Peering Inside: Disconnected advantages

It seems likely that inter-grid teleportation will become a commonly-available and trivially-usable feature within the next twelve months. While there are efforts underway to establish and implement underlying supporting protocols, it really doesn't much matter if those efforts go ahead or not. Functional inter-grid teleportation can be implemented solely in the Second Life viewer with or without the cooperation of the servers -- if not by Linden Lab, then by a third-party. That makes the lingering promise of a broad range of other relatively ubiquitous virtual environments seem tantalizingly within reach.

While Opensimulator currently offers hobby-level performance rather than the sort of heavy-duty production-level performance that many are looking for, the ability of Opensimulator to handle server-side tasks is still not to be lightly dismissed. Simple to set up and configure, and modest on hardware requirements, anyone capable of installing and configuring a simple network would be skilled and knowledgeable enough to install the software and set up a simulator or two or twelve. Even Microsoft is jumping on that bandwagon, working on integrating a number of features that don't necessarily advantage the platform.

Whether we're talking integrated grids, or micro-grids (groups of simulators running as a standalone group), Linden Lab believes that the basic limitations of transport to external grids (no connection to Second Life assets or inventory, and no connection to the Linden Dollar) will keep 99% or more users on the Second Life grid. It seems quite possible that somewhere among future business models, Linden Lab is planning to monetize interconnection fees, to bring third-party simulators within the main-grid fold under the Linden Dollar and the provenance of main grid asset and inventory servers.

However, for many users, communities and organizations the disconnection from that currency and those services is an attractive advantage, and we believe that the number of users and organizations who might partially or wholly migrate from the main Second Life grid may be much, much larger.

Given essentially free and easy teleportation of a user from Second Life to any other grid or micro-grid, or freely between those grids and micro-grids, one of the first key groups to make the shift off-world would be corporate meetings (indeed, to some extent this is already happening).

Intel (to draw on a random example) could hold a provisioned press-conference, provide the necessary inter-grid teleport URL, and their disconnection from Second Life's asset and inventory servers would grant them both security and an extra measure of stability -- being immune to load-factors on the main Second Life grid, rolling server restarts and the like.

Also, micro-grids of smaller numbers of simulators tend to perform rather well, as they are not faced with the massive scaling problems of the brobdignagian numbers of simulators that the main Second Life grid needs to deal with on a continuous basis.

Having a meeting space that is independent of the stability (or lack thereof) of the main Second Life grid, with the option for simplified physics and reduced scripting and the lack of imported inventory and assets becomes an appealing value proposition for an organization that needs to hold meetings or presentations (perhaps quite large ones) with virtual presence. A variety of free avatars could be provided so that ad-hoc visitors wouldn't all need to look alike, or require extensive tailoring or customization.

Likewise, role-playing communities, which recently have become a significant portion of Second Life's user-base could fabricate their own micro-grids on whatever spare hardware they have laying around. The discarded desktop PC of a few years ago will quite comfortably run a number of simulators.

Being able to teleport into such a role-playing environment and have one's inventory, appearance and situation as you left it the last time you visited that environment is an attractive proposition. Why clutter one's inventory with a lot of content that simply is inappropriate or unnecessary to your planned activity?

Teleport to another role-playing micro-grid, and reconnect to your appearance, inventory and assets in that other place. Community managers can have more flexibility with respect to resource allocation, and can possibly implement additional mechanisms, including more extensive support systems for their environment. Large amounts of open space can be fabricated as required for racing or boating. Simulators for events or projects can be fabricated at will, sufficing only that the operator has spare hardware capacity.

If the micro-grid maintains its own currency, separate and distinct from the Linden Dollar (possibly in conjunction with a third-party exchange), the operators can use that economy as a revenue stream to support and perhaps extend their environment.

As we mentioned above, themed communities could well see the disconnection from main grid assets and inventory as a plus. Furry communities, Victorian communities, Gorean communities, GLBT communities and more could all find more flexible homes, with the assets that support their communities and little of the dross.

But what of the content-creators serving those specialist communities? They can go with, actually. Many of the creators that serve specialist communities simply have little in the way of custom among users who do are not already a part of those communities.

A clothing-and-accessories maker for Medieval-Fantasy communities can set up shop with those communities, ensuring a targeted audience for their product. We've spoken to several content-creators recently who are excited by the possibilities, rather than discouraged.

It is also possible that some communities will not run on an internal currency at all, but instead operate on simple US Dollars or some other physical world currency -- or simply have no currency. The history of virtual worlds has examples of both these sorts.

Let's not forget academic institutions who are well-positioned to use and provision micro-grids for research, events, private or public education, and communications purposes.

Micro-grids also offer 'opportunities' for those sterile and unimaginative corporate showcases. You know the ones -- the equivalent of door-to-door salesmen that you actually have to go and visit to be annoyed at. Admittedly, the opportunities involved primarily revolve around learning why users don't appreciate the message that's being presented or ever come back. Perhaps some good will come of that.

Sure, the Second Life grid will always have some appeal, as a melting-pot and common ground. A sort of Cynosure, if you will. Some communities, groups, and content-creators will doubtless always appreciate the basic currency and the ubiquity of assets and inventory across the main Second Life grid.

Will that be the majority of profitable customers? We're not so sure about that.