Fashionistas Needed! Designers Coming IN!! Woot!

The SpotON3D grid is now in its 4th month and we've done pretty well I think, but there are still folks who make content asking us why they should come in now since our population still isn't high. Our answer to that is:

1. Lower Overhead with a 5K full sized region costing only $79.99 a month and a 15K region running just $149.99 a month plus many other  new land property options to fit most any budget.
2. Real Content Protection in four layers - Technical, Educational, Social, and Legal, making it far more risky for those who would be bent on stealing content to do so.
3. The ability to sell more safely beyond any one grid's boarders. With a SpotON3D store you can participate in our patent pending Double Dutch Delivery System that allows content creators to decide what grids they trust to expand their product sale to and meet their loyal customer's needs as they being exploring beyond the boarders of SpotON3D & Second Life(r). But More on that in another blog!!
   
4. Because SpotON3D was created with business in mind and will be marketing to some of the largest and most active business networking communities online.

What's the big hold up? Content. With approximately 50M+ user base in that business networking sector of the internet, even if we whisper to them marketing wise, we could be run over with up to 4,000 users at our door and all wanting to customize their avatars and rent office spaces. That means we need to have all our ducks in a row. If that isn't reason enough to jump in and be an early adopter, then what is? *-)

HAVING SAID THAT ...

Here is a run done on who has signed up to come in and be our first content creator teams to offer their goods to our upcoming target market.

DeeTaleZ is COMING SOON!
Yes! DeeTalez and two of their other co- designers sell just about everything to outfit male and female avies. They'll be in as soon as they finish reworking their store in SL. Mama Tessa tried to warn them about all those lights, glows and textures. :P But really, Dark and Steffi have done such an awesome job on their cityscape in Second Life(r) and I know its going to be ten times better after this latest tweak. Let's all try and support them by tolerating the lag a bit and shopping more in their store as they get over this hump. Once their in SpotON3D then we can have copies of their work in both our inventories through our Double Dutch Delivery System so cheer them on in their endeavors. More ON Double Dutch Delivery in another blog! Shameless tease!

EXCLUSIVA  & Look-BOOK!!
We also have the esteemed Vasgez McMillian of Exclusiva and the LOOk-BOOk(tm) Virtual Home Shopping (R) system is coming in this month as well. Exclusiva is another great German company that does mixed reality. They design real world fashions and replicate them in virtual, as well as contract with other real world designers to offer the same Mixing real world product with virtual was a huge goal of mine for the SpotON3D grid right from the start, so I'm ecstatic to have them coming in too. *MORE ON THEIR LOOK-BOOK(tm) IN ANOTHER BLOG!

STYLISTICS - Brand Name Quality @ Discount Prices
FallenAngel Savira has a reseller store in Second Life(r) and I was impressed with the way she did things there so asked if she'd be interested in coming to our grid with her reseller collection to be sold through Stylistics. She's graciously agreed and we'll be setting up the Stylistics store for her this week to manage for SpotON3D and fill to the brim with great low cost items. This makes sure we have a price line for anyone's virtual needs. In this economy that's important, be it real wear or virtual. Make sure you go by and say 'Hi' to FallenAngel and welcome her to our family.

ARKAD's Home & Garden
Then we have Arkad's Home & Garden store, reselling some of the best landscaping items you could want for, as well as great accessories, such as pots and arbors. He's a super guy too. Won't find a nicer vendor out there.

SALAMANDER PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS TOOLS
Sunny Salamander is our Professional Business Tool Guru, creating some awesome inworld gadgets for our users when we start courting the online business communities like the 50m+ LinkedIn crowd.So far he's got a stellar PowerPoint tool with super easy loading of your PPT Slides that also preioad, so no waiting for them to rez, his in world white board system and his video display gadget. He's also got a conference room available for use if you need it and he'll be building an open air arena on his plot in Lambda to be the go to place in SpotON3D for community meetings and such.

A.C.T. & Rosewood SO3D Enterprise Developers
As Well as Our Resident Contract Builders - Lora Chadbourne & Felonious Nitely
Lora Chadbourne and Felonious Nitely both have worked with me as contract builders and are just superb at what they do. They are slowly going through their products and updating them for our grid, seeing they are not limited by the 10M restriction like they had in Second Life (r). They will be offering their services to our two SO3D Enterprise Developers, A.C.T., Applied Creative Training and Rosewood Enterprises as needed, and are open for projects anyone might need, both small and large.

As you can tell, things are really picking up in SpotON3D! So now that begs the question as to why are YOU coming over to check us out? *-)

COME SEE SPOTON3D's SPOOKTACULAR HUANTED HOUSE

Yes, its that time of year and we've had gobs of fun creating this year's Halloween display. For those who wonder if scripts can run as well over here as in SL, ya'll gotta come over and visit Arkad's Home & Garden.

Ark's graciously handed over about a quarter of his region to our craziness and its really been a lot of hard work and TONs of fun. Now, all that is missing is folks to help us test out our theory on scripts and users, so come on by. We have a sign that will beam you directly into Arkad's region to check it out. We also have a great old spooky movie from the black & white movie age. Its Italian dubbed in english,k but really very well done! Surprisingly so actually! Thank Victor Hua, my right hand, for finding that for us!
We also have a Fortune Telling area that our own Butterfly Laa has offered to do. She has a knack for reading people well, so come on over and get her to give you a fee fortune telling session in the beautimous gypsy tent building.

Lora Chadbourne has helped us fill out some of the 3 levels of the Haunted House and the grave yard with her great work. Don't be shy about saying thank you to her for all her hard work. And she did it all with a horrid flue!

We've also got an awesome dance floor and a great area called, "The Gathering" just outside the Haunted House to just hand out and tell spooky stories together. So come on down before November 1st and see how well a multitude of scripts can run on an grid based on the OpenSim Platform!

- Tessa *-)

Is Content Protection Futile?

One of my oldest associates in Second Life, Gwyneth Llewelyn, does a great blog of her own, bringing about great discussions on timely topics that do far more than scratch the surface, like some other blogs. Yet, its not flame ridden and full of angry protest either, which is indeed a rarity. I hope one day to inspire that kind of intelligent communication from our grid supporters.

Recently, Gwyn has been talking on the subject of CONTENT PROTECTION, which, if you're a paying member of our grid, you know this is a subject my team and I have worked very hard on for our OpenSim grid. I've not responded before, because I didn't want anyone accusing us of using Gwyn's blog to promote our grid, but I felt compelled to this time. So, I opened up my word doc and dived in. After I got done, it occurred to me this would be good reading for folks who drop by and read our blog, so here it is.

While SpotON3D can't promise 100% protection from copybot or other content ripping software - NO ONE CAN - our system does take a holistic approach to grid security that so far has been very successful. Let me explain ...

But first, a little disclaimer to maybe cut off a lot of unnecessary flaming and teeth nashing. Our grid systems don't appeal to everyone and that's fine. Its not our intent to be the grid for everyone. We are a very business minded grid and we feel trying to please everyone in a single grid is just not a realistic goal. So, for those who would feel this is too restrictive and would like to argue that point, its fine. You have every right to express you opinions. Just know its not going to change our direction and remember you have many many other OpenSim choices besides our grid to choose from besides ours.

Having said that little disclaimer, here is how we've addressed content theft on our grid:

1.) Registrations of FREE FOREVER accounts with the use of our client get you access to the General Population sections of the grid, and you can chat, travel and even shop to customize your avatar, but you'll not be able to own land, rez prims. build or script.

Why? We know this is the number one preferred means of hacking, spamming, scamming and lagging on any grid and we feel our paying customers deserve to be our main focus on them rather than handling griefers and such.

****For you shop-a-holics thinking how can you unpack your purchases if you can't rez or own land we simply instruct them to attach the box to their avatar and unpack it directly from there.If you're doing the V-8 head slap, TRUST ME! I was there too, thinking of all the years I went running back home to try on stuff. :P And go figure that a very STRAIGHT male avatar GUY thought this up!!! OK ... I digress!!!

2.a) All paid memberships are verified via PayPal accounts, providing reasonable verification on age and identity in one step without being invasive or demanding your national ID or driver's license.

Why? While some kids might brave sneaking mom's CC out of her purse to get an account, we're betting they'll be much less likely to go rummaging through their parents banking statements to verify a bogus PayPal account.

2.b) All membership are created under one PayPal verified Passport Account that services and controls up to 5 avatars. This means their Passport account is linked to all aspects of their grid experience, such as land ownership, selling privileges, mature area access, and the ability to see and purchase mature content. If one of those avatars messes up it has the potential to affect all the other avatars if they are suspended or even banned. Yes, a new PayPal account can be created, but that's not an unlimited option and would put anyone using fraudulent information to establishing those accounts in real jeopardy of being prosecuted on a criminal level.

3.) We sort all other clients than our own to an isolated region, blocking potentially malicious clients from accessing the rest of our grid.

Why? If they can't see it they can't copy it. Some jump to the conclusion that we are a closed network, but that could not be further from the truth. If you'd like to hear more on that score you'll have to be clever and figure out who we are. Simply would take too long here and digress from this conversation, but suffice it to say we've made cross grip TPing and selling a reality.

4.) We support a community driven Mediation Panel of 3 to 5 randomly selected registered paying users to hear DMCA cases and even other grid disputes. They are responsible for making any recommendations to what should happen. They also have the option of turning to a real world legal agent to advise if necessary.

5.) If one or both parties are not happy with the recommendations they have the option to take it to court, or go through Arbitration with our real world judge residing, whose opinions are recognized by most courts world wide - all for a very affordable fee of $100-$300 per person. If one of the parties refuses to pay the fee than the other party can foot the bill, but per our TOS they are required to participate or settle on the Mediation Panel's resolution, or relinquish their membership account and be suspended or even banned from the grid.

6.) We educate through the mediation system by allowing the residents of our grid to witness the proceedings. Everything is out in the open as a means to keep it honest and to educate the community on the difference between mediated agreements and how the letter of the law applies to a given situation. Sometimes what is right isn't always legally possible to make right.

To all the nay sayers who will cry out that any hole can be punched into our security, yeah you might be right, but we kinda figure its like any software development, in that its an on going committment. Rarely is software made and then touched or upgraded again. Why should the security of a grid be any different?

To all those who would argue that there are other non-client ways to rip content, we'd have to agree, But seeing our content creators will get meticulous records of purchases made by verified avatars- not only of those on our grids, but those they sold to other grids - it will be very easy to point out items that have been ripped and found on grids not authorized to have their content there. Are our systems perfect? No, but we feel they create enough road blocks for those who would fain ignorance of what they are doing to think twice.

Why are we being so diligent? Because its the right thing to do. Both owners of this company are experts in their field, one being a 14+ year vetran of the 3D Web, and the other being an IP attorney out of Washington, DC. So yeah, we take this stuff seriously.

Can we promise copybot or interface copy tools will never gain access to our grid? No. NO ONE can promise that. But we feel that is not reason to give up or not even try. If we only match real world security success of 70-90% that's a huge improvement. And we still believe that if you give people enough reasons to pause and think of what they are doing, the majority will make the right choice.

Ultimately though, its time people realize that the theft of content creation ISN'T PART OF SOME 'GAME' OR A 'GAME CHEAT'. Its a real and legally prosecutable offense, both civilly and criminally. But I'd much rather they look at the many artist who make these great assets as real people who pay their bills, keep a roof over their heads, and take great pride and joy in providing us with some of the best content the world has seen to date. Isn't it time we respected their hard work and stopped pretending its JUST a game?

The Lament of Our 2nd - Lost to Growing Pains ... Dusan's Ode

Dusan Writer, the founder of Metanomics, blogged a very heartfelt missive last night. You can read it here if you wish: http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2009/10/15/the-green-light-philip-rosedales-second-life/#more-1431
I felt it was important to respond because, ONE ... no one else did at the time of my responding to it and I thought it deserved some recognition. And TWO, because I sense Dusan's ache to not loose our idealistic center.

I'd like to point out that what has made Second Life so special doesn't have to be lost as long as Linden Lab continues be a part of mending broken fences and extending themselves more to the community from within and outside their garden walls. I'm speaking here to the notion of diversity - something this blog seems to really bring home. If the lament is that rules of behavior, economics and law are changing the landscape, smothering the unique diversity in Second Life, that might be true, but I would argue that the extent of that is controllable and in the hands of the powers that be and how they enforce it.

The idea I can't get in line with though is the notion that all grids have to service the same audience, follow the same rules and goals, and that any shift to target a segment of the larger audience might be seen as ANTI-Second Life. What we should NOT do is become so enthralled with Second Life that we scorn any other cousins that grow from it. After all, wasn’t that one of the reasons Phillip Rosedale opened up the client code? We should not be afraid of these migrations and changes or the competition they bring, because they will allow the industry of virtual world/environs to expand to new audiences offering niche groups a home where none exists or clashes with others. Good competition makes businesses work harder to create a better experience FOR THEIR TARGET MARKET. This is an evitable and necessary exercise for any infant industry. Without these changes things grow stagnant and stale. If anything, these expansions should help Second life can RETAIN its openness and freedom.

For anyone who worries about Second Life’s survival due to increased competition, don’t. They will be here 20 years from now. To know this all we need to do is to look to its predecessor, Active Worlds.com, who after 14 years are still evolving and growing and enjoy a very devoted community. All of us know Linden Labs has to make money to keep the lights on and that means their business model will have to continue to change and morph to grow. No one wants to see them fail or sacrifice their core community in that process.

What is true is that Second Life will no longer be the only virtual destination of its kind. It would be unrealistic to think ANY ONE COMPANY OR GRID CAN OWN THIS. Business grids, dating grids, shopping grids, furry grids, naughty grids ... these are sprouting up as we speak and there are more than enough people in the world to give them all an opportunity to be profitable. That’s why I think the growing pains we are seeing and feeling are indeed very much in the spirit of Phillip Rosedale's dream, but on a whole other level he couldn't have foreseen back in 2002. With the ability to create our own grids we can gather those around us who share in our beliefs and dreams and as a community grow in new and exciting directions.. Embrace it and find your niche. Support it with your memberships and your purchases and watch this grow. It’s going to be exciting and wonderful ride I think.

UPDATE!! SpotON3D Is GROWING!

Well, its been a month since I blogged. I've tried! Honest! But every time I started to sink my teeth into a good chuck of text I'd get called away. But, in the end that is good, because the results are the proof of the efforts going on behind the scenes.

The Fountain Blue event went very well and really helped us to make some important contacts. We met Zeegee Games, http://www.zeegeereader.com/ and hope to collaborate with them some of our upcoming projects. They have a very innovative team that brings games onto the iphone and look forward to working with them to bring some new functionality to the SpotON3D grid.

We also met John Jainschigg, aka John Zhaoying in virtual, the Executive Director of the Internet and Community Laboratory at Ziff Davis Enterprise Media and lead persons for the IBM hosted media group, Smarter Technology (http://www.smartertechnology.com/). Our meeting with him turned into a tour of SpotON3D with much excitement on both sides of the conversation. It seems that John and I are very much on the same page as far as the vision for the 3D Web.

Before our time ended John graciously invited us to present at the Smart Technology Island in Second Life to showcase the things that make the SpotON3D grid different from the others, for which we are very grateful. We were very well received and has resulted in not only increased traffic to SpotON3D, but registrations, land rentals and vendors bringing in their content to set up stores.

On the heels of John Jainschigg's visit came Doug Thomas, aka Dusan Writer of Metanomics, who took a tour as well, though shorter. Dusan seemed a little cautious, but we hope he'll come by and visit SpotON3D again to get the complete picture about SpotON3D's security systems besides the technology end and all our other solutions. Maybe I am wrong, but I sense a bitter sweet angst in Dusan, as if he thought our grid was hearlding in a different era and I guess that's not far off. I just hope he keeps his great open mind and recognizes that no one grid can own all this. It will take as many grids to service all the people that will come to use virtual environs as their are web sites and that's a good thing in the end. Then we're not trying to push round people into square holes so much.

Which brings me to another point. Some have scoffed at your security without listening to the full message. Its not Just or client DNAing technology that makes our grid more secure. Its also the way we verify our memberships, the community driven Free Mediation Panel, and the fee based real world judge arbitration services that round out the solutions in this very complex problem of protecting content and the hard working individuals that use it. Does that mean theft will not occur on our grid? No. No one can promise that, and those in the know, know why. But we can make it with enough stop gaps to give the honest majority out there a reason think about their choice and make the right decision.

My personal goal in this manner is to give the user enough barriers to second guess their choices, ponder the repercussions and consider the impact their 'fun' has on the creator's life. We sometimes forget that this is NOT a game for most of these folks. Many spend endless hours perfecting these works of art we think of as props for our avies and builds, so they can make enough to pay their bills, or at the very least supplement the household incomes in these hard times. Its important that we respect their talent and their right to earn a living from this, even if OUR only reason for being here is to play.

CAN WE SAY ... CHEEZE!?! OODELS OF REASONS TO SMILE!

COLLABORATION AT ITS BEST
::NEWS WRAP UP::
SpotON3D HAS BEEN CHOSEN AS ONE OF SIX VIRTUAL WORLD
ENTREPRENEURS TO PRESENT AT THE FOUNTAIN BLUE VIRTUAL WORLD
CONFERENCE AT THE SUN MICROSYSTEMS' HEADQUARTERS ON SEPT 25TH

ALM- PRODUCTIONS IS CREATING OUR MACHINIMA FEATURE FOR
THE FOUNTAIN BLUE VIRTUAL WORLD CONFERENCE!

APPLIED CREATIVE TRAINING HAS CHOSEN SpotON3D
AS ITS HOME FOR THEIR VIRTUAL WORLD PLATFORM PROJECTS!

SAY CHEEZE!!!
Had an important meeting tonight with Ariella Furman, Ariella Languish in Virtual. If you've not visited her website you might wanna check her work out

http://www.alm-productions.net/

She's a formidable Machinima artist who has worked with everyone from virtual business and players to Fortune 50 corporations. Her work is astounding and we're privileged to have her filming on our first virtual cinema piece for us. her ability to convey her client's message visually is second to none and I hope we enjoy a long working relationship with her and her company.

THE MACHINIMA SPIN FOR THE FOUNTAIN BLUE CONFERENCE
The message is going to be steered by the event it will be showing at the FountainBlue.biz Virtual World Conference held at Sun Microsystem's HQ in Santa Clara on the 25th. You can read more about it here:

http://www.fountainblue.biz/virtualworlds.html

Just so happens that last April they put out a call for virtual world entrepreneurs to submit their executive summaries for this event. Out of the undoubtedly hundreds of submissions, only six where plucked out of the masses to showcase their work and business models at the event and .... drum roll please ....

SPOTON3D HAS BEEN CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE TOP SIX PRESENTERS!

Its big news for us! We'll get the opportunity to present our executive summary and showcase our gird in a 17 minute fast pitch to the prestigious panelist attending. Its a WHO's WHO of Virtual Environs;

* Benjamin Duranske, Pillsbury Winthrop

* Moderator Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company

* Panelist Josh Bell, Director, Technology Integration, Linden Lab

* Panelist Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners

* Panelist Benjamin Duranske, Pillsbury Winthrop

* Moderator Jeffrey Pope, Founder of Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group, Former
Virtual Worlds VC and Virtual Worlds Entrepreneur

* Panelist David Helgason, CEO, Unity

* Panelist Craig Sherman, Gaia Interactive

* Panelist Reuben Steiger, CEO, Virtual Greats and venture capitalist that will be in attendance.

This is a HUGE honor that we're all working hard to gear up for, so please forgive my missing a beat on our blog yesterday. As is usual with Mondays, I was buried alive in meetings.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SPOTON3D
Simply said, it puts us on the map. We've been quietly slaving away in our great big 100+ region grid, trying to make things run better for our future inhabitants. We're thinking that many of our peers pitching will have their own brilliant ideas to present and we're looking forward to seeing their progress too.

As far as our presentation goes, we've clearly defined our target market, and shown that a considerable amount of work has already been completed. All that is needed now is one more financial fusion to get us over this start-up hurdle, and then we'll be good to go.

We are extremely fortunate to have had a six figure budget to build this project upon. We've focused primarily on the under the hood stuff to ensure that our grid systems outperformed the competition and is stable enough to market as a production ready product. That's been achieved. Next is make the experience more fluid and intuitive for our target market, making it easier for them to embrace our business tools and run with them.

Seems all this is attracting some major press parties, such as Metanomics, so you might be seeing us get some face time in your favorite virtual world media soon!

APPLIED CREATIVE TRAINING
We've also gotten our first official Enterprise Developer firm on board! APPLIED Creative Training is a new company from some truly innovative veterans of virtual worlds; David Woodin and Lars Ullberg, both formerly of CADE/UofI.

These two gentlemen are no strangers to me or simulation development. David in particular has a keen vision for integrating high functionality into virtual projects. He's one of the few developers out there that can out think me in this area and I'm especially pleased to have him on board. Lars is a visionary too and knows how to convey this to his prospective clients in a way that they can understand. We're extremely honors to have these experts chose SpotON3D as their new place of business and can highly recommend them without hesitation.

Well, that is it for today. I hole this has more than made up for missing yesterday's blog. If you have any questions or ideas you'd like discussed here, please drop me an email at spoton3d@gmail.com - don't ya just love gmail?!?!

Tessa Kinney-Johnson
aka Tessa Harrington in Virtual
Co-Founder/COO/Art Director
SpotON3D/SponONSynergy/UnReal Designs, LLC

Metanomics Discussion on the Concerns of People & the Future of the Metaverse

Today on of my marketing Gals, Butterfly Laa, pried me away from my work long enough to go to a Metanomic's meeting. I love their events, because you always leave with a head full of thoughts and ideas to chew on for several hours, but at the time I had to fine tune the message on some serious paperwork for a funding event and thought ... "hmmm .... do I really wanna have anymore things crawling around in my skull tonight?" I'm sure some of you understand that.

Never the less, Butter dragged me in, saying I HAD to be there. I was thinking, "Well, maybe someone kewl will be interviewed and I'll work on some graphics while I listen." Boy! Was I wrong. I came in to see Dusan Writer, a well known journalist who focuses on Virtual World's who works with Metanomics a lot. He had some interesting boards up, detailing what was obviously going to be an open mike discussion. I immediately perked up! This was my kinda event!

As I reviewed all his materials I realized why Butter had insisted I be there. Every topic he'd set out to speak on was a problem that we'd made great progress in solving on our grid! I started speaking up, sharing stories on how we'd handled this or that on our grid. I was my typical excited self I'm sure, running off at the mouth a bit too much probably. Poor Dusan! I'm sure he was ready to duct tape my mouth shut! I started to worried I'd be asked to leave. Pretty certain I sounded a bit like a snake oil sales gal. :P But, I just couldn't help it! Suddenly, we were the ones with all the answers to the problems - well at least some of the options to solve the challenges. :P It felt good to have something real and substantial to offer everyone after so many months of slaving away on our own grid, isolated from the rest of our community.

Afterward, Dusan made a point of speaking to me, which was a huge honor. I'm sure he has no idea what a big fan I am of his blog. I suddenly found myself all tongue tied and anxious, but his words of interest and encouragement where sincere and very much appreciated. And with Bevan Whitfield and Jennette Forager piping in their excitement too, it was just the highlight of my day!

Its funny. I know what we've been creating these last eight months is really important and I should probably play the aloof professional business woman and pretend this is not a big deal for me, but in truth, to be in this time and place is a 14+ year dream of mine and I’m pinching myself daily. Why? Because I know where this stuff is going and I know me, my business partner, Stevan Lieberman, and our team are just one group of worker bees in many that are making history as we put our thumb print on the creation of the 3D Web. To be here and KNOW, without a doubt, how big an impact this work will have on our futures thrills me and scares me to death all at the same time. The feeling of being responsible for getting it right is intense as I try to look around corners most others don't even know exist.

Maybe that's what keeps me honest and humble in my utter confidence of the path we've taken here. It serves to remind me that in reality I am just a work horse artisan who happened to have stumbled upon this technology early on and never gave up on it. Otherwise, I am a bit of a hermit. Yeah, I can rock when called upon to speak for a reason, but send me into a room full of folks without a purpose and I kinda fade into the background. And, though I absolutely love our grid's purpose and believe in it, getting out there and talking out loud is just not so easy for me, because its just not in my mature to talk more than I work. I grow way too comfortable slaving away in my little cave.

That's why moments like today, when everything just falls into place, it makes it all worth while. Kinda takes the sting outta all the naysayers and negative thinkers, those who say what we're striving for isn't realistic - that no one will want what we offer or accuse us of being selfish or idiotic in your pursuit. Makes me think that maybe .... just maybe .... it might be ok to crawl outta the cave more often, risking the occasional gloom and doom long enough to enjoy a chance at a day in the sun. Thanks Dusan.

MegaSims Come to the Fore Front!

For about a year now I've been wishing for region crossing lines to either perform better or go away all together. Well, yesterday Adam Frisby, the lead dude in the OpenSimulator movement, made my wish come true! He's revealed the latest advancement in the OpenSim arsenal called MegaSims! Read all about it here: http://www.gwala.net/blog/

The idea is that we can now convert multiple individual 256x256 regions into one massive land offering that have no defined region lines, opening up the opportunity for many new things, such as military and emergency preparedness applications. This is a HUGE new direction for us and we'll be testing it on our test grid to learn how it works and its impact on performance, with the expectation to roll out a product in about 30-45 days if not sooner.

If you have a business or recreational application that you've put off, because of the problem with region lines, then now is the time to contact us and be a beta tester. Please email us at engineering@spoton3d.com with the follow information:

Contact Name
Company Name
Address
Phone
Email
Number of testing users
Type Project purposed for testing
Length of testing period needed

Hi! Tessa Kinney-Johnson here. As the Co-Founder of SpotON3D I've felt a huge responsibility to get this right – the making of an alternative grid system for business, education, corporations, non-profits, families, kids and gamers alike. To make a grid that can be enjoyed by that wide of an audience without inhibiting their creativity or stepping on anyone's toes is a tall order in anyone’s book. I think we’ve gotten a good start, with our clear separation of content and land via our memberships and selling portal. My hope is that everyone appreciates what we’ve done and finds a reason to willingly work within the rules and framework to make it succeed.

Are we perfect? Far from it, but we do strive to solve our errors in the most perfect way possible, with honesty, integrity and honor. Some think those are strange words coming from a company like ours. Kinda old fashioned, but after all the Enrons of the past era I personally feel its time to get back to some of the basics, where the customer matters and service is the backbone of the business.

My staff and I will be using this blog as a means to talking about what makes us excited, what new ideas we’re thinking of, our failures and achievements, and the reasons behind our decisions. Its a running dialogue with you, our participants, and as such, we’d love to hear back from you.

Here are some rules to go about doing that.
1. NO FLAMING
2. FIND A REASON TO BE POSITIVE
3. NO CURSING
4. EXPRESS YOURSELF INTELLIGENTLY
5. NO ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR
6. HONOR OTHERS AS YOU WOULD WANT FOR YOURSELF
7. NO DENIGRATING ANOTHER PERSON, ESPECIALLY AS THE MAIN POINT OF YOUR COMMENTS
8. BE THOUGHTFUL AND COURTEOUS, AS IF YOU WERE FACING THAT PERSON IN THE REAL WORLD.

Responding to someone’s opinion with an angry outburst that doesn’t convey any meaningful dialogue or comments besides the, “I hate you and your an idiot!” type mentality won’t be tolerated. Either you have a valid point of view that you can express with intelligence and grace, or its simply not appropriate. Calling other’s names or berating someone for stating their opinion, because it clashes wildly with your own, isn’t productive. In my book blogs are supposed to be about expanding on ideals and goals to incorporate everyone’s opinion, or to at very least give them a voice to be heard.

Does that mean you’ll be censored for disagreeing? NO! But it does mean that your argument or disagreement must be more than a diatribe of ughly verbalization and grounded in a solid point of view based on FACTS – that’s right. Facts. Not heresay and supposeds, unless you clearly state you are guessing at something, or flagrant rants based on fiction. If you make claims on someone’s character that are false in nature just to make a point and have no foundation in reality, this will not bode well. At the very least your comments will be taken off, because legally speaking we can not be seen as approving of such comments. 

A good example of this would be disagreeing with someone who thinks all things should be free in virtual worlds.  You can state your reasons as to why you think that ideal is flawed, but you can not accuse them of being actively involved in content theft. If you sincerely question their actions in such a way, then you need to bring that matter up with the Mediation Panel. The blog is not the area to debate disputes of character. Otherwise, you are just choosing to spread unfounded rumors, something I think we all can agree is far too prevalent in social networks.

In summary, lets do more than complain and moan! Bring a solution to the table too! Share your ideas and help us grow. Be a productive force in your virtual community. FIND A REASON TO BE A POSITIVE INFLUENCE. While its sometimes much easier to roll in the mire or cry woe is me, I would hope we, as a community, could take the high road and strive to do better.