Zandramas connects to Kitely Market

Last month, the Kitely grid rolled out hypergrid delivery of content sold in the stores of its fast-growing Kitely Market.

But some closed grids are getting in on the action as well.

Zandramas, a closed commercial grid, has also enabled Kitely Market deliveries for its residents, said its technology services provider Zetamex in an announcement today.

A Kitely Market purchase delivered to the Zandramas grid. (Image courtesy Zetamex.)
A Kitely Market purchase delivered to the Zandramas grid. (Image courtesy Zetamex.)

The grid did so without turning on full hypergrid connectivity, said Zetamex founder Timothy Rogers.

“This at the moment only allows deliveries from the Kitely marketplace — no one can leave or enter the grid through hypergrid,” he said in the announcement. “Now that Zandramas has tested the process, Zetamex will offer direct Kitely Market access for its closed grid and standalone clients,” he added.

Zetamex and Zandramas didn’t need anything special from Kitely to make this work.

“Anyone can do this,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. “It doesn’t require any change on our end but we’re happy to advise those that seek our help.”

Hypergrid door open for deliveries only

According to Rogers, it is possible to allow content to arrive on a grid via hypergrid, without having to allow hypergrid teleports by avatars from other grids.

For additional security, however, he has set up the OpenSim and firewall configuration so that not only foreign visitors are kept out, but also any content arriving from anywhere except the Kitely Market.

Plus, as an additional level of security, only one region on the Zandramas grid is enabled for hypergrid delivery.

“It’s not necessary, but if you want to be secure about it, that’s the way to go,” he said.

Other grids might opt to enable hypergrid delivery to all their regions, he added.

The downside of having only a single region — specifically, the Kitely Delivery region — enabled for the Kitely Market is that residents have to make sure that their avatars are on that region when they make their Kitely Market purchases.

“It’s only for the pickup of the original box delivery,” Rogers told Hypergrid Business. “After that, once it’s in their inventory, they can go anywhere with it on the grid.”

First successful multi-grid market

Other marketplaces have attempted to sell products to multiple grids, but the Kitely Market is the first one to have gained significant traction.

According to Kitely’s Tochner, the marketplace now has more than 2,580 product listings in more than 5,000 variations. Of these, 2,037 are exportable, meaning that the merchants have decided to enable delivery to foreign grids.

“We’ve delivered to more than 15 grids so far,” he said.  ” I think the main takeaway is that anyone who uses an up-to-date version of OpenSim and doesn’t intentionally block us can easily have items from Kitely Market delivered to avatars in their grid.”

Kitely Market statistics.
Kitely Market statistics.

 

“It is a very exciting site to see a commercial grid open up to a public marketplace,” said Zetamex’ Rogers. “With Zandramas leading the way into opening its doors to commercial hypergrid delivery, perhaps more grids will start to see the benefits and in the future of hypergrid. We will be watching to see what grids follow if any do, it will be interesting to see.”

Maria Korolov