Category: Other Worlds

Kitely move to offer new marketplace

Posted on by Inara Pey

Kitely-logoKitely, the on-demand virtual world provide has issued more details on their upcoming new marketplace, including an “early bird” promotional offer.

Announcing the company’s plans for the new marketplace on Sunday 20th January, Ilan Tochner, Kitely’s CEO had the following to say:

We are currently developing an advanced content marketplace. Since most OpenSim users are familiar with the Second Life marketplace, we asked our users what they like and don’t like about it. Using these insights we intend to deliver a great user experience that addresses the main usability issues with existing online marketplaces. At first the market will be used only for buying and selling inside the Kitely grid, but eventually it will be used for selling to multiple grids from a single online shop.

In order to attract good content creators we are now offering various benefits for merchants that bring their content to our market before it opens to the public.

The Kitely Marketplace will combine features familiar to those used to using the SL Marketplace or markets such as the (now defunct) Apez and Metaverse Exchange: items can be browsed on-line, then purchased (using Kitely Credits (KCs) or US dollars), prior to being delivered directly to the purchaser’s in-world inventory.

Additionally, the Kitely Marketplace will function more like e-commerce sites such as Amazon, where items can be searched for using attributes, rather than a rigid category hierarchy, making the search process and drill-down easier and more flexible for both merchants and consumers. Kitely will also allow for multiple versions of a product to be listed as a single item, thus simplifying the lists, viewing and reviewing of products. For example, rather than having 5 individual listings for an outfit which is available in 5 different colours, a merchant will be able to create a single listing for the outfit, which includes the 5 different colours, allowing consumers to buy any of the five from the one listing. Kitely call this capability “variations”, and it was a major attraction within the old Metaverse Exchange marketplace. Reviews and ratings for any variation of a product will be recorded in the one listing.

Merchants will be charged a one-off fee of 100 KCs for listing an original item on the marketplace, and a one-off fee of 25 KCs for each variation on that item also listed. There are no ongoing fees associated with listed items or their variations once listed. So for example, in the case of an outfit with 5 colours as mentioned above, the merchant will be charged 100 KC when creating the initial listing for the outfit (which will obviously include one colour variation) and then a one-off fee of 25 KC for listing each of the remaining 4 colours. Further charges will only apply if the merchant uploads additional variations (additional colours) to the item.

Commenting on this approach, Ilan Tochner stated, “The listing fees are designed to prevent low quality content from being added to the marketplace and were supported by our mentors group so that high quality content can be more easily found. This can increase sales for high quality items that are currently hard to find in marketplaces, such as the SL Marketplace, that include many low quality items that aren’t likely to be bought. Those low quality items make it harder to find desirable items which in turn means that good content providers see less money coming in. One way merchants can view listing fees is as a type of low-cost advertising that helps increase the visibility of their wares by eliminating a lot of the noise that prevents finding it.”

Kitely will charge a 10% transaction fee on content sales. Purchases made using US Dollars are paid directly into the merchant’s PayPal account (without going through Kitely), therefore PayPal’s fees will also apply.

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The obsession returns…

Posted on by Inara Pey

In 2012, the first part of my SL year was spent re-working my take on Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous “Fallingwater“, which eventually wound-up in a quarter-sim in-world for a few weeks.

That build is now boxed for a rainy day, but as I indicated later in the year, I’ve reproduced Fallingwater in Kitely, where it has a full region of its own, allowing me to develop a landscape more in keeping with that of the original. Since then, I’ve been tinkering around with it, adding a region windlight and generally tightening things up. There are still some parts I want to rework, once I have better source material by way of photos (most notably Bear River and the falls), but for now the house is just about done.

Fallingwater on Kitely
Fallingwater on Kitely

With the Second Life build, I produced a modest video; however the result wasn’t overly brilliant – largely because I didn’t really appreciate what I was doing in terms of the technical side of producing the video. Recently, I’ve had some good advice and help from Fuzonacid via YouTube, prompting me to have a further go, this time focusing on the Kitely build.

As it is the start of a new year, I could hardly let it pass without reference to my obsession :), so I hope you enjoy the video (and the Flickr slideshow has also been updated!).

AvaCon Announces the Metaverse Cultural Series 2013

Posted on by Inara Pey

With the SL Community Convention ending in 2012, after AvaCon declined a revised contract from Linden Lab, the non-profit, volunteer-operated company has today announced the Metaverse Cultural Series 2013.

The new series will comprise, “A set of events featuring performances and lectures that highlight unique aspects of metaverse culture. The events will take place in multiple virtual world spaces and the series will showcase innovative artists, thinkers, performers, and academics whose work is on the forefront of exploring what it means to work, play, and live in the emerging metaverse.”

The focus of the series is on exploration of aspects of living, working, and playing in the metaverse which differ from other forms of online activity. As examples of this, AvaCon suggest subjects such as exploring themes such as identity play and avatars, language and customs unique to virtual worlds, or other kinds of art and expression that are only possible in the metaverse.

As well as seeking performances and presentations, AvaCon is inviting virtual world providers, grids, or venues to host a Metaverse Cultural Series event as event partner. In order to do so, venues should be able to:

  • Accommodate 30 – 50 in-world attendees
  • Permit voice and media streaming media capabilities.

Note that AvaCon will work with venues selected to participate in the series to determine technical specifications and other requirements as needed for each type of presentation or performance.

Request for Presentation / Performance Proposals

AvaCon ar currently accepting proposals for presentations / performances which fit the focus of the series as outlined above. All proposals should include an abstract describing, in no more than 500 words, the proposed performance / presentation and how it relates to the goals and themes of the Series. Reviewers will specifically be looking for proposals that explore unique aspects of metaverse culture, particularly as it differs from other kinds of online activity.

Additionally, AvaCon are accepting proposals from grids / virtual world providers / venues wishing to host an event in the Mataverse Cultural Series.

The closing date for all proposals is January 31st, 2013. AvaCon are offering a $50 stipend to all successful presentation / venue applications to cover time and expenses.

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InWorldz on the move

Posted on by Inara Pey

This weekend will see InWorldz move to a new hosting service. The move, after months of planning, was announced at the start of the month, and should take place over Friday 15th / Saturday 17th November, 2012.

Announcing the move, Beth Reischl (known as Elenia Llewellyn in-world), one on the InWorldz LLC co-founders, said:

As an international company, who deals with 1/3 of our customers being outside of the US, it has long been apparent to us that it can be very difficult for our global customers to connect and enjoy their time here. While we have striven to help each one that has had issues, we also realized a need to be able to scale our services globally for our residents. While scaling services globally is important, so too is our bottomline costs, and keeping those in line with what we expect our residents to pay for. We have always strove for keeping our costs down, so that we can pass that on to our residents. Combining these two pieces of information, along with the amount of asset storage we hold, we felt it was the right time to look for a company that could provide us with a long term roadmap that would benefit our global customers, keep our costs down, and do this at a time where our migration process wouldn’t be harmful to our residents.

As a result, InWorldz will be relocating to RackSpace, where their servers will initially be located at that company’s facilities in Elk Ridge, Illinois. However, an important factor in the move is that it will enable InWolrdz to expand their servers into target areas such as the UK, Hong Kong and Australia.

This move also brings to an end InWorldz relationship with CariNet, their current hosting provider, with who they announced a joint venture back in July 2011, and reflects the founder’s commitment to growing their business and their community.

The shutdown is scheduled to commence at 03:00 PST / IWT on the 16th November and, assuming all goes according to plan, re-opening at 03:00 PST / IWT on Saturday 17th November.

PhysX Deployment

Alongside the expansion notice, Reischl confirmed that InWorldz will undertake deployment of their nVidia / GeForce PhysX physics engine implementation across their entire grid as a part of the migration. PhysX has been under development for InWorlz for some time, and recent deployment saw it added to water regions in the InWorldz grid to enable some final testing and bug-fixing to take place, and well as allowing users to try the new engine out without impacting the entire grid.

Both of these moves should substantially increase both the appeal of InWorldz and its ability to manage growth in the coming years. Possibly in recognition of this, InWorldz LLC has contracted Pooky Media to develop machinimia films which will form the backbone of the company’s marketing  and promotion activities commencing in 2013.

With thanks to Hypergrid Business.

Of mayflies and waterfalls

Posted on by Inara Pey

Today, and on a whim, I decided to drop back into Kitely and my home there – Fallingwater. It’s been a while since I’ve been back, as I’ve been busy in SL and elsewhere, and I didn’t really want to revisit until I’d got a couple of scripting issues sorted (still haven’t) and I’d decided on a suitable windlight preset (I have).

The Guest House

The windlight preset I’ve gone for – at least until I can get scripting issues sorted – is Bryn Oh’s “Mayfly”. I’ve opted for it partly because I love the sunset it provides, but mainly because I believe the dusk half-light it provides works well with the lighting I’ve installed in the house, which isn’t really suited to full daylight (again, something I hope to change in the future). As I want to be able to show-off the house, simply setting the region environment to night doesn’t work either, as people will likely flick over to daytime in their viewer. So my hope is that Mayfly will provide the best for everyone. I do tend to tink it does bring the place to life….but then I would, wouldn’t I? 🙂

Fallingwater

I also finally got around to putting in the footpath and steps from the drive to the river bank facing the house. This isn’t 100% to my satisfaction, and I’m liable to be returning to it and fiddling with things on-and-off, but it’s a start, and in slipping it in, I’ve gained a fair idea as to what I actually want to do when I have sufficient time to spare.

The Great Room and kitchen beyond

There are a few more things I want to do interior-wise as well. A couple of the rooms in the main house are a tad spartan, and the terraces could probably do with a little furnishing. Certainly, a few more pictures around the place would give more of a feeling of homeliness.

Foggy morning

I don’t know what the state-of-play is vehicle-wise in Kitely. I’m not actually after one for driving, but I can’t help feeling having a big old American 1930s Packard parked out under the rear car port would also add to the place as well.

Ilan has been asking my what I’d do if I had one of the new Kitely advanced megaregions. I think that if I did, it would likely become the home to not one, but four of my interpretations of FLW’s houses – I’ve always wanted to try my hand at the Robie House, and I have a couple of other candidates in mind as well. Although I think that were I ever to tackle anything so ambitious, they’d have to be 100% accurate reproductions, just for the heck of it :).

Fallingwater

Ah, well. Such is the stuff of dreams. In the meantime, if you’d like to visit the place yourself, please do. I did notice a couple more issues I need to fix in the place. You can reach it via my Kitely world page

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Kitely offer fixed-price worlds from $40 a month

Posted on by Inara Pey

Until now, Kitely, the on-demand virtual world service, has offered worlds (regions) based on a subscription basis, with prices starting from $5 a month, inclusive of two regions and 30 hours a month in-world (additional time can be paid for / covered separately).

From today, however, Kitely are offering regions with unlimited use for a fixed monthly fee, in much the same way as other grid-based virtual worlds offer regions of their own. Kitely’s fees for worlds are :

  • $40 a month for an individual world (1 standard 256mx256m region)
  • $60 a month for 2×2 megaregion (equivalent to 4 standard regions)
  • $80 a month for a 3×3 megaregion (equivalent to 9 standard regions)
  • $100 a month for a 4×4 megaregion (equivalent to 16 standard regions).

Each world type has free unlimited access for visitors and supports up to 100 avatars and 100,000 prims (i.e. the 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 megaregions all support 100 avatars and 100,000 prims, not multiples thereof).

Commenting on the move, Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP of R&D states:

Our virtual worlds run on powerful multi-core, 7.5 GB servers, and each world can support up to 100,000 prims and 100 concurrent users. This means that our 1-Region worlds, which cost $40 / month, are both cheaper and more powerful than equivalent private islands on other grids, which cost up to $75 / month. And if you decide to host larger worlds then the price becomes ridiculously low, costing as little as $6.25 per region for a 16-region world. Remember that these are not regions running on overcrowded or underpowered servers: each of our cloud-based servers hosts between 1 and 4 worlds, depending on the amount of users in the worlds. This means that if your world has enough users inside it then it will get its own dedicated server at no extra cost!

Kitely subscribers can opt to lease a fixed-price region option, should they so wish, without it counting against their free region allowance

This move may wide broaden Kitely’s appeal  among users who wish to have large number of visitors and who don’t wish to have concerns about direct charging for in-world time, etc.

SL Viewer Support Removed

On September 27th, Kitely ceased supporting the Second Life viewer for accessing their worlds. This move is somewhat inevitable where OpenSim is concerned, following Linden Lab’s decision to enter into a Havok sub-licence arrangement, a move which subsequently saw the -loginURI capability disabled within the SL viewer.