Category: Kitely

Kitely’s Metered Worlds become Premium Worlds

Posted on by Inara Pey

kitely-logoOn Wednesday June 11th, Kitely, the on-demand virtual world provider, announced that their “Metered World” offering has been restructured as a “Premium World” offering.

“Metered Worlds” were one of two world types offered by Kitely to customers, the other being Fixed Price Worlds (which remain unaffected by this change). Rather than being paid for through a fixed monthly fee, “Metered Worlds” were paid for through small fees charged for various actions performed on them, as specified in the Kitely Services web page.

Up until the June 11th announcement, both Premium and Regular Account holders had been able to add  new Metered Worlds to their accounts at a cost of 10 KCs per world, per day. However, as of the June 11th announcement, only Premium Account holders remain able to so; hence the product being renamed “Premium World”.

Furthermore, from July 1st onwards, any existing Premium Worlds held by Regular Account holders will only be accessible to Premium Account holders. This means that Regular Account holders must consider what they want to do with their existing Premium Worlds.

For example: to retain access to their own Premium Worlds beyond July 1st, Regular Account holders will need to either upgrade to a Premium Account, or convert their world(s) to one of Kitely’s Fixed Price World plans. Alternatively, they could allow their Premium Worlds to continue “as is”, and simply not be able to access them until such time as they do upgrade their account or convert these worlds to a Fixed Price plan. Because only Premium Account holders will be able to access these worlds, no additional charges will accrue in the interim.

As noted in the Kitely blog post, Regular Account holders can even, up until July 1st, opt to export their Premium Worlds to OAR files for use elsewhere (subject to object permissions and the normal export fee of 150 KCs per world).

Fallingwater, my region-wide build on Kitely utilises was was a Metered World. I now face a decision on what to do about its future ...
Fallingwater, my region-wide build on Kitely utilises what was a Metered World. I now face a decision on what to do about its future …

A single Premium World will continue to be provided to new users signing-up to Kitely’s Regular Account. However, only the account holder and Premium Account holders will be able to visit it during the initial 6-hour trail period supplied to Regular Accounts – the world will be closed to other Regular Accounts and Hypergrid users. At the end of the trial period, if the user wishes to continue using the world, they must either convert it to a Fixed Price world plan or upgrade to a Premium Account.

Again, please note that these changes do not affect Kitely’s Fixed Price worlds, which remain available to both Premium and Regular Account holders.

Reaction to the announcement has been mixed, with some expressing disappointment at the move, and others appearing to be somewhat confused, at least initially. Some of the disappointment has perhaps been the result of Regular Account holders feeling they are being disenfranchised from land ownership in Kitely.

However, an alternative viewpoint to this is that the move might actually help to further stimulate Kitely’s in-world economy by allowing land rental businesses to develop, particularly where Fixed Price worlds are concerned. If so, this could have a further benefit of allowing themed estates to develop, which in turn may help give in-world locations more of a “community” feel than might currently be the case.

Kitely goes Hyper(grid)

Posted on by Inara Pey

kitely-logoOn Monday May 19th, Kitely, the on-demand virtual worlds provider, announced it now supports the Hypergrid, and provides strong content support in doing so.

The ability to teleport between Kitely worlds and other Hypergrid enabled OpenSim grids was actually enabled on Sunday 18th, ahead of the official announcement, and saw a number of Kitely / OpenSim users putting the capability through its paces.

Announcing the move in an extensive blog post, Oren Hurvitz, Kitely co-founder and Vice President of R&D (and who is also an OpenSim core developer), said:

We have an important announcement: Kitely now supports the Hypergrid! Kitely users can visit other grids, and users from other grids can visit Kitely worlds. Kitely is the only OpenSim grid that supports the Hypergrid and also has strong content protections that prevent unauthorized items from leaving the grid.

 The blog post itself explains how Kitely users can teleport from Kitely to other grids, how they can – if they wish – enable their Kitely worlds for Hypergrid access, and how other OpenSim users on hypergrid enabled grids can teleport to Kitely worlds.

Kitely users can select whether or not they want their worlds open to hypergrid connectivity - although those with
Kitely users can select whether or not they want their worlds open to Hypergrid connectivity – although those with Metered Worlds need to remember that they will be charged for the time Hypergrid users spend in those worlds if they are opened to Hypergrid access

Considerable length is given to the important matter of content protection and export permissions. This includes information on how items defined as No Export are protected from being physically removed from Kitely worlds either by Kitely users or those visiting from other Hypergrid enabled grids. To ensure content is fully protected, Kitely have also implemented changes to their Export World capability.

Given the in-depth extent of the Kitely announcement, I refer readers to that post for further details.

Overall, a long-waited move by Kitely, and congratulations to the team for achieving this milestone.

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Seanchai in Kitely

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Seanchai Library megaregion in Kitely
The Seanchai Library megaregion in Kitely

Friday May 2nd, 2014, marks an important step in Seanchai Library’s virtual development, as it will see the Library’s new venture on Kitely, the on-demand grid, open its gates in a special preview event.

Seanchai Library’s presence on Kitely is extensive, comprising a 4-region Kitely megaregion, which offers a number of different story telling environments, and no fewer than eight individual regions – “worlds” in Kitely parlance – offering their own unique environs for stories and – perhaps – a little more.

The main 4-region world, Seanchai, forms the hub of the Library’s presence in Kitely, and is home to the main reading room and the teleport hub linking it to the other region “worlds”. It is also divided into a number of individual areas where events can be run simultaneously, including the Campfire Ring, Ghostly Pirate Bay, Undersea Discovery, Volcano Island, Celtic Castle Ruins and more.

The Seanchai Library teleport portals, Kitely
The Seanchai Library teleport portals, Kitely

The teleport hub, which also acts as the region’s landing point, features a circle of ten stone portals, one of which is currently inactive and another leads to the Kitely Welcome Centre. Walking up to one of the remaining, labelled, portals will transfer you to the named region. Note that if the region is not already in use, you may see a warning pop-up on your screen. This is because Kitely worlds are “on demand”, and only exist when there are avatars present (the rest of the time they are safely stored). Should you find this is the case, you’ll be automatically teleported to your selected world once it has started – which should only take a few seconds.

The eight individual storytelling worlds are: Beachworld, Celticworld, Octoberworld, Spaceworld, Swampworld, Waterworld, Westworld and Winterworld – and the names pretty much sum up their individual themes!

Each world offers a unique environment for stories and events, and they include freebie areas where visitors and patrons can dress to look the part if they wish. Exploration of the regions is encouraged, and some offer the means to host multiple story telling activities at once.

"The ship rose out of the mist, her sails tattered and torn...." the
“The ship rose out of the mist, her sails tattered and torn….” the

To mark the opening of Seanchai Library’s presence in Kitely, the preview event will start at 18:30 SLT (PDT) on Friday May 2nd. This will comprise a guided tour of the estate, and will be followed by ghost stories around the campfire, starting at around 19:00 SLT. This will feature tales from a host of masters of the macabre, including Stephen King, Guy de Maupassant, Ramsey Campbell, and Tony Richards, and by literary greats like Ambrose Bierce, Washington Irving, Sir Water Scott, and J Sheridan Le Fanu.

So does this mean Seanchai Library is leaving Second Life? No. Rather, they are expanding into new areas and new opportunities. So why not hop over to Kitely and join them? It’s pretty easy, even if you’ve never visited another grid.

"The town was small, but the hotel big, I moseyed on down, heading for the stables and a chance to give my horse a rest..." Seanchai Westworld, Kitely
“The town was small, but the hotel big, so I decided to mosey on down, heading for the stables and a chance to give my horse a rest before looking to see if the beds in that hotel were as grand as the place looked from the outside…” Seanchai Westworld, Kitely

Getting Started with Kitely

You can register a free account with Kitely via their website. This will give you access to Kitely, and a free region of your own – please make sure you read Kitely’s notes on membership options and the costs involved in visiting worlds if you intend to either develop your own region or explore more of Kitely.

The Seanchai worlds are all fixed-price, so access to them is open to all. Once you have created your account, you’ll need a viewer capable of accessing OpenSim grids – Kitely recommend Firestorm as their preferred viewer.  When you have installed a suitable viewer (if required), you can reach the Seanchai region by:

Again, note that if the Seanchai region is not already running, you may be initially logged-in to a Kitely teleport station. You should only be there a few seconds before being automatically teleported to Seanchai.

"We took the ski lift up to the peak for a final run down the slopes before retiring to lodge for hot drinks by a blazing fire and a tale or two from out hosts..." Seanchai Winterworld, Kitely
“We took the ski lift up to the peak for a final run down the slopes before retiring to lodge for hot drinks by a blazing fire and a tale or two from out hosts…” Seanchai Winterworld, Kitely

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Kitely launches hypergrid market and a new logo

Posted on by Inara Pey

kitely-logoIn August 2013, I covered the opening of the Kitely Marketplace, having previously reported on its development in January 2013 when it was first announce, and again in May 2013, when it opened to merchants.

In developing the Marketplace, the Kitely team of Ilan Tochner and Oren Horvitz always had the goal of making it possible for merchants to not only sell into Kitely itself, but also into other hypergrid-enabled grids, using a special Export permission flag which can be set by merchants. At the start of March 2014, they took a major step towards this with the opening of the Market Hypergrid Delivery Beta Test.

On March 21st, Kitely announced that the Kitely Market Hypergrid Delivery is now open to all.

The blog post provides guidelines and instructions on using Kitely Market to purchase  goods from the Kitely Market for delivery to hypergrid-enabled destinations, and I don’t propose to repeat things here. By default, the Market offers delivery to the top five (by use) hypergrid capable grids of Craft, GermanGrid, Littlefield, Metropolis, and OSgrid, and more are promised should they prove popular among purchasers. I also understand that delivery to other grids supporting hyerpgrid can be manually configured using the Market’s built-in Grid Manager – all that is needed is the grid’s loginURI.

Customers browsing the Kitely Market can now opt to have goods delivered to other hypergrid-enabled destinations – providing the creator has set the Export permissions flag (thus preventing goods from moving between grids against the creator’s wishes) – image courtesy of Kitely Market, click for full size

Items specifically set for delivery to other grids by their creator can be located using the Export option on the Permissions search filter (lower left corner of the each Market page).

Alongside of the hypergrid delivery capability, Kitely have enhanced their merchant tools to assist with the new capability, as the blog post explains:

We’ve made it easy for merchants to test that their products work correctly in other grids. It has always been possible to use the “Test delivery” link in the Edit Product page in order to deliver the product to the merchant’s avatar in Kitely. This feature has now been extended to deliver to other grids as well. The way this works is that you go to the Shopping Cart page, and select a grid and an avatar. You don’t actually have to buy anything; just enter that information. Then return to the Edit Product page, and click “Test delivery”. The product will be delivered to the “foreign” avatar that was selected in the Shopping Cart instead of to your Kitely avatar.

Another feature for merchants is that in the Sales History, merchants can see which grid each sale was delivered to, because foreign avatars appear along with their grid: e.g., “Jane Vespa @ OSGrid”.

Also, sales reports themselves can now be downloaded as a CSV file, providing improved historical context for merchants as they track sales long-term.

Additional hypergrid-enabled grids can be added via the Market’s Grid Manager

Implementing hypergrid delivery in the Kitely Market is innovative and interesting. Many creators in walled garden grids avoid OpenSim out of fear of content ripping – not that content ripping isn’t a problem in walled garden grids, either. Some OpenSim grids (like Kitely) proactively take steps to reduce the risk inherent in “easy” content ripping (such as by limiting OAR exports to those items created by the exporter themselves). Even so, the fear is there, so it will be interesting to see how many take advantage of the opportunity to sell into multiple environments from a single point. Certainly, the option has been seen as attractive enough to well-known SL creator Lilith Heart of Heart Botanicals fame, who has already opened a store on Kitely Market.

It will also be interesting to see how this new capability within Kitely Market affects the overall OpenSim economy. On the positive side, it means that merchants wishing to extend their reach into new markets (grids) can do so from a single, powerful point, and Kitely’s own pricing structure makes it fairly competitive for them to do so, including the use of the free access Kitely Merchant Sandbox, if required. Through it, merchants can reach multiple channels and also have a good degree of control over where and how their products are used (with some obvious caveats). For those used to only dealing with one market – such as SL – this could open the door to building channels to markets outside of the walled garden environments, such as those grids with a specific focus  / purpose, such as education or business.

The downside to this is the it might make it that much harder for smaller grids to attract content creators directly, and thus users – who tend to look for the content first. Grids may well also lose out on opportunities to lease virtual land to merchants, as they’ll potentially have little need for in-world stores. However, it’s fair to say that Kitely Market could actually help grids attract users: if it is seen that a grid actively embraces the Kitely Market and its growing numbers of merchants, then the could leverage that fact in attracting new users, as the lack of visible in-world merchants is negated by the ability for merchants to reach the grid via the Kitely Market, particularly if said grids also take steps to ring-fence what can be exported via the likes of OAR files.

New Logo and OpenSim Core Group Invitation

Oren Hurvitz

Alongside the Hypergrid Delivery launch, Kitely unveiled their new logo (seen in thumbnail at the top left of this article), and have included a few notes on making it easier for people to get started on Kitely included the blog post.

And in a modest footnote to the piece, Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder, reveals that he has been invited to join the OpenSim Core Group of developers. The invitation is in recognition of Oren’s ongoing contributions to OpenSim on behalf of Kitely, and is very well deserved; my congratulations to him.

Kitely pricing restructuring now complete

Posted on by Inara Pey

Kitely-logoOn December 15th 2013, Kitely announced the first phase of a major overhaul of their pricing structures. That announcement covered the introduction of their new account types (Regular and Premium) and their Metered world options which have replaced their “time-based” system of payment options.

I covered that announcement in some depth at the time, noting that there would be further clarification to come from Kitely on elements of the new Regular account, as well as information on the new Fixed-price options. On January 1st 2014, Kitely followed-through on their promise of providing this additional information when they issued a further pricing update.

More on Account Types

As I reported in December alongside of Kitely’s initial blog post on this subject, the company  has introduced two account types, Regular and Premium. The salient points to note on these are that:

  • The Regular account is free of charge and includes a single Metered region and a one-off  6-hour trial period which can be used in developing their Metered region(s)
  • The Premium account costs $19.95 a month, and includes up to five Metered regions with the ability to visit any metered region on Kitely (their own or anyone else’s) for free
  • Either type of account can be used when joining Kitely
  • Either type of account can be used when purchasing Fixed-price world options (of which more late in this article)
  • Either type of account can add further Metered regions at the rate of 10 KC per day per Metered region (+ access costs for Regular accounts, where applicable).

Metered Regions and  Regular Account Visitors

The key point to grasp here is that the time anyone with a Regular account spends visiting any Metered region (including their own) must be paid for by the region holder. This means that someone with a Metered region will be charged at the rate of 1 Kitely Credit (KC) for each minute a Regular account holder spends visiting that region.

The only exception to this is the initial 6-hour trial period Regular account holders are given in order to start developing their own Metered region. Once this trial period has been used, a Regular account holder can either continue to pay for their time on their own region(s) at the rate of 1KC per minute, or opt to pay for one of the Fixed-price world options (there is no charge for anyone visiting Fixed-price regions) or opt to upgrade to Premium (both of these latter options are open to Regular account holders at any time).

Because there is a cost involved in having Regular account holders visit a Metered region, Kitely has included an option for region holders to block Regular accounts from accessing their Metered regions if they so wish, thus preventing the build-up of unwanted costs in respect of such visits. The Kitely blog post elaborates in detail on how this access restriction can be set.

Fixed-price World Options

As of January 1st, 2014, the company has discontinued its original $40.00, $60.00, $80.00 and $100.00 fixed-prix options – although users already paying for these options can continue to do so if they wish. Three new Fixed-price options have been introduced in their place, referred to as the Starter World, Standard World and Advanced World options, as defined below.

Kitely's new fixed-price options, available to both Regular and Premium account holders (image via Kitely)
Kitely’s new fixed-price options, available to both Regular and Premium account holders (image via Kitely)

Both the Starter and the Standard World options come with slightly reduced resources, as indicated, while the Standard and Advanced World options include the ability to combine the regions included in those worlds into a single Advanced Megaregion. As with the old Fixed-price options, no-one is charged for the time anyone spends on a Fixed-price region.

Whether or not users on one of the discontinued Fixed-price options will want to change to one of the new options will depend upon on a number of things, such as the complexity of their build(s), and their typical numbers of daily users or their requirements for avatar-intensive events. However, the ability to swap is there for them to use, if they so wish.

General Feedback

It will be interesting to see broader reaction to the idea of Metered region holders having to pay for any visits made to their regions by Regular account holders – and how many Metered regions are closed to Regular account holders as a result (I have already closed my own Kitely region to Regular account access, for example). However, the initial reaction to these changes has been favourable, even allowing for the confusion which occurred when the initial part of the restructuring was announced in December 2013.

As it is, the new Metered and Fixed-price payment options continue Kitely’s tradition of offering competitive and flexible payment options, and may well serve to attract new users into giving the platform a try.

Kitely announces pricing changes

Posted on by Inara Pey

Kitely-logoKitely, the on-demand virtual world platform, is revising its pricing structure.

The changes, which come into effect from January 1st, will see both the Metered (also referred to as “Time-based”) payment options and the Fixed-price payment options revised with the aim of presenting a more streamlined set of options which more closely suit the needs of Kitely users.

Changes to Metered (time-based) Payment Options

The first part of these changes, as announced in a blog post and an e-mail sent to users, will see the Metered payment options substantially revised. Currently, these payment options comprise four plans:

  • Free: 1 full Metered Region plus 2 hours in-world time a month
  • Bronze plan: $5.00 a month, 2 full Metered Regions and 30 hours in-world time a month
  • Silver plan: $20.00 a month, 10 full Metered Regions and 120 hours in-world a month
  • Gold plan: $35.00 a month, 20 full Metered Regions and unlimited time in-world.

The monthly in-world time offered under the Free, Bronze and Silver plans can be used as time spent by the user on their own Metered Region(s), and/or as time they spend visiting other Metered Regions. Additional time for these plans, if needed during a month, can be paid for at the rate of 1 Kitely Credit (KC) per minute. Under all of the plans, additional Metered Regions in excess of the stated allowance can be obtained at a rate of 10 KCs per day per Metered Region.

As of January 1st, 2014, these plans will be replaced by two new account types:

  • A Regular account, which will include 1 free Metered Region, with additional options still to be announced by Kitely
  • A Premium account, which will cost $19.95 a month, include up to 5 free Metered Regions and the ability to visit any Metered Regions (your own or anyone else’s) for free (neither you nor the region’s manager pay for your visit).

For anyone who is either on, or who signs-up to, the Silver or Gold time-based plans before the end of the year (whether they are an existing user or new to Kitely), there is good news: their plan will be grandfathered-in under the Premium account, with additional benefits. This means that:

  • Those with the Silver plan will continue to pay $20.00 a month and will gain unlimited access to any Metered Regions as well as retaining their allowance of up to 10 Metered Regions (so they will pay $0.05 more a month than those signing-up for Premium accounts after January 1st, 2014, but have up to twice the number of Metered Regions)
  • Those with the Gold plan will continue to pay $35 a month and will retain their unlimited access to any Metered Regions, and the total number of Metered Regions they can have at no additional charge will be increased from 20 to 30.

This incentive is being provided to encourage people who are considering Kitely as a future option to make the move now and take advantage of this limited-time offer before it expires.

Those on the Bronze plan (which has been discontinued as an option with immediate effect) who do not upgrade to either a Silver or Gold plan before January 1st 2014, will be automatically downgraded to the new Regular account. Any second Metered Region they have developed under their Bronze plan will then be charged for at the standard rate of 10 KCs a day (the equivalent to paying as little as $1.00 a month for it, if buying KCs in bulk).

Those opting to stay with the Regular account after January 1st 2014 (whether they were on the Free or Bronze plan) will still be able to purchase additional Metered Regions at the rate of 10 KCs a day. They will also be able to upgrade to a Premium account if they wish, but they will not enjoy any of the grandfathered benefits on offer until the end of December 2013.

There is one other change with the new Metered payment options, and that is in relation to OAR (OpenSim Archive) file operations. OAR allows users to back-up their regions to their hard drive for use elsewhere, while fully respecting the permissions system (thus preventing users from exporting objects when they don’t have the required permissions as set by the objects’ creators). Currently, each OAR operation cost 10 KCs for Metered Regions. From January 1st 2014, this will be increasing to 150 KCs per operation for Metered Regions.

Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner (via Google+)
Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner (via Google+)

Even without the grandfathering of existing Silver and Gold account plan holders, the new Premium account still offers significant value for money, as Ilan Tochner, Kitely’s CEO and co-founder, pointed-out as we discussed the changes.

“This means that a group of builders, each on a Premium account, can get a LOT of land in Metered Regions and not have to think about time while visiting those regions,” he said, “and they can have all their Premium account friends with them in-world for as long as they want without thinking about time even though they are using Metered Regions.”

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