Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - February 2014 | Page 39

An Open Le er to the Lindens, Hypergrid Business Report - p3

proprietary alterna ve to Apache. The
Lindens will need to add OAR and IAR
support and hypergrid connec vity to
make it comparable, and offer sweetheart
deals to hos ng companies to get them to
offer it as an alterna ve to OpenSim. Many
hos ng companies already support
mul ple servers — OpenSim, AuroraSim,
RealXtend — depending what their
customers prefer. A premium Linden
server op on may appeal to some highend customers.
Ÿ The Second Life Marketplace doesn’t need
to be limited to Second Life. Right now,
there is no viable mul -grid content
marketplace for OpenSim, though Kitely
Market is expected to open up to other
grids in the next few weeks. But even if it
does, the Second Life Marketplace would
s ll overshadow it in terms of the amount
of content available, even if only a frac on
of merchants opt to enable the mul -grid
delivery.
Ÿ The hypergrid isn’t a dirty word. Opening
up to the hypergrid would allow users to
have their homes on cheap OpenSim grids
while telepor ng to Second Life for
shopping and events. Simply create a
fourth “export” permission — which is
already present in the latest OpenSim
viewers — set all exis ng content to “no
export” by default, and allow merchants to
sell exportable goods for customers who
want to take their purchases to other grids.
Nu Vibez has me excited about Black
History Month. Kitely is already doing this,
and Avina on is expected to do the same
soon, as well. All these residents will need
new stuff to ou it their new homes, school
and companies will need content to
furnish their facili es.

Ÿ Linden dollars don’t have to be limited to
Second Life either. Although the OMC
virtual currency from Virwox has been
gaining ground recently in OpenSim, and a
compe ng currency is in the works, it’s s ll
very early days for hypergrid commerce.
Linden Lab has the opportunity to become
the PayPal of the metaverse. Plus, this
would encourage customers to rent their
OpenSim land from Linden Lab, since the
payments could be instantaneous and
seamless, like they are in Second Life,
instead of having to go through a second
Web-based confirma on step for security,
as they would have to when on grids
operated by third par es.
Imagine if AOL had embraced the Web sooner
than it did. AOL would have had the chance to
become Yahoo!, to become Amazon, to
become Google, to become PayPal, to become

Nu Vibez Magazine - February 2014 - 39