Category: News

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OpenSim user growth cools down with chilly weather

The weather’s been getting cooler here in the US where I live — some days, at least. The weather’s been a little wonky lately. And there have been other things happening in the country that make me want to spend less time in the real world and more time in a virtual one. So it makes sense that registered users and land area both went up in the public OpenSim grids.

What’s more surprising is that the total active numbers went down — by more than 2,700 users.

Sure, Moonrose, which reported over 900 active users last month, seems to be having website issues and did not publish its stats this month. In addition, Vida Dupla, which had 375 actives last month, did not report its active user numbers this month. And Great Canadian Grid, which had over 600 actives last month, is now closed.

But several grids also reported significant drops in active user numbers. OSgrid reported a drop of more than 800 actives compared to last month, Craft World saw a drop of over 200, and five grids lost more than 100 actives each.

So there’s something going on beyond just a grid closure and some reporting issues.

Maybe everyone went out partying for Halloween and spent less time in-world? Or maybe other people like the cooler weather and are enjoying the fall leaves and brisk walks while wearing cozy sweaters?

Nope! According to reader Paul Clevett, from Wolf Territories, OSgrid is down for maintenance. And I found the announcement. Thanks, Paul, for the heads up!

Apparently, OSgrid is currently offline, and has been since November 7, because it’s storage cluster was running out of space.

“OSgrid has 17 years of data which is approx several hundred million assets,” the announcement said. And it gets worse. The grid stores both the asset data and a redundant copy, but they’re not stored at the actual size — every asset looks bigger than it actually is.

To fix the problem, the grid’s storage needs to reconfigured, which involves moving millions of assets and scrubbing out the phantom extra space to free it up again. Doing this while people are using the grid would create a bad user experience, so they put it into maintenance mode during the bulk of the work.

The bad news is that they don’t know how long it’s going to take. The good news is that they don’t expect any assets to get lost.

Anyway, I am now tracking a total of 2,677 public grids, of which 295 were active this month and 232 published their statistics. 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.

This month, OSgrid was the largest grid by land area, with 32,867 standard region equivalents, even though it lost more than 2,000 regions, while Wolf Territories Grid was the most active, with 7,379 unique logins over the past 30 days.

OpenSim land area for Nov. 2024. (Hypergrid Business data.)

Our stats do not include most of the grids running on DreamGrid, a free easy-to-use version 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.

A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Hypergrid Business newsletter is now available

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.

Get our monthly stats and all other OpenSim news delivered right to your mailbox every month.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

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.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. Wolf Territories Grid: 7,379 active users
  2. OSgrid: 4,046 active users
  3. GBG World: 2,498 active users
  4. DigiWorldz: 2,190 active users
  5. Alternate Metaverse: 2,058 active users
  6. Darkheart’s Playground: 2,011 active users
  7. WaterSplash: 1,497 active users
  8. Trianon World: 1,092 active users
  9. Neverworld: 1,042 active users
  10. AviVerse AlterEgo: 1,020 active users
  11. AviWorlds: 994 active users
  12. Astralia: 867 active users
  13. Littlefield: 861 active users
  14. Party Destination Grid: 822 active users
  15. AvatarLife: 672 active users
  16. Groovy Verse: 605 active users
  17. Eureka World: 595 active users
  18. NakedWorldz: 576 active users
  19. SunEden Resort: 553 active users
  20. Gentle Fire Grid: 514 active users
  21. Herederos Grid: 494 active users
  22. Kitely: 462 active users
  23. ZetaWorlds: 452 active users
  24. Jungle Friends Grid: 434 active users
  25. New Life Italy: 434 active users

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 20,973 product listings in Kitely Market containing 41,105 product variations, 35,866 of which are exportable.

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 632 OpenSim grids to date.

 

(Data courtesy Kitely.)

As you can see in the above chart, nearly all the growth in Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area on the graph. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past eight years.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

Kitely also announced support for PBR materials and larger textures earlier this month.

New grids

I added one new grid to my database this month: NakedWorldz.

If you know of any public grid that we’re missing, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

Suspended grids

The following nine grids were suspended this month: Angel Grid, Ares World, Binders World, Cajun Grid, DreamNation, Ghost Area, Homeland, KubwasWelt, and Nosso Lar.

If they don’t reappear online again soon, they will be marked as closed in future reports.

Sometimes, a grid changes its login URI or website address — if that’s the case, email me and let me know and I’ll update my database.

Top 40 grids by land area

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.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

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Registration now open for December’s OpenSim Community Conference

(Image courtesy Avacon.)

The Opensimulator Community Conference is the annual conference that focuses on the user community and developers of the OpenSimulator virtual world software.

This year’s conference will run from December 6 to December 8, 2024.

Registration is now open, and is free.

OSCC 2024 kicks off with a Friday pre-conference launch event featuring meetups, art, live music, and DJ sets, and then two days of fast-paced presentations, panels, performances, and immersive tours spotlighting the technical, scholarly, artistic, commercial, and community-produced works across diverse sectors of the OpenSimulator user base.

There will also be the opportunity to explore community events, tours, and workshops leading up to and following the conference weekend.

OpenSimulator is an open-source, multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server. It can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) that is accessible through a variety of clients on multiple protocols. Users can also visit other OpenSimulator virtual worlds across the web by using the Hypergrid protocols. In this way, it is the basis of an open-distributed Metaverse.

Find more info, including the schedule, once released at conference.opensimulator.org.

(Image courtesy Avacon.)

The conference is hosted on an OpenSimulator grid specifically designed for the conference.

We hope to be able to accommodate over 400 users in total, which includes speakers, sponsors, and staff.

Since virtual seats are limited, registration is open on a first-come-first-served basis until the maximum number of virtual conference center tickets is reached. At that point, community members will still be able to register for the live-streamed version of the conference that will be available.

The expo area will not be ticketed and can be accessed by any avatar, subject to constraints on the number of avatars that the exhibition regions can hold at any particular time.

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OpenSim Worlds Fair will be held in March

Latin Nights at the OpenSim World Fair. (Image courtesy Kimm Starr.)

The OpenSim Worlds Fair is set to launch on March 1, 2025, and will celebrate innovation, creativity, art, technology, fashion, and education in OpenSim.

This event, a year in the making, will unite the OpenSim community under one roof, showcasing the talents and achievements that define our world.

With nearly two decades of immersive experience in virtual worlds, the organizers, Cooper Swizzle, Koshari Mahana, Kimm Starr, and entertainment coordinator Rosa Alekseev, are passionate about elevating events throughout the hypergrid. Their dedication to fostering creativity and innovation ensures that this fair will be a memorable experience for all attendees, showcasing the best of what the hypergrid has to offer.

While the organizers are affiliated with the Kitely grid, owned by Ilan Tochner, they actively participate in numerous events throughout the hypergrid. The fair will unfold in Wolf Territories, owned by Lone Wolf, and is designed to bring together individuals from diverse backgrounds and interests within the virtual community.

The OpenSim Worlds Fair will feature at least 17 themed stages, showcasing a variety of genres including rock and roll, Motown, Latin, and retro. This diverse selection of stages is designed to keep attendees entertained while they party and connect with others, with each theme curated to align with the performers and DJs. A special acknowledgment goes to Rosa Alekseev for her tireless dedication and exceptional efforts in organizing the entertainment for the fair.

Motown stage at the OpenSim World Fair. (Image courtesy Kimm Starr.)

Offering 72 parcels for exhibitors, we still have a few spaces available for those eager to showcase their work, talents, and creativity at this event. While full region-sized parcels are now gone, we have smaller parcels ready for participants looking to make their mark.

A handful of free exhibition spaces remain, providing a platform to share your vision and innovation. This is your chance to be part of a celebration that champions progress and fosters cultural exchange across the hypergrid.

“On October 23, 2024, Thirza Ember’s Hypergrid Safari tour made a stop at the Worlds Fair, drawing  attendees eager to experience the energy and creativity taking shape. Participants were treated to an exclusive sneak peek of the fairgrounds, exploring exhibits and immersive installations.

Hypergrid Safari tour. (Image courtesy Star Ravenhurst.)

Attendees shared their thoughts.

“Looks amazing and the grid seems rock solid,” said James Atlloud.

“It has Second Life quality,” said Forest Azure.

“You’ve all done a fantastic job. I’m looking forward to March,” said Lavia LLavine.

In a Hypergrid Safari Facebook Post, Star Ravenhurst wrote: “While some builds are still in progress, many are already completed, and the preview we received left us truly excited for what’s to come. This event promises to be a must-see, filled with fun, innovation, and excitement—mark your calendars because you won’t want to miss it.”

For more information, contact one of our hosts, dive into the fun on our Discord community, visit our website, or email the organizers at OpenSimWorldsFair@gmail.com. Be a part of the OpenSim Worlds Fair and help us bring the hypergrid closer together while celebrating the boundless creativity and ingenuity that define this extraordinary virtual landscape.

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Kitely adds PBR materials support, larger textures

Kitely has added support for physically based rendering (PBR) materials in both its virtual worlds and on the Kitely Market, the company announced this week. The update also includes support for textures up to 2,048 by 2,048 pixels in size.

PBR materials allow for more realistic textures by simulating how light interacts with different surfaces, such as mud or metal, creating the appearance of raised and lowered areas with realistic light reflection.

(Image courtesy Kitely.)

The feature requires Firestorm 7.1.11 or newer to use.

Kitely is one of the first grids to support PBR materials, having ported the features from the upcoming OpenSim 0.9.3 release into their current OpenSim 0.9.2.2-based system.

“PBR isn’t yet supported in all OpenSim grids,” said Oren Hurvitz, Kitely co-founder and VP of R&D, in the announcement. “This is a feature that will be part of OpenSim 0.9.3, but that version of OpenSim isn’t finished yet so many grids — including Kitely — are still using the latest stable release, which is OpenSim 0.9.2.2. The reason that Kitely can support PBR now is that we ported the PBR features from OpenSim 0.9.3 into our version of OpenSim.”

The Kitely Market has been updated to accommodate the new feature, with the “Textures” category renamed to “Textures and Materials.” Merchants are advised to mention PBR usage in their product descriptions since items using PBR materials may not display correctly on grids that don’t support the feature. Alternatively, merchants can include regular textures as a fallback to ensure their products look okay on all grids.

“Kitely Market is the main marketplace serving the hypergrid so we decided to support the latest graphics options from OpenSim 0.9.3 even before they have been officially released,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business.

The update also brings support for reflection probes through LSL scripting, with new PRIM_REFLECTION_PROBE parameters added to GetPrimParams and SetPrimParams functions.

PRB makes reflections seem more realistic. (Image courtesy Kitely.)

While PBR materials can technically be used for terrain textures, Kitely reports encountering several issues during testing. World maps will show objects using PBR materials but display only the basic color texture, not other PBR properties like normal maps or roughness. PBR terrain textures are not currently displayed in world maps.

For content creators, Kitely has added a new “Materials” folder to user inventories for storing PBR materials.

Creators interested in learning more about creating PBR materials refer to Second Life’s documentation on the subject.

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OSCC 2024 Submission Deadline Approaching

Olivetree Ghaelen Elli Buffy Beale Petlove and Marcus Llewellyn. (Image courtesy OpenSim Community Conference.)

The clock is ticking for virtual world enthusiasts and creators looking to share their innovations at this year’s OpenSimulator Community Conference. Potential presenters have until October 29, 2024 to submit their proposals for the twelfth annual gathering of the OpenSim community.

“We hope that you can join us for our twelfth year celebrating the current and future use of open source virtual worlds through creativity, technology, artistry, and education,” said conference co-chair Cynthia Calongne, also known as “Lyr Lobo” in-world.

The two-day event will take place on December 7 and 8, featuring presentations about creative, educational, technical, and experiential topics related to OpenSimulator and the open metaverse.

“We’re interested in your wonderful content, insights, and accomplishments,” Calongne told Hypergrid Business.

Core Developers of OpenSim. (Image courtesy OpenSim Community Conference.)

Organizers are particularly interested in presentations that showcase innovative content, significant accomplishments in the OpenSim ecosystem, future visions for open source virtual worlds, and creative applications of OpenSimulator technology.

Each speaker session will be 20 minutes long. The conference will also feature community-sponsored tours, an Expo, content giveaways, and hypergrid exploration.

Proposal acceptance emails will be sent out on October 31. Accepted speakers must register for the conference by November 7 to secure their spot in the program.

The conference will kick off on December 6 with music and art events, followed by the main program on December 7 and 8.

Visit the OSCC’s Call for Proposals page to submit a presentation idea.

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AvatarLife Viewer adds video calls, screen sharing

AvatarLife Viewer. (Image courtesy AvatarLife.)

The AvatarLife Viewer now supports video conferencing for up to 5 participants, audio conferencing, screen sharing without video, and six-language support.

“We believe in empowering our users with the tools they need to communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Whether it’s for a small group chat, a business meeting, or sharing work on screen, our new features make AvatarLife the ultimate virtual platform for staying connected,” AvatarLife CEO and co-founder Sushant Chandrasekar told Hypergrid Business.

These new features are available at no additional cost for both Mac and Windows users.

AvatarLife Viewer. (Image courtesy AvatarLife.)

Video conferencing allows real-time video calls with up to five participants directly through the viewer, perfect for small meetings, virtual hangouts, or group discussions.

For those who prefer voice-only communication, the audio conferencing feature enables crystal-clear voice conversations for private chats or group meetings without the need for external apps.

The screen sharing feature allows users to share their screens without video, ensuring those who wish to stay behind the scenes can still actively participate. It’s ideal for presentations or project collaborations while keeping personal visuals private.

Language support has been expanded to include Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Russian. Users can easily switch between supported languages for a smoother experience.

To access these new features, users can download the latest version of the AvatarLife Viewer for Mac or Windows here.

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Spooky season brings more visitors to OpenSim worlds

It’s the spooky season here in the United States, with Halloween coming up soon and all sorts of creepy scary stuff happening, and cooler weather outside. Also — we’ve got the elections. So, three reasons for people not to want to leave their house and spend time in OpenSim as well.

Or maybe there’s another reason why active user numbers went up. Who knows? Whatever the cause, the public OpenSim grids gained nearly 3,000 new active users compared to this time last month. However, with grid outages and stats changes, total registered users dropped slightly — and land area went down by the equivalent of 24,000 standard regions.

But the drop in land area is easily explained. Simation Grid, which reported 25,408 regions last month is now down to 1,024. Simation is a tiny grid — well, not in size, but in users — with just 3 actives this month. So the land area was most likely a test of server capacity. That happens. People try to see how many regions they can cram into a server, play around with it for a while, then eventually shut it down. After wall, why keep servers running for regions nobody is using?

We are now tracking a total of 2,675 public grids, of which an even 300 were active this month and 232 published their statistics. 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.

This month, OSgrid was the largest grid by land area, with 34,103 standard region equivalents, while Wolf Territories Grid was the most active, with 6,950 unique logins over the past 30 days.

OpenSim land area for Oct. 2024. (Hypergrid Business data.).

As you can see from the chart above, the Simation regions created a spike in land area this summer, but the land growth is now back to normal levels.

Our stats do not include most of the grids running on DreamGrid, a free easy-to-use version 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.

A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Hypergrid Business newsletter is now available

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.

Get our monthly stats and all other OpenSim news delivered right to your mailbox every month.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

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.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. Wolf Territories Grid: 7,122 active users
  2. OSgrid: 4,910 active users
  3. GBG World: 2,435 active users
  4. Darkheart’s Playground: 2,206 active users
  5. DigiWorldz: 2,186 active users
  6. Alternate Metaverse: 1,980 active users
  7. WaterSplash: 1,593 active users
  8. AviWorlds: 1,081 active users
  9. AviVerse AlterEgo: 1,020 active users
  10. Neverworld: 965 active users
  11. Trianon World: 963 active users
  12. Astralia: 943 active users
  13. Moonrose: 916 active users
  14. Littlefield: 862 active users
  15. Party Destination Grid: 807 active users
  16. AvatarLife: 735 active users
  17. SunEden Resort: 692 active users
  18. Great Canadian Grid: 675 active users
  19. Craft World: 673 active users
  20. Groovy Verse: 597 active users
  21. Herederos Grid: 566 active users
  22. Kitely: 523 active users
  23. Gentle Fire Grid: 499 active users
  24. OpenSim Fest: 432 active users
  25. Eureka World: 427 active users

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 21,048 product listings in Kitely Market containing 41,164 product variations, 35,920 of which are exportable.

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 632 OpenSim grids to date.

(Data courtesy Kitely.)

As you can see in the above chart, nearly all the growth in Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area on the graph. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past eight years.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

New grids

I didn’t add any new grids to the database this month.

If you know of any public grid that we’re missing, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

Suspended grids

The following 13 grids were marked as suspended this month: Angel Souls, Free Life, Insight Concepts, New Life Italy, Nordlicht Grid, OB, Phantom Rose, Pineapple, Planet, ProxyNet, TinkerLand, Trans Sidera, and TUIS Open Grid.

If they don’t reappear online again soon, they will be marked as closed in future reports.

Sometimes, a grid changes its login URI or website address — if that’s the case, email me and let me know and I’ll update my database.

Top 40 grids by land area

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.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

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Storylink Radio plans fall events in Kitely and Second Life

(Image courtesy Storylink Radio.)

This year’s Storylink Radio’s October celebration is more ambitious than ever before, organizers told Hypergrid Business.

There will be live in-world Halloween storytelling all month long and dozens of YouTube exclusive presentations, including short Halloween tales every night on Storylink Radio’s YouTube channel.

All the videos were filmed in virtual worlds.

The live Halloween stories begin on Thursday, Sep. 26 and run through Nov. 2.  There are three different stories every night at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., and 9 p.m. Pacific time in-world and on YouTube.

There will also be a special, live, Halloween Trick or Treat story, and a Dia de Los Muertos storytelling.

“We will be presenting simultaneously at the Storylink Radio estate in Kitely and the Seanchai Library in Second Life, with a live intergrids chat connection,” StoryLink Radio owner Shandon Loring told Hypergrid Business.

In addition, there will be exclusive Edgar Allen Poe presentations on YouTube every Monday, a Frightful Classics full-length novel every Friday, and Short-n-Spooky tales on Saturdays.

For more details, check out the full calendar on the Storylink Radio website.

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OpenSim active users rise with cooler weather

This time of year — in the northern hemisphere, at least — people start spending more time inside as temperatures drop and school starts.

So it’s no surprise that the total number of active users on the public OpenSim grids is going up.

According to their published stats report, there were 44,129 actives this up, up by 1,128 from this time a month ago.

However, the total land area went down, by the equivalent of 738 standard regions. All of that drop — and then some — is accounted for by the fact that a single grid, CandM World, didn’t report its stats this month. Last month, it had over 1,800 regions. Today, the website just shows a security error message, so it could just be a configuration error.

We are now tracking a total of 2,675 public grids, of which 311 are active and 244 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.

This month, OSgrid was the largest grid by land area, with 34,103 standard region equivalents, while Wolf Territories Grid was the most active, with 6,950 unique logins over the past 30 days.

OpenSim land area for Sep. 2024. (Hypergrid Business data.).

Our stats do not include most of the grids running on DreamGrid, a free easy-to-use version 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.

A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Hypergrid Business newsletter is now available

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.

Get our monthly stats and all other OpenSim news delivered right to your mailbox every month.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

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.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. Wolf Territories Grid: 6,950 active users
  2. OSgrid: 4,894 active users
  3. GBG World: 2,422 active users
  4. DigiWorldz: 2,143 active users
  5. Darkheart’s Playground: 2,018 active users
  6. Alternate Metaverse: 1,789 active users
  7. WaterSplash: 1,491 active users
  8. AviWorlds: 1,101 active users
  9. AviVerse AlterEgo: 1,024 active users
  10. Trianon World: 1,004 active users
  11. Neverworld: 953 active users
  12. Moonrose: 861 active users
  13. Littlefield: 858 active users
  14. Party Destination Grid: 792 active users
  15. Craft World: 790 active users
  16. Astralia: 717 active users
  17. AvatarLife: 638 active users
  18. Herederos Grid: 566 active users
  19. Groovy Verse: 564 active users
  20. SunEden Resort: 552 active users
  21. Great Canadian Grid: 550 active users
  22. Gentle Fire Grid: 496 active users
  23. Kitely: 495 active users
  24. Virtual Vista Metaverse: 456 active users
  25. ZetaWorlds: 437 active users

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 21,019 product listings in Kitely Market containing 41,133 product variations, 35,892 of which are exportable.

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 630 OpenSim grids to date.

(Data courtesy Kitely.)

As you can see in the above chart, nearly all the growth in Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area on the graph. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past eight years.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

Kitely is continuing its $90 sale on Mega Worlds, which is currently scheduled to end of Oct. 15.

New grids

I didn’t add any new grids to the database this month.

If you know of any public grid that we’re missing, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

Suspended grids

The following 12 grids were suspended this month: BachmansWorld One, CatGrid, DigiGrids, German Grid, Legacy, Mathesis, Matrix, NewOffworld, Oczko, SFgrid, Steg, and Trinity’s DreamGrid/

If they don’t reappear online again soon, they will be marked as closed in future reports.

Sometimes, a grid changes its login URI or website address — if that’s the case, email me and let me know and I’ll update my database.

Top 40 grids by land area

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.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

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OSFest 2024 Opens for Builders and Participants

OSFest 2024. (Image courtesy Lisa Laxton.)

The virtual doors of OSFest 2024 have swung open, welcoming creators, builders, merchants, performers, and sponsors to begin crafting their digital spaces. This annual event, hosted on the OpenSim Fest grid, is set to run from October 4 through October 20, 2024, offering a diverse platform for virtual exhibitions, performances, and commerce.

Lisa Laxton

“The grid is open for participants to build or bring in their creations via the hypergrid,” said Lisa Laxton, OSFest director and founder of the Infinite Metaverse Alliance and Laxton Consulting.

Based on the feedback from previous events, OSFest now has a new mainland layout, she told Hypergrid Business. There are also small sponsor parcels available at US$3 each for other grids or region owners looking to increase their visibility in the hypergrid community and promote their grids.

There is also a limited number of free parcels available for exhibitors and merchants, paid for by sponsors.

OSFest is also looking for volunteers to join the OSFest team and help get everything ready for the event, and to help out during the festival itself.

For more information, check out the event’s home page, or the FAQ page.

The festival will feature 110 hours of performer events and 84 hours dedicated to exhibits, stores, and interactive activities. In a nod to the broader virtual community, OSFest has also allocated eight hours for satellite events on other grids, encouraging cross-platform participation.

OSFest 2024. (Image courtesy Lisa Laxton.)

Most of the 110 hours of performer slots are already booked, Laxton said, and merchant sales event times have been scheduled. There are non-music events and activities on the schedule as well, she added.

“Some participants have started or will soon bring in their builds, and the content infrastructure is ongoing with expected updates on the website, calendar, and Discord server,” she said. “This is the fun and exciting time leading up to opening day.”

This year’s festival breaks new ground by eschewing a unifying theme, a decision made through community vote. This approach promises an eclectic mix of exhibits, stores, and performances, reflecting the diverse interests of the virtual world community. Adding to the fresh feel, the grid layout has been completely redesigned, offering new experiences for both returning participants and first-time visitors.

Participants can access the grid via hypergrid using the address: grid.opensimfest.com:8022:OSF_HGWelcome.

Organizers are encouraging early setup, with a target completion date set for late September.

OSFest 2024 is Gloebit-enabled, allowing for virtual transactions within the grid.

Various sponsorship levels are available for those wishing to support the event financially.