Loosing minutes every month

[Marstol Nitely]

I have two worlds in Kitely which are free for others, one is 16 regions and the other is one. Those, plus a few interchangeable worlds cost me $35 a month, plus visiting costs which are minimal. My 1/8th mainland region on Second Life which I've been holding for myself and some friends costs more that $40 a month.

Several months ago, I was trying to explain the different plans to a resistant friend with a partner who wanted to be able to build and share. After breaking down the fixed plans, I tried to explain how to break it down into minutes:

I showed you several options, but we never talked about the straight KC option. I think, for you, the best option would be to choose a plan for one of you and the other go with straight KCs. Or maybe even both go with straight KCs to start with.

You get one world and 2 hours with the free plan.

This is based on buying 15,000 KC's at a 33% discount for $50.

For each additional region, it will cost 10KC per day. Approximately $1.00 per month.

As far as time in-world goes:

10 hr per day = 600 = $2
70 hr per wk = 4200 = $14
monthly = 16,800 = $56

8 hr per day = 480 = $1.60
56 hr per wk = 3840 = $12.80
monthly = 15,360 = 51.20

5 hr per day = 300 = $1
35 hr per wk = 2100 = $7
monthly = 8400 = $28.00

4 hr per day = 240 = $0.80
28 hr per wk = 1680 = $5.60
monthly = 6720 = 22.40

2 hr per day = 120 = $0.40
14 hr per wk = 840 = $2.80
monthly = 3360 = $11.20

That is only for worlds that aren't FREE. Those worlds pick up that tab for you. I've just completed a couple of cards that list all (or as many as I could find) the free worlds with landmarks. I will drop them to your profiles later today.

I am able to track exactly how much time I spend in Kitely everyday. (I am also able to see exactly how much time others spend on my land). I spent a lot of time inworld at the beginning of the month and very little time in this week. My total time this month has been 129.55 minutes, which would have cost me $25.8 if I had been paying with just KC. I have a 16 region, plus 2 other worlds online right now, which would have cost me an additional $17, so the $35 a month plan is a good deal for me.

I don't know anyone (even you two), who spends 10 hours a day, seven days a week, every week of the month, online. But it would be worth finding out how much time you actually spend in Kitely BEFORE picking a plan.

One of the best things about Kitely is you can change plans midstream. You can also save worlds to your desktop and upload them from your desktop. That can come in handy. For instance, **** could save the **** region before each festival, build the festival and then upload the original clean **** after the festival. Since Kitely has shared it's OAR code with OpenSim, **** could also upload it to almost any OpenSim world **** wanted to.

[Constance Peregrine]

Deuce

"This is my concept for what it's worth. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say. Am I missing some key factor here?"

I think there is a good possibility to do land baronish type things here, if thought out well, as you seem to have done. The paradigm is different, of course, but, for instance, if friends and acquaintances can be shown this, and if [for example] the regions are designed nicely for them, it could work.

The only drawback I see is explaining what you offer over them just using their free region, tho limited...it would have to be a plus-sell enough to overcome that, and the lack of concurrency here [so far, but changing quickly it seems]...I would personally always add in to the "sell" that they can be in both grids, each to it's own uses [this as a vacation and/or building place, for example].

You cannot beat the costs here tho, and the prims, in ANY other commercial grid.

Another plus-sell is that Kitely stays with, and contributes, to current OS code development, which is actually very important to note, as this means that with other commercial grids, other than inwz, they can sell products they create here, or, simply have the same or similar experience [once they make the leap to here]. To my thinking, this is quite important, in that it allows options, which is one reason I like Kitely, they have no problems at all, and help with giving people options, this is uncommon in OS commercial grids. [eta: in ALL other commercial grids]

So they can build here without many of the limitations SL has imposed, such as prim sizes, linksets amount and distance, and prims...and other things.

Marstol

"That can come in handy. For instance, **** could save the **** region before each festival, build the festival and then upload the original clean **** after the festival. Since Kitely has shared it's OAR code with OpenSim, **** could also upload it to almost any OpenSim world **** wanted to."


This facet of Kitely allowing OAR import/export is actually a critical point to tell folx. NO other commercial grid allows this, and it gives a ton of new options to folx.

As you say, keep a copy of a certain build done for a specific purpose, but more than that, save your regions AS you build them, in versions, and thus you never are a victim of errant issues with software found in other grids....NOTHING need ever be lost again, for any reason at all.

Tho I use my free region to import OARs, if/when I eventually build here, I will certainly save it out regularly, most anytime I do any additional work of substance and value....for 10 KCs, this is a steal especially when you consider the resources used by Kitely to do this and the free export report.

[ok, this was too long and now I am tired!!!]

[Jean Swashbuckler]

Another plus-sell is that Kitely stays with, and contributes, to current OS code development, which is actually very important to note, as this means that with other commercial grids, other than inwz, they can sell products they create here, or, simply have the same or similar experience [once they make the leap to here]. To my thinking, this is quite important, in that it allows options, which is one reason I like Kitely, they have no problems at all, and help with giving people options, this is uncommon in OS commercial grids. [eta: in ALL other commercial grids]

Thanks Minethere, this is a very important point to us. In RL we build eLearning courses. We use Moodle and their hosting partners contribute back to Moodle.org. The fact that Ilan and Oren contribute back with meaningful development is a huge plus to Kitely settlers and to OpenSim.

[Deuce Halsey]

Deuce

"This is my concept for what it's worth. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say. Am I missing some key factor here?"

I think there is a good possibility to do land baronish type things here, if thought out well, as you seem to have done. The paradigm is different, of course, but, for instance, if friends and acquaintances can be shown this, and if [for example] the regions are designed nicely for them, it could work.

Being a land baron is about the last thing I want to do in Kitely. (Okay, that does in fact mean that it's on the list - but it's not near the top.) I do really like the idea of Kitely world owners with space and prims to spare on their worlds offering to rent out sub-region lots to folks who are interested in that sort of thing. I think some SL refugees will appreciate the idea of living/working on an island that they share with their landlord. It becomes more of a community thing rather than just renting a lot from a virtual land service company with far-flung holdings across dozens or hundreds of different islands. Under my concept the landlord and tenants are neighbors sharing the same island. Under the classic SL land baron paradigm most tenants are just a lot number and/or customer number who occupies space on an island that the landlord rarely, if ever, visits.

The only drawback I see is explaining what you offer over them just using their free region, tho limited...it would have to be a plus-sell enough to overcome that, and the lack of concurrency here [so far, but changing quickly it seems]...I would personally always add in to the "sell" that they can be in both grids, each to it's own uses [this as a vacation and/or building place, for example].

You cannot beat the costs here tho, and the prims, in ANY other commercial grid.

One major point is that SL residents are used to being able to spend as much time as they want each month in-world. Even free SL members can spend as much time connected to the SL grid as they want. Their only limitation is being able to build unless they rent space on the mainland or an estate, have a friend who will let them build on their land, or they're willing to use a public sandbox. The thing is that although the majority of new SL members may try a bit of building, how many of them keep building/creating throughout their SL careers? Probably not that many, at least as a percentage.

So these non-builders are able to wander the SL grid at will whenever they want, and for as long as they want, provided they stick to public places. The idea of metered access may appeal to some of these people once they run the numbers - but how many will not even be willing to run those numbers? These people aren't gonna be interested in hearing about OAR imports, or many of the other cool technical things about Kitely.

The difference here is that most builders in virtual worlds are fairly technical and/or creative people. The people who use SL for socializing - and provide the majority of the concurrency rates that grid enjoys - are far less likely to be technical folks, or people who are driven to create at any cost. Sure, some of them are artists or even technicians- but that's not why they are in world. They are there to have fun, socialize, and get away from the real world for a while. These folks will be slow to give up on SL - most of them will only consider leaving that grid once they realize that nearly all their favorite designers/creators have left. What will tempt them to chose Kitely as an SL-alternative? Not the prospect of free private sims with really limited access, or lengthy discussions about metered access plans.

My guess is that significant portion of them will be looking for something that reminds them as much as possible as what they are used to in SL. The idea is to get them involved in Kitely and get them engaged here. Once that happens some of them may learn about other options and begin to progress into becoming builders and/or creators - Kitely certainly makes that easier than SL ever did. But the trick is to get these folks on the Kitely grid in the first place.

So what is the answer? Well, like any complex situation there really is no one simple answer to how to get SL refugees involved in Kitely. Here is a short, basic and quite incomplete list:

1) More public worlds - worlds that are free to any visitor. The more of these the better, provided that each provides something different and/or unique for visitors. Having 10 different public worlds running the LK Freebie Mall OAR won't really help matters. (This is not meant as criticism of the folks running such worlds - every grid needs freebies. But having too many essentially identical worlds will just confuse a lot of people. This is the one downside of simple OAR imports in Kitely.)

2) More creators - we need more original creators in almost every field of endeavor here in Kitely. It's gonna be difficult to get socializing/shopping residents on the Kitely grid if there aren't enough original creators working in the fashion, avatar enhancement, prefab buildings and landscaping fields, just to name some of the more obvious ones.

3) Sub-region parcels available for rent, preferably with unlimited access and generous prim limits for discount prices. This will help attract some folks who used to rent small parcels on estates or the mainland in SL. Not everyone wants to socialize in a public bar/square type of environment. Some folks just want to sit on their deck, stare at the virtual waves and shoot the breeze with friends. Ideally these types of parcels should be available across the entire gamut of maturity ratings - from General to Adult.

Again, there are loads of other things that will help Kitely grow. Ideally a wide variety of efforts in these various directions will be undertaken. Between them Kitely will eventually achieve some kind of critical mass and begin growing faster.

[Marstol Nitely]

I think most of what you point out is true Duece. Not all of what you suggest will happen overnight, but Kitely seems to be growing in the right direction. There are some people who offer free parcels, apartments, shops and houses right now. I believe there were some who were offering some for rent at one point, but can't remember who it was? Here are a couple (I'm sure there are more) of the free rent that are also free to use:
City Life, by Johnny Magic, http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Joh ... /City-Life
Northern Star, by Lisbeth Johansen, http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Lis ... thern-Star

I made a list of "free" public world at the beginning of this year. There were more than 50 of them. Many that didn't have any Linda Kellie stuff in them done by interesting and talented people like Ener Hax, Lawrence Pierce, Karima Hoisan, and the very creative people in the Devokan Trust. Sometimes it takes a bit of searching, but I can remember spending many an afternoon searching for something interesting in SL and landing on lots of junk parcels surrounded by ugly signs and/or ban lines before finding the real treasures of SL.

I'm not telling you any of this because I disagree with you. I don't. I just wanted to point out some of the progress in the directions you mention.

[Min Tigerpaw]

The last two days I had in-world chats with Crystal on the attractiveness of Kitely for the user being more focused towards playing, sozializing etc. and we came to very similar conclusions as Deuce without even having read the last posts. I fullheartedly agree to the thorough analysis of Deuce and on the other side also agree that we shouldn't do the same mistakes as SL when it comes to the negative aspects of real estate business like too scattered setups of with land-sized of 512 m2 and no plan and infrastructure that causes a lot of ugly areas that no one really likes. Also there are activities in SL that we really should not try to attract over to Kitely .... think I don't need to explain this much more.

So I very much like the idea of region owners who like to do that: providing part of their regions for non-builder people with intention to spend significant time in-world on a low budget. And giving them (virtual) home where they don't have to care about time in-world.
But how to let people, coming to Kitely, know that such smaller land offerings exisit? At this time the search will not give them any clue!
Shouldn't we install a place at the welcome center where there is information for region owners about renting out mechanisms & rules and information about people, who want to offer parts of their regions for tenants and who could display what offer they might have? (Clear rules might be necessary to avoid the above mentioned negatives pouring in and for not making that part of welcome center appear as a real estate agency - it should be dedicated to information for those who want to rent out and those who like to find a starting point where to look for options to rent).

[Deuce Halsey]

I made a list of "free" public world at the beginning of this year. There were more than 50 of them. Many that didn't have any Linda Kellie stuff in them done by interesting and talented people like Ener Hax, Lawrence Pierce, Karima Hoisan, and the very creative people in the Devokan Trust. Sometimes it takes a bit of searching, but I can remember spending many an afternoon searching for something interesting in SL and landing on lots of junk parcels surrounded by ugly signs and/or ban lines before finding the real treasures of SL.

I absolutely agree with you, Marstol. There was/is a lot of junk over in SL. There has also been a large cadre of SL designers working in all aspects of fashion, at least for female avatars. But even male avatars and non-human or special-interest avatars were well looked after by the SL fashion community. Even though I'm only a t-shirt designer, my Just4yucks main store used to be part of Fashion Consolidated. If I remember correctly, that group had approximately 1000 designers in their system at one point. Shoppers could literally spend days teleporting from store to store via those crazy FC phone booths. I'm not saying that all the 1000s of fashion stores in SL had great products. But enough of them did to make it worthwhile for virtual shoppers to spend their time hopping from place to place to look around.

Fashion was the largest part of the SL economy, at least if you discount tier payments to LL or the Estate managers. But there were large numbers of people also working in several other fields, such as avatar enhancements (shapes, hair, eyes, skins, and "attachments"), prefab building design, landscaping, plants, furniture, lighting, scripted tools, just to name a few. There were dozens if not hundreds of people working in each of these fields in a serious way.

Does Kitely have talented people among its current residents? Absolutely! Ener Hax's Freebie store is inspired genius. Having to fly in through the mail slot into that huge space where your human sized avatar is an insect by comparison? Incredible! But even if new residents take an hour buzzing around that wonderful place, what's next?

It all gets back to achieving a "critical mass" where Kitely has enough original creators working in each of the main fields listed above so that new residents have a wide selection to chose from when settling into their new home. This will require a two-pronged approach. Existing creators from SL (and other grids) need to be coaxed into setting up shop here in Kitely. Also Kitely residents who have never been creators need to be encouraged to give it a go here, which will lead to completely new content never seen before, even in SL.

Of course a lot of creators won't be interested in moving into Kitely until a larger user (potential customer) base exists. It starts looking a lot like a version of the old "chicken or the egg" conundrum. Essentially, both segments of the community (creators and consumers) will need to grow at the same time. How best to achieve this?

Ironically, Linden Lab seems bent on being our best ally in getting creators to move. I'm just one of many creators who are leaving SL for greener pastures because of those recent ill-advised
changes to their TOS. Kitely should be trying to snag as many of these displaced merchants/builders as possible.

Min has it right - one of the biggest factors is communication. (Nearly everything in life seems to come back down to that, it seems.) It would be helpful if two guides existed somewhere.

"Setting Up Shop in Kitely" - this would give information to creators/builders on how to set up a store on their brand new free island(s). It would list sources for commercial prefabs, commercial rentals, store equipment/furnishings, etc. Also good places to advertise, and of course how to list your stuff in Kitely Market.

"Settling into Life in Kitely" - this one would provide information to new residents who have no interest in building or selling things. They would need to know where apartments or land could be rented, where to buy residential prefabs, furniture, landscaping, gadgets, etc.

These guides could exist in the form of a document or as displays somewhere in world (or both). Making the resident resource more general would make it seem less like a real estate office.

I will be quite busy the rest of November getting my new stores ready for their official opening, which I am expecting to happen on or about December 1, 2013. The first week of December I will be
busy working out any wrinkles with my new stores and closing out my stores in SL (which are officially closing on Dec 1st). I'm planning to leave a small outpost in the 512-1024 sqm range at the teleport arrival point of my old SL main store for at least a year. It will of course have signs promoting my new stores in Kitely, and I'll probably leave out a few freebies - some of my more popular designs from the SL collection.

Anyway, by mid-December I will probably be done with all these efforts, and more than a little burnt out.
So after a short rest, I would be willing to help establish one or both of the guides mentioned above.

[Jean Swashbuckler]

Anyway, by mid-December I will probably be done with all these efforts, and more than a little burnt out.
So after a short rest, I would be willing to help establish one or both of the guides mentioned above.

Agree with most of what you said, especially on the need for fashion content. Once people get past the newbie stage they want to look their best. That means skins, shapes, hair, and clothes...lots of clothes.

Deuce, are you under the same name in SL?

I would be happy to help on the second guide, "Settling into Life in Kitely" in the same time frame as well.

[Dot Matrix]

If you need an editorial hand to dot the tees and cross the eyes of any guides, I'd be happy to help.

Umm...

[Deuce Halsey]

Anyway, by mid-December I will probably be done with all these efforts, and more than a little burnt out.
So after a short rest, I would be willing to help establish one or both of the guides mentioned above.

Agree with most of what you said, especially on the need for fashion content. Once people get past the newbie stage they want to look their best. That means skins, shapes, hair, and clothes...lots of clothes.

Deuce, are you under the same name in SL?

I would be happy to help on the second guide, "Settling into Life in Kitely" in the same time frame as well.

I have an alt called Deuce Halsey over in SL. Incredibly enough I created him years ago with a view towards him becoming a stand-up comic in SL.

My main commercial avatar in SL is called..... drum roll..... Just4yucks Miami! Yes, kids, I was that naive when first starting out in SL in 2008. I have no idea at this
point why I thought I needed to have my brand name as part of my avatar when setting up a store on the grid, but somehow I did. It certainly has caused a lot of
people to chuckle over the years, but I decided that I could do without all that nonsense when moving my operation to a new grid.

My first ever SL avatar was Tudor Jinx. He is still the main guy I go around shopping or exploring as over there. Unfortunately I managed to grunge my first two
attempts at registering the character over here in Kitely, so I'm lumbered with an unlikely named variant called "Tudor Jinx_3" over here. That wasn't gonna do,
so I chose Deuce Halsey as my main avatar here in Kitely. Deuce Halsey does sound like he could be a board-short wearing t-shirt designer, so why not?

Speaking of fashion, can someone point me in the direction of a vendor of board shorts for male avatars here in Kitely? I'm a shorts and t-shirt wearing kinda guy,
both IRL and online.

Thanks,