Talking about Kitely (and visiting it too) on Designing Worlds

Serenity Island, Kitely - photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Join us today, Monday 5th March at 2pm SLT in our beautiful studio in Garden of Dreams when we will be broadcasting a very exciting show, looking at the virtual world of Kitely – and talking to its CEO, Ilan Tochner, as well as two leading artists (both well known for their work in Second Life) Karima Hoisan and David Denton (who is known as DB Bailey in Second Life).

Dogwood Arts Festival, created by David Denton, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Kitely 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, Twitter or through an email account.  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.

Beyond Sebgram X-99, created by Karima Hoisan, 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, one free region of your own (and you can have 100,000 prims on that region too).

Lothlorien on Chakryn Forest in Kitely, a work in progress by Andrek Lowell

So how does Kitely makes its money?

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.

Dogwood Arts Festival, created by David Denton, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

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 our guests as we visit their regions in Kitely.

We will be screening this show in our studio, designed by Kayle Matzerath, on our new location in Garden of Dreams.  Do come and join us there at 2pm!

The Mars Area of Serenity Island, Kitely, photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

Or – if you can’t attend in person – tune in at 2pm SLT on Monday for the live show on http://treet.tv/live – where you can now chat with other audience members and even some of the participants during the show – or catch it later in the week on our shows page on the Treet.tv web site at http://treet.tv/shows/designingworlds– our very own version of the iPlayer!