Kitely, the on-demand grid, and effectively my second virtual world home, today adds several new features that increase the grid’s appeal and capabilities.
Profiles
Kitely now has full profile capabilities, allowing you to supply information on yourself and your interests, set picks, and so on, a-la other grid-based VWs.
Groups
Groups are now also featured within Kitely, with all the capabilities you’d expect: Group chat / IMs, Notices, Roles, etc. Kitely follows the OpenSim standard for Groups, so I’m unclear on what the upper number of allowable Groups per avatar is (42 being the maximum number a person can join in Second Life).
Doubtless Ilan or Oren will drop by and overcome my ignorance in this :). Creating and participating in Groups follows the usual process, but if you’re new to the whole thing, the Kitely blog post provides a link to some instructions.
The arrival of Groups also adds further granularity to controlling who can access your world(s) in Kitely. Until now, the levels of access have been based on Facebook and / or Twitter. However, you can now additionally define access in terms of the Groups you create / join, again using the through the Settings for each of your Worlds.
Kitely offers significant flexibility here, as you can assign access to multiple Group of which you are a member / you create, including defining how the time Group members spend in your world is paid for.
Security and Other Updates
Alongside these updates, Kitely has also:
- Implemented off-line messaging for the receipt of IMs while not in-world
- Updated world security settings so that only the world manager to build in them. “Pushing” is also now disabled by default. Worlds can still be opened for anyone to build, but the recommended practice is to enable build rights via a trusted Group
- OAR export format has been updated to save a world’s telehub, if one is set.
Finally, this update also sees an optional (but recommended) update to the Kitely web browser plug-in. You’ll be prompter to update (if you haven’t done so) when you click ENTER WORLD from any World Page.
