there are, and have been, many attempts to form online communities outside of Second Life and OpenSim for the purpose of sharing and archiving information
remember Avatars United? Linden Lab bought it and quickly destroyed it
Although many are sad to see Avatars United go, we are very excited that soon we’ll be sharing more of our thinking as we explore how to integrate social networking capabilities, powered by Avatars United technology, directly into the Second Life experience. – Jack(off) Linden, sept. 2010 link
i’ve tried a few but many just fall by the wayside as interest wanes, become highly focused on one grid (or person), or turn into a commercial spam farm. Ning groups had been promising until Ning stopped supporting free versions ($24.95 a month for their least expensive? sheesh!)
facebook works okay except that avatars routinely get their accounts deleted but Google+ is looking like it is more flexible with avatar names and its UI is clean and easy. Google+ seems to have just the right amount of interactivity and inter-connectivity with the rest of the web
Gaga Gracious has pulled a promising Google+ group together with this as part of its mission statement:
A community of like-minded people sharing their virtual lives with other avatars. Refugees from Second Life even!
But I would like to make this community more than just a News group for Opensim enthusiasts, although that is important. I would like to explore virtual living from a retro-futuristic view point, an alternative history perhaps which, by my mind, throws up all sorts of creative possibilities for the development of the Opensim Metaverse.
check it out =)
see what you think and maybe even participate
i fell for the ning trap too.
i think fb will try another purge again. my site has nothing, NOTHING.
bristle
29 Jan 13 at 7:19 pm
Certainly a coordinated opensim community would be great. Article is correct – they can degrade to personal views or steering towards specific commercial interests.
Osgrid shows what happens when mere residents try to have a say – the old schoolers can get quite miffed. So yes an independent community for opesim residents would be good.
I do like the hypergrid tour groups. it is an important component of the diversity of opensim.
Breen Whitman
29 Jan 13 at 8:54 pm
Ah, thank you for covering G+ Opensim Virtual, Ener!
For a long time I was searching for a good social networking site with which to promote the open Metaverse without ties or favor to any one grid. As you may know I have been plugging away for several years to get the viewer developers to give Opens grids better support and grid search in a viewer was always on my wish list.
I was never that keen on using social networks, especially Facebook, because of the pseudonyms problem and FB’s apparent abuse of privacy which everyone is up in arms about. But when I really took a good look at Google + I wondered if it might be worth giving that one a shot. The groups functions did seem really quite good. It was the sort of thing I wanted from Twitter. In fact I wish I could add a Twitter thread even now to run beside the G+ column then I could just have the one page open.
Anyway, Opensim Virtual has really taken off very well and, given I am a chatty sort of person and shout everything from the roof tops ( like you!) it got kind of noticed, lol.
The cool thing is, since I launched it other Open Metaverse groups are following suit. A number have now sprung up and there is cross interaction between them. All good!
I am really happy to do my bit to help the free Metaverse grow and I think G+ will help a lot. We are seeing new grids posting pictures and promotions, Events listed and all kinds of information’s that are helpful to the community across all grids. That is exactly what I wanted to see too. I want to see the arts, literature and music covered and education too. We want to see pictures of beautiful regions no matter which grid. We want to know about products as well. All I ask is that people post in the right categories which are linked on the side bar. Everything appears on the main thread initially anyway. I hope it will serve a useful purpose and I promise to do my best to maintain it and keep it unbiased.
It is also proving to be a good debating forum too!
Gaga
30 Jan 13 at 6:43 am