Serenity Island, Kitely - photograph by Wildstar Beaumont
Today, Tuesday 21st February at 1pm SLT, Designing Worlds will be taping two important shows in our beautiful studio in Garden of Dreams – and we want your input into the discussions we’ll be filming!
Firstly, at 1pm, we will be taping a show about Kitely, the new grid that has caught a lot of people’s attention, as it works with a radically different plan to most other virtual worlds. At the moment, you access individual worlds on the Kitely grid through Facebook – although this will very soon be expanded. In addition, you can currently access one world (or region) at a time – and then re-log to access another world – although again, hypergrid jumps within Kitely are planned in the near future.
Dogwood Arts Festival, created by David Denton, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont
But perhaps the most radical difference with Kitely is that all land is free – indeed, when you sign up for an account, you automatically get one free world or, in Second Life terms, region (and you can have 100,000 prims on that region too).
So how does Kitely makes its money?
Beyond Sebgram X-99, created by Karima Hoisan, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont
By having in place a billing system that works rather like a a cell phone account – you pay for time used. And you can do this either by a pay-as-you-go of purchasing minutes, or by subscribing to a payment plan, which operates at different levels. A free account, for example, will get you 120 minutes a month and one free world; the silver account – which costs $20 per month – gets you 5000 minutes, a stipend of 1000 Kitely Credits (which can be used to buy extra minutes or purchase inworld goods) and 10 worlds (or regions). The highest level plan, the Platinum, buys you 100 worlds and unlimited minutes – and costs $100.
Lothlorien on Chakryn Forest in Kitely, a work in progress by Andrek Lowell
That, of course, compares with $295 for a full region on Second Life. But no-one has to pay for the minutes to spend on your region.
This is just the business side though – we will be exploring this and other fascinating aspects of Kitely with the CEO, Ilan Tochner – and talking to two leading creators with Kitely, Karima Hoisan and David Denton, and seeing some of their amazing and beautiful creations.
Dogwood Arts Festival, created by David Denton, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont
Then, at 2pm, our audience will have a chance to ask questions as we record the second of our two shows. This will be a panel with Ilan, Maria Korolov (of Hypergrid Business) and Mal Burns, metaverse commentator. We’ll be talking more about Kitely, and about building sustainable business models for virtual worlds. And we want to add in what you think too!
Please come to the taping at 1pm, find out more, and share your views and ideas!
The Mars Area of Serenity Island, Kitely, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont
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