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Both the G$ and OMC multi-grid currencies reported strong growth over the last two months. Since we last took a look at their numbers in mid-August, the OMC currency — backed by Austrian Linden exchange operator Virwox — has grown from 14 to 20 grids, and now reports 382,537 OMCRead More →

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Virtual events are undoubtedly effective… but can they also be fun? Over the last several years, many companies, squeezed by tough economic conditions, have looked for alternatives to in-person events. At the same time, virtual event providers have responded with a hundred rational arguments regarding why meeting online is betterRead More →

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Teesside University is piloting a quarter million pound (US $400,000) citizenship education project in OpenSim this year. The project, which will eventually involve as many as 900 high students in the UK, will be officially launched in January. The entire project is scheduled to run for 18 months and isRead More →

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The Immersive Education Initiative, a Boston-based non-profit coalition, announced today that it will offer free land, and free migration services, for educators working in Second Life’s Teen Grid. The Initiative currently provides thousands of OpenSim regions to members around the world through its Education Grid project,  Aaron Walsh, founding directorRead More →

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The world’s forty largest public OpenSim grids gained 1,605  regions over the past 30 days, and added 10,530 new users. This brings the total region counts on these grids to 12,425, an 15 percent increase over last month’s total of 10,820 regions. The 15 percent monthly growth rate is alsoRead More →

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According to our first reader survey, the majority of the readers of Hypergrid Business are interested in open source virtual platforms like OpenSim and social virtual worlds like Second Life. Less than a quarter were interested in Web-based virtual worls like Venuegen, enterprise virtual worlds like ProtoSphere, and 2D virtualRead More →

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Just a day after Second Life launched its mesh beta, OpenSim already has experimental mesh in the latest test release, and people have begun trying the technology out on OSGrid’s experimental Danger Grid. According to OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, the OpenSim implementation of mesh leverages the work done byRead More →

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This month, the Youth for Christ charity celebrates its second year in Second Life. But the big party will be held in OpenSim, the charity’s new home. The reason? The Second Life Teen Grid, where the YFC has been offering support and mentoring programs for at-risk youth, is closing atRead More →

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Founders of teleXLR8, a discussion program conducted in the Teleplace virtual environment, are hoping that the project becomes the next TED for virtual worlds. Teleplace, Inc. is one of the leading providers of enterprise-grade, behind-the-firewall, fully immersive virtual collaborative environments. According to teleXLR8 organizer Giulio Prisco, Teleplace’s built-in multi-user videoconferencing,Read More →

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Press Release: Real-time Machinima animation pioneers announce launch of Pixel Valley Studio Frank Dellario and Tom Donnelly, previously from The ILL Clan, found new full services animation company Acclaimed Real-time animation producers Frank Dellario and Tom Donnelly formally announced the launch of Pixel Valley Studio, a new company offering anRead More →

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There are a lot of different kinds of OpenSim grids out there — it can get a little confusing. Well, a lot confusing. Here’s a quick primer. Social grids Social grids attempt to replicate the experience of Second Life. They don’t make up the majority of grids running on theRead More →

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In response to rising land prices at Second Life — and a need for increased control and scalability — the MuniGov association of local governments has launched the GovGrid project, and OpenSim-based virtual world environment for local government agencies. Prices start at just $25 a region, with a $50 setupRead More →

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“Attend our free webinar!” How many of these emails do you get these days? I don’t know about you, but my itchy “Delete” finger gets really itchy when these appear in my inbox. Why? I think we’ve all been to many online events that are nothing more than PowerPoint presentationsRead More →

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Since Linden Lab announced that educators and non-profits would see a doubling of their land prices in January, there has been a surge of interest in OpenSim — and a flood of special offers from service providers. Some vendors have offered migration services to help non-profits get their content fromRead More →

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NASA’s OpenSim-based Moon World — a quarter-million-dollar project –  will go live on December 1, allowing students to experience what it’s like to live and work on a NASA moon base. “It helps students understand the geography of the moon,” said Charles Wood, executive director for the Center for EducationalRead More →

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Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote a short piece today about the five stages of users, which applies to OpenSim as well as to any other product or technology: Novice: wants to be given a manual, told what to do, with no decisions possible Advanced Beginner: needs a bit of freedom,Read More →

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Press Release: Gartner’s 2010 Hype Cycle Special Report Evaluates Maturity of 1,800 Technologies Hype Cycle Research Provides a Cross-Industry Perspective on Potentially Transformative Technologies STAMFORD, Conn. —  Media tablets, private cloud computing, and 3D flat-panel TVs and displays are some of the technologies that have moved into the PeakRead More →

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Press Release: Teleplace to Showcase ‘Last Mile’ Enterprise Social Collaboration Successes New Customer Program Highlights Immersive Microsoft SharePoint, Mobile Device Interactivity, Enterprise-Class, Cloud Collaboration REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–Teleplace, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class immersive collaboration and learning solutions, today announced a new program designed to showcase how customers are solvingRead More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Milicruit Partners with Over 50 Industry Leading Employers and Government Agencies to Produce the Veterans Day Virtual Career Fair More Than 25,000 Veterans Expected to Attend the Virtual Career Fair, Thousands of Employment Opportunities Available CHICAGO– UBM Studios Milicruit, the recognized leader for virtual career fairsRead More →

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Last month I attended one of the most engaging meetings I’ve ever experienced and I was not even there.  The event was EventCamp Twin Cities.  This was a one-day conference for event professionals.  It was a hybrid event, meaning they had a live conference with a virtual component. I hadRead More →

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Introduction 1. $54 million in cost savings 2. $19 million in productivity and time savings 3. 34,000 tons of carbon emissions eliminated If those kinds of numbers are interesting to you, we hope you will take a minute and read on, because that’s just the beginning of the story. TheseRead More →

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How do you keep up with industry trends?  You hear from the people setting the trends.  On September 24th, FountainBlue held its annual virtual worlds conference on Cisco’s campus in Milpitas, CA.  The event featured a session titled “Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An Update on What’s New andRead More →

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I was a guest on Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe on Sunday, October 10 and had a great time talking about hypergrid and OpenSim. Other guests that night included singer-songwriter Senjata Witt, who performed live,  and Dusan Writer, CEO of Remedy Communications and prolific blogger about Second Life.Read More →

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UPDATE: TalentRaspel has lowered its price for exporting Second Life regions. It now starts at US $273 (200 Euros)  per region, and is based on the complexity of the build. Vendors are offering full-region migrations from Second Life to OpenSim at prices starting at as little as $80 a region.Read More →

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The largest grid on the hypergrid will upgrade to the new version of OpenSim on Sunday, October 17. The new version supports media-on-a-prim as well as a more secure hypergrid teleport standard. The new version is OpenSim version 0.7. OSGrid is currently running version 0.6.9. The new 0.7 version ofRead More →

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In the wake of the closing of Second Life’s Teen Grid, and the price hike to educators and non-profits, many organizations are considering moving to OpenSim. The first question they usually ask themselves is, “Which grid should we join?” But the more important question should be: “Should we join aRead More →

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• Clients three times as likely to complete virtual treatment program as face-to-face program • Outcomes ‘as good or better’ as at physical treatment centers • Private OpenSim grid operated by ReactionGrid, more stable than Second Life Preferred Family Healthcare, Inc., is a substance abuse treatment organization with headquarters inRead More →

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When I first rezzed in January 2007, educators were investing heavily in Second Life, both its Teen and Main Grids. Throughout the “hype” era that ended the next  year, and amid the inevitable backlash against SL by mainstream media, many of us in education defended Linden Lab and its platform.Read More →

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Press Release: Quantum3D ExpeditionDI Ushers in New Era of Virtual Immersive Combat Training With Successful Completion of U.S. Joint Forces Command FITE Program Industry’s First Wearable Infantry Training Platform Simulates Squad-Based Close Combat to Improve War Fighter Readiness, Team Communication and Decision-Making Skills SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ —Read More →

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Press Release: INXPO and HSM Global Partner to Produce Virtual Complement of World Business Forum 2010 HSM Selects INXPO Virtual Platform for Live Video Webcasts from New York City’s Radio City Music Hall CHICAGO — HSM Global has partnered with INXPO to produce a virtual complement to the annual WorldRead More →

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I hate that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach when I know something has been lost that I care about. After my initial shock of hearing that Linden Labs was dropping education discounts, I immediately communicated with colleagues (most of whom I have never met in person) aboutRead More →

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Updated May 4, 2013 Yes, you can run OpenSim for free on your own computer -  you can even run it on a USB stick. But do you want to? Here’s a question — would you run your own Apache Web server for your website, or would you use aRead More →

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Today, Linden Lab announced that the price of land for educators and non-profits will double in January. As a result, the price differential between Second Life land and OpenSim becomes even more significant. You can pay as little as $10 for a single region, but for the highest performance andRead More →

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The use of virtual meetings has grown at 80 percent of companies, according to a recent report from Carson Wagonlit Travel’s Travel Management Institute. The report, based on a survey of over 1,800 people in companies around the world, showed that the most popular virtual meeting platforms are video conferences,Read More →

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Press Release: Cruise Shipping Virtual Launches Sustainability Event Attendees Call It a Success PRINCETON, N.J. — Cruise Shipping Virtual, an interactive live online event, closed on Tuesday with attendees calling the eco-centric event a success.  This is the second virtual event organized by Cruise Shipping Miami and the first to focus solely on theRead More →

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In a recent post, I wrote about how the Club One Fitness program in Second Life helped me lose 20 pounds, lower my blood pressure, and make permanent changes to my lifestyle. A skeptic might read that and say: “Well, sure, you spent four hours a week in support sessionsRead More →

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Today, my scale shows that I’ve lost 20 pounds over the past three months. In addition, today at my doctor’s office, I learned that, my blood pressure was down, and so was my body mass index. But this wasn’t on a diet or exercise plan. I didn’t stop eating carbsRead More →

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Press release: NYIT Receives $1 Million Grant from the National Science Foundation Project to Enable Teachers to Use Information and Communications Technologies in the Classroom New York, N.Y.  – New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) was awarded with a grant for $1 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) forRead More →

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I’m ending it. Beset by criticism on all sides — okay, just one side — I am officially going cold turkey on “real life.” The phrase, that is, not the living itself. I’ve never been a big fan of the wording “in real life,” but haven’t noticed to what extentRead More →

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Last week, Laura Crane Trust, a non-profit which provides support to teenage and young adult cancer patients in the U.K., had decided to build its virtual world in OpenSim. Jonathan Tyreman, the charity’s online development coordinator, originally wanted to go with Second Life but decided to recommend OpenSim to theRead More →

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I was in a meeting recently with a local business networking groups going on — as I normally do — about virtual worlds. And the other folks at the meeting expressed an interest in using virtual worlds. But they didn’t know how to get started. There were too many options,Read More →

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Last month, Linden Lab announced that the Teen Grid was shutting down at the end of the year, sending many educators into a panic at the prospect of losing their virtual projects in the middle of the school year. To partially offset this loss, the Lindens also lowered the minimumRead More →

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Press release: INXPO Virtual Platform Hosts Meeting Industry’s Most Innovative Event, Cisco Global Sales Experience (GSX) 2010 Cisco Advances Their Next Generation Event Technologies with Global Sales Experience (GSX) 2010 on the INXPO Virtual Platform CHICAGO — This year, Cisco took the Global Sales Experience (GSX) to another level.  WorkingRead More →

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Press release: Teleplace Named a 2010 Top Training and Simulation Company by Military Training Technology Magazine Selected Companies Are ‘Top Performers’ in Military Training Industry REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Teleplace, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class immersive learning and collaboration solutions, today announced that Military Training Technology magazine has namedRead More →

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How do you keep up with industry trends?  You hear from the people setting the trends. On September 24th, FountainBlue held its annual virtual worlds conference on Cisco’s campus in Milpitas, CA. The event featured a session titled “Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An Update on What’s New andRead More →

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Press Release: Daden selected for new genetic screening virtual application Virtual world solution specialists Daden have been awarded a contract to create the laboratory functionality to enable scenario-based training as part of the University of Leicester’s SWIFT project in Second Life. Based on Daden’s open-source award winning software PIVOTE, theRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual World Campus for OpenSim HOUSTON, TEXAS  — FireSabre Consulting, a virtual world developer focused on educational clients, responded this week to the announcement by Linden Lab that the Teen Second Life virtual world product was to be discontinued. FireSabre has launched a program to help K-12 institutionsRead More →

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The lack of mesh imports has long been a problem for enterprise users of OpenSim and Second Life. But Second Life is about to start open beta testing of mesh — and OpenSim won’t be far behind. According to OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey, the OpenSim team will adapt theRead More →

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Update: The Chat-World project has moved back to Second Life. According to the Laura Crane Trust, cancer is the most common form of non-accidental death in teenagers and young adults in the UK. The Trust is the only UK charity dedicated to funding research specifically into cancers affecting young peopleRead More →