrated yearly on all grids,” Numbers said in a statement. “I have noticed a significant amount of change in the open-ness of ALL musical events lately, becoming more populated by a more mixed international crowd, and this makes me feel we are making a beautiful change here!”
Invitations went out translated into nine languages. A very large and inclusive food court and personalized stages for each performer were built by the incredible Ted Junior and Doc Mercury of AMV Special Projects build team.
International Day on Alternate Metaverse Grid. (Image courtesy Alternate Metaverse Grid.)
The event was extremely well attended with people from grids all over OpenSim — and countries all over the world. There was an average of 48 people in attendance at any given time and as some left, others came.
A new international singer from all over the world performed every 30 minutes. There was also a large international food court, and freebies showcasing many flavors and gifts from around the world.
The gifts and food court will remain open for some time as people just keep coming in for the gifts, Numbers said.
The hypergrid address is alternatemetaverse.com:8002:AMV International.
Performers included Portugal’s Joao Frazao, Brazil’s Khiron Ametza, Scotland’s Clan Escotia, Indonesia’s Putri and Icky & Sum from the U.K, Nikita Andersen and Zeno Stark from Italy. US performers included Dave King and Cataplexia Numbers. Zoree Jupiter represented Portugal and the U.S., Mavenn Live represented Canada and the U.S., and Ian Kitsilano represented Canada and the UK.
Ted Junior and Doc Mercury created and designed the whole event venue inside the building scenes and the stage scenes were also created by Ted Junior alone and put into a rezzer for each live performance.
Jimmy Olsen created the International Day banner that can be seen in the video link — or by visiting the region in person.
Cataplexia Numbers took the pictures and Sofee Supermarine filmed the video.
The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 138,831 standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the fourth month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken this record. That’s an increase of more than 5,000 regions since last month.
The biggest gainer in terms of land area was OSgrid, which gained 2,655 new regions, taking the top slot back from Wolf Territories Grid.
At the same time, the number of active users hit 47,620, another record, and an increase of more than 2,000 actives compared to the previous month. Here, Wolf Territories maintained its leadership position after gaining 307 new active users.
Meanwhile, the total number of locally registered users in OpenSim went up by more than 2,000, led by AvatarLife with 521 new registrations.
I’m now tracking a total of 2,657 public grids, of which 313 were active, and 247 published their statistics this month. If you have a stats page that we’re not tracking, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com — that way, your grid will be mentioned in this report every month, for additional visibility with both search engines and users.
Also, I’m no longer sending out a monthly email blast reminding OpenSim grid owners to send me news and updates for this report. If you have news, please email me before the tenth of the month if you want a short item included in this monthly wrap-up. For longer news, feel free to send me press releases at any time.
OpenSim land area for April 2024. (Hypergrid Business data.).
Our stats do not include many of the grids running on DreamGrid which is a distribution of OpenSim since these tend to be private grids.
OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.
Every month on the 15th — right after the stats report comes out — we will be sending out a newsletter with all the OpenSim news from the previous month. You can subscribe here or fill out the form below.
Top 25 grids by active users
When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.
All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.
Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.
In a move to make the virtual realm more inclusive, Wolf Territories Grid, announced the launch of its new speech-to-text function today, in order to improve the in-world experience for hard-of-hearing and deaf community members.
With the commitment to ensure equal participation for all users, Wolf Territories Grid’s new speech-to-text feature will convert spoken words into written text in real time, breaking down communication barriers that have long posed challenges for individuals with hearing impairments.
“This is a pivotal moment for Wolf Territories Grid,” said grid owner Paul Clevett, also known Lone Wolf in-world. “Our new speech-to-text function is more than just an upgrade – it’s a statement that our community is for everyone. By providing tools that facilitate ease of communication, we are taking active steps to embrace diversity and foster a more inclusive virtual society.”
The speech-to-text function seamlessly integrates with the grid’s existing communication system and will be available across all regions, he said in an announcement. Residents can use this feature during various events, meetings, and everyday interactions, ensuring they never miss out on the vibrant social tapestry Wolf Territories Grid offers.
“We’re delighted to roll out this feature that aligns with our vision of a grid without limitations,” said Wolf Territories co-administrator DJ Illusions. “Accessibility is at the heart of our ethos and with this advancement, we’re excited to see our community grow even more connected.”
Residents can find detailed instructions on how to enable the speech-to-text function here and in the video tutorial below:
Users looking to explore the grid’s vast array of regions, including the tranquil Breathe Resort or the futuristic Europa, can sign up by visiting the main website and can purchase lands to construct their personalized space. Prices start at US $25.40 a month for a four-by-four region with 20,000 prims.
Founded in 2020, Wolf Territories Grid is an OpenSim-based world, known for being the largest grid in terms of land area. It offers users an expansive virtual world experience, consisting of a total land mass equivalent to 28,544 Second Life regions, numerous social venues, and the freedom to create and explore without bounds.
HG Safari at the JFK Dallas build on 3rd Rock Grid. (Image courtesy HG Safari.)
3rd Rock Grid, the second-oldest grid in OpenSim, will be shutting down soon.
“We have to shut down the grid due to a few circumstances that have technical consequences, making it impossible to further manage the grid,” said 3rd Rock Grid board member Florin Spanachi, who is also known as Eldovar Lamilton in-world.
According to grid residents, the grid had lost a key member of its technical staff when he left suddenly. Then another key member, Kira Tiponi, passed away, leaving the grid without access to a key resource.
3rd Rock Grid is a non-profit, owned by the Netherlands-based Cultural Harbour foundation. According to Hypergrid Business records, it was founded in February of 2008, making it the second-oldest OpenSim grid after OSgrid.
“Technical help is not possible, nor will a fundraiser help,” Spanachi added.
He said that the grid is in contact with its active users to manage the exit as smoothly as possible.
As of this writing, 3rd Rock Grid has 196 active users, making it the 41st-largest by active user count.
It is also reporting a total land area of 872 standard region equivalents making it the 14th-largest grid by land area. It also has 13,615 registered users, making it the grid with the fifth-largest registered user base.
According to 3rd Rock Grid board member Tara Dockery, also known as Thoria Millgrove in-world, saving the grid would require a complete re-build.
“Due to a series of unfortunate events that had technical impact, an inaccessible server, and well over a decade of technical debt in the asset database, we are faced with an unmanageable grid,” she told Hypergrid Business. “There are people investigating ways to move forward and salvage has much as possible, but no firm decisions have been made, other than that we are shutting the existing grid down on May 15.”
OpenSim community dismayed and saddened
The OpenSim community was saddened to hear the news.
Marianna Montenes
“The 3rd Rock Grid holds such special memories for me,” said Marianna Monentes. “I visited as often as possible, and I’m deeply saddened to hear about the passing of one of its key techs. Please accept my sincere condolences to the grid owners and the entire community.”
Monentes is an in-world jewelry designer.
“I am deeply sorry about what happened to them,” said Andrew Simpson, owner of AnSky Grid.
“It goes without saying that it is always sad to see a grid go, regardless of the reason,” said Ansjela Amat, owner of Ansjelagrid, which, like 3rd Rock, is also based in the Netherlands.
“This is sad news,” said Myron Curtis, who said he can make resources available for grid or web hosting. Curtis is the owner of A Dimension Beyond, an OpenSim hosting company, and the founder of Virtual Worlds Grid.
Candy Cane Lane on the Holiday Isle region of 3rd Life Grid. (Image courtesy VisionZ.)
Offers of help
In fact, many grid owners are offering their help.
Terry Ford
One of those grid owners is Terry Ford, the original founder 3rd Rock Grid. Ford now runs DigiWorldz, a commercial grid and OpenSim hosting company, but has continued to provide technical support to 3rd Rock even after leaving.
“I would not like to see 3rd Rock Grid gone as it is a very important part of the OpenSim history,” he said.
3rd Rock was the first grid with a working permissions system and the first grid with a working economy, he said. It has also held a number of great events and fundraisers over the years, including several for Doctors Without Borders.
“There are many current and past members of 3rd Rock Grid, including myself, and some who have now passed away, who put in much effort to ensure it was a great grid to call home,” he said. “I have offered to help in any way I can and have reached out to many of the 3rd Rock Grid members voicing the same.”
Several grid owners suggested that it may be possible to reconstitute the grid by exporting and re-uploading the region files, also known as OARs, of the individual regions. OpenSim also has support for exporting individual user inventories.
Aerial view of Music Village. (Image courtesy 3rd Rock Grid.)
If the grid is not rescued, then residents will have to find new homes.
3rd Rock Grid residents who are able to get copies or their OAR region export files, or their IAR inventory export files, will also have many grids ready to welcome them.
“If any of the residents have the ability to extract their OARs and need a temporary home I am willing to set them up on a temporary basis with a four-by-four region,” said CatGrid owner Mike Cataldo, also known as Michael Timeless in-world. “Most of my residents are older military veterans but we are always willing to help those in need.”
“While my grid is not as large as 3rd Rock Grid, I have spent time there in the past,” he said.
AvatarLife is also offering free land to 3rd Rock Grid residents.
“If they have OAR files of their lands we can get them to AvatarLife without any cost, as lands in AvatarLife are free,” said Sushant KC, CEO of AvatarLife, who said that he was said to hear that 3rd Rock Grid was closing down.
“I offer my technical support 24-7 if they want to start 3rd Rock Grid again from new servers,” said GBG World CEO Nick Mit, also known as Anytos Atlas in-world, who said he was so sorry to hear the news about 3rd Rock Grid.
GBG World also has free home plots available and is offers discounted region hosting to former 3rd Rock residents, he added.
Museum of Natural History on 3rd Rock Grid. (Image courtesy 3rd Rock Grid.)
“We are really saddened by the shut down of 3rd Rock and are happy to see how we can assist both the 3rd Rock team and any users in anyway we can,” said Paul Clevett, also known as Lone Wolf in-world. He is the director of Wolf Software Systems Ltd., the company that owns OpenSim’s largest and most popular world, Wolf Territories Grid.
He has previously told Hypergrid Business that he’s happy to help other grids with technical issues.
He said that he’s already been approached by some 3rd Rock residents. “We’re keen to help,” he said. “If they rent regions we are going to give them some bonus prims and also keep them together in the same area so they can keep their community.”
As a grid that dates all the way back to the earliest days of OpenSim, though, those technical issues can be significant.
Keeping grids active over many years requires a lot more work than people realize, said Kitely co-founder and CEO Ilan Tochner. “The longer grids are active the more technical expertise is required to overcome all the issues that accumulate over time.”
And the loss is even more devastating to the community when those grids close.
Ilan Tochner
“It’s tragic when grids close and their residents lose their home and all the content they’ve collected in their inventories,” he said. “It’s especially saddening when those grids are ones that have been an important part of the OpenSim ecosystem for as long as 3rdRock Grid has.”
Kitely, in addition to being one of the biggest commercial grids in OpenSim, also runs the largest online marketplace for OpenSim, the Kitely Market.
Tochner said that if any customers bought content and had it delivered to 3rd Rock Grid, there’s a tool that can help merchants easily re-deliver content to all those customers.
“This Kitely Market feature is designed to enable merchants to easily and reliably help people recover the items they lost when their grid shuts down,” he said.
So. You have some thoughts about where OpenSim is going. Or there’s a cool new fashion designer in OpenSim you want to tell people about. Or there’s a feature you’d really like to see implemented.
You’ve been thinking for a while about writing it up and sending it to Hypergrid Business to be published, but writing is just so much work!
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get an AI to read your mind and just write the article for you?
But you can’t. And if you just tell ChatGPT or Claude to “write an article about how great OpenSim is” you’ll get something generic and unreadable. Plus, it won’t have any of your unique insights or information that only you know, which is why you wanted to write the article in the first place.
(Image by Maria Korolov via Adobe Firefly.)
Here’s what you do.
If you’re like me, and think best while talking, then get a transcription app — I use the free Otter AI app and love it — and dictate your thoughts. Now, Otter only supports English, but there are other apps for other languages. Just Google for it.
Or, if you think in bullet point lists, create a list with the points you’d like to make. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling, or organization. Just do a brain dump.
Then open your favorite AI app — I recommend Claude AI because it doesn’t use your info for training data — and follow the following steps:
Cut-and-paste the following prompt:
I’d like to turn the following notes into an opinion column. The first thing I’d like you to do is read the notes and ask me questions. Is there anything that needs clarification or should be expanded on? Is there anything that doesn’t make sense? Are there any points that could use personal anecdotes or concrete examples? Thanks!
Then cut-and-paste your notes and hit the button to ask the question.
The AI should now ask you some follow-up questions. You can provide more information, or you can tell the AI to just skip that question, or ask the AI for what it would suggest.
Once you’re happy that everything has been pulled out of your head, you can go ahead and ask the AI to write the article.
Cut-and-paste the following prompt:
Please write a column based on my notes and our conversation. It should be in the first person, using Associated Press format, in a casual, blog writing style. Paragraphs should be short. Quotes should begin paragraphs. No conclusion needed. Use the inverted pyramid structure. Stick carefully just to the information that I provided.
Now it should provide you with a first draft of the column.
Now you can ask it to, say, rearrange sections, or add more information. And if it got anything wrong, tell it, and Once you’re generally happy with how the column looks, ask the following questions:
Please review the story for accuracy. Are there any places where it contracts the information I gave you?
Please review the story’s organization and structure. Is the order the best possible order for this topic? Is anything repeated? Are any significant points not given enough time?
Please review the story for writing style. It should be casual and conversational, written at a fifth-grade level, and paragraphs should be short. Are there any areas that can be simplified or rewritten to be more personal?
Please review the story for grammar. Remember it should use American spelling and grammar and Associated Press style.
Then say:
Please rewrite the article per your recommendations.
Take one last look at the result. After all, this is going to go out under your name. Make sure that the AI isn’t putting words in your mouth that you wouldn’t say!
Now copy the final results into a separate document and make any edits you want to make. For example, you might change some wording to be more like something you’d say.
Also, add any relevant links. For example, if you’re talking about your OpenSim grid, add a link to the grid.
Then email it to me — in the body of the email is fine — at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. If you have snapshots or illustrations that you want to use, just attach them as JPG or PNG files to the email.
If you’d like to have AI generate an illustration to go with your column, I recommend that you use Adobe Firefly. Adobe only uses fully-licensed images for its training data — no lawsuits from artists here! — and pays artists when their work is used. In fact, the first payments to artists went out last September.
Use the “Widescreen (16:9)” aspect ratio for at least one image that you submit to Hypergrid Business, since we use wide images for the featured images on our site. You can also upload a reference image to give Firefly an idea of the kind of style you’re going for, or select a particular art or photography style from the lists provided.
Of course, you don’t have to submit your column to us! You can post it on your own blog or social media. And you can use the same approach to write any other kind of content — just adjust the prompt to fit. You can use this approach to write emails or to write marketing copy for your website.
And yes, being polite helps. The AIs seems to return better results when you’re nice to them.
A monthly social event on Wolf Territories Grid. (Image courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.)
In a move that promises a faster, smoother, and more responsive virtual world experience, Wolf Territories Grid has migrated to a new server cluster at a data center in Frankfurt, Germany.
The upgrade is expected to significantly enhance performance and reliability for the grid’s thousands of users, who can now enjoy lightning-fast teleports, quicker rezzing of objects, and an overall more responsive environment.
The switchover incurred minimal downtime for the grid — just 14 minutes.
Paul Clevett, also known as Lone Wolf in-world, is the director of Wolf Software Systems Ltd., the company that owns the grid. It was hosted at the Myloc Data Centre in Dusseldorf for the past three years.
“We had a hodge-podge of servers from Ryzen 5’s to Ryzen 9’s in the old cluster that we built up over the years,” he told Hypergrid Business. “Plus that data center had all our servers split over different networks. What this effectively meant was that the traffic between the servers would have to route around the data center. Plus, there was no high availability.”
The new server cluster boasts an impressive array of hardware, including AMD Ryzen 9 processors with 32 cores, at least 128GB RAM, and 2TB Server Grade NVMEs in RAID one configuration. There was no price increase for people who rent land on the grid.
“We were a pretty much lag free grid before, but this takes us to the next level,” Clevett said.
Users have already noticed the difference, with comments like, “It’s much more wizzy!,” he said. The improvements go beyond just reduced lag, with teleports now being nearly instantaneous and objects rezzing at a much faster rate, he added.
The grid’s large map, which previously took some time to load despite fast-loading tiles, has also seen a significant improvement.
“Because we have a huge map it used to take a while to load it in,” Clevett said. “You’d click on a region and it would take some time to bring up the region name. That is completely fixed by this upgrade.”
The migration process, while complex, was made possible through the efforts of the Wolf Territories Grid team, including grid administrators DJ Illusions and Luna Stormfeather, as well as the tech team comprised of Clevett himself, Busty, and Daja.
“From a technical perspective, it was not easy and without the help of Busty and Daja we definitely wouldn’t be where we are,” said Clevett. “The key really was making sure the cluster design was right and that it met our needs. What we had in our old cluster was something we kind of built as we learned.”
The grid also now has its own network in the data center, he added.
“Everything is faster because we’re not having to route our data round the data center,” he said. “There are noticeable speed differences, especially in heavier regions. This means the whole grid is way faster and ready for the future.”
Despite all the improvements, the cost of running the new cluster is about the same as the old one, he said, although the grid has incurred a large one-time cost this month due to running both clusters simultaneously during the transfer process.
Clevett said he’s open to helping other grids with similar projects — even if they might be considered competitors. He’s assisted other grids with technical issues in the past, he said, including providing server resources during emergencies and even helping revive grids that were on the brink of closure.
“I just think we’re better working together on this incredible OpenSim project,” Clevett said.
The entire Wolf Territories Grid team, including the friendly AI robot “Bobby,” is excited to welcome users to the improved virtual space, which is now better equipped to handle the grid’s goal of reaching 100,000 regions and 100,000 registered users, he added.
According to Hypergrid Business data, Wolf Territories Grid, founded in 2021, surpassed OSgrid in land area in November of last year, becoming the biggest grid by land area. It has held that spot ever since.
Wolf Territories has also been growing rapidly in active user numbers as well. In this month’s stats report, it was only five active users behind OSgrid, the most popular grid in OpenSim.
The grid had 5,271 active users in March, and the equivalent of 28,496 standard regions.
Here at Hypergrid Business, I use “standard region equivalents” as a measure of land size, instead of named regions, because OpenSim allows for regions of various sizes. So, for example, in OpenSim, you can have four Second Life-sized regions, each with, say, 15,000 prims — or a single two-by-two region with, say, 60,000 prims. From the perspective of a visitor to that grid, the two-by-two setup will look the same as four individual regions, except that border crossings would be easier — and it will be labeled as a single region on the map. But also, I’m the boss here. If you want to measure land in some other way, start your own blog.
I’m serious, please start your own blog! We don’t have enough publications covering OpenSim! I’d love to help in any way I can, and will run free ads for you, and introduce you to all the grid owners.
Back to Wolf Territories.
The grid offers regions in four-by-four, eight-by-eight, and 12-by-12 configurations, with a maximum capacity of up to 1.2 million prims.
“We may go crazy and see how a 32-by-32 performs but that’s for testing,” said Clevett.
Prices start at US $25 a month for a four-by-four region — the equivalent of 16 standard Second Life regions — with up to 20,000 prims total. The prices go up to $76 a month for the 1.2 million prim configuration, and there are discounts for bulk orders.
I just went and checked the latest stats. As of this writing, the grid reports 5,361 active users and 28,512 standard region equivalents. OSgrid, the previous leader, reports 5,280 active users and 27,985 standard region equivalents.
So Wolf Territories is now in the lead by both metrics.
So, I’m back home — after flying to Lima, Peru for an AI conference last week.
I was there to give a keynote speech about AI. The whole flight over I was worried that Nvidia or OpenAI or someone else would announce news of such major importance that I’d have to scrap my entire presentation and start over — fortunately, while there was, in fact, some news, I didn’t have to do any major revisions. No CEOs were fired. No lawsuits shut down all generative AI training. Whew.
Maria Korolov speaking before a sold-out audience at the Data & AI Summit in Lima, Peru on March 20. (Image courtesy Seminarium Peru.)
You can’t really see me in the photo above, so here’s a close-up:
Maria Korolov speaking before a sold-out audience at the Data & AI Summit in Lima, Peru on March 20. (Image courtesy Seminarium Peru.)
For those of you who only know me from Hypergrid Business, I’m actually a tech journalist during the day. I’ve been covering enterprise technology for over twenty years, ran a business news bureau in China for five, and have seen my fair share of major transformations. During the last few years I’ve been focusing on enterprise uses of artificial intelligence and, since late 2022, much of my reporting has focused on generative AI.
You can see all my stories at MariaKorolov.com, but here are some recent highlights:
I guess, overall, I must have talked to hundreds of people — corporate executives deploying the technology, analysts, consultants, experts, and, of course, vendors.
Anyway, I distilled everything I learned into a single one-hour presentation, flew down to Peru, and gave the talk. It was awesome. I love being in front of a live audience again after several years, now, of online webinars and virtual conferences.
Then, after I got home, I recorded a version of the same presentation for YouTube. It doesn’t have the call-backs to previous speakers, nor post-speech Q&A that the conference moderator did with me, nor people coming up to me afterwards to ask questions.
But that’s the great thing about an in-person conference — you get to experience all those things.
If you’re interested in checking it out, here it is:
And if you want to let me know how you’re using AI on your OpenSim grid — or about anything else happening in OpenSim, for that matter — drop me a line at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.
