July 2022 – Daniel Voyager

Second Life Region Statistics – July 2022 Update

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Daniel Voyager

Since the start of 2022 Second Life has been growing steadily showing positive net growth for Private Estates and Linden Owned regions. At least 300 new regions have been added since the start of 2022 which is amazing and hopefully hundreds more will arrive in the months ahead.

The growth again has mostly come from the expansion of the Bellisseria continent (Linden owned regions) which still having a positive effect on the overall grid numbers (Newbrooke expansion etc). More Linden Owned regions are expected to arrive on the grid between now and the end of 2022. It will be interesting to see the total amount later in the year to see the overall growth for 2022.

Since the start of 2021 there has been roughly 2, 000 new regions that have been added on the grid which is pretty cool. By the end of 2023/early 2024 at the current rates I estimate it may reach the 28, 000 regions mark. The big issue would be if the inflation rate goes up the grid may suffer in the winter months ahead (a recession hits or something major). Anything is possible and it’s not clear what impact it could have.

Here are the latest Second Life region statistics as of Sunday 24th July 2022.

Total: 27, 575
Private Estates: 18, 326
Linden Owned: 9, 249

Here are the region statistics from 2nd January 2022…

Total: 27, 231
Private Estates: 18, 332
Linden Owned: 8, 909

Here are the region statistics from 3rd January 2021….

Total: 25, 555
Private Estates: 17, 024
Linden Owned: 8, 531

One thing is for sure is that Second Life is growing after 19 years being online and hopefully this growth trend will continue for some time yet.

SciFi Expo 2022 Applications Open

Posted on July 25, 2022 by Daniel Voyager

The SciFi Expo 2022 applications for merchants, performers and bloggers are now officially open. The SciFi Expo starts on Friday 14th October and runs through until Sunday 23rd October 2022 fundraising for Making Strides Against Cancer and The American Society.

The SciFi Expo (Voyage Through The Stars) brings together designers, roleplayers, performers and supporters from across the grid. The 2022 SciFi Expo is made possible thanks to the great support from the region and event sponsors. More details see the press release here.

Apply Here – make sure to read the guidelines before appying…

Please spread the word about the SciFi Expo 2022.

OSgrid Celebrates 15th Birthday This Week

Posted on July 25, 2022 by Daniel Voyager

OSgrid starts it’s 15th birthday celebrations starting today through until Sunday 31st July 2022. There will be live music and live DJs to celebrate all things OSgrid. There are special events planned for Saturday 30th July and Sunday 31st July. See below for the event schedule…

OSgrid now is the largest OpenSim grid in terms of active users and land area. The OSgrid has been growing steadily over recent years and I would expect it to grow further in the months/years ahead.

Well done to all of the grid owners, creators, testers, scripters, developers, artrists etc who has kept the OSgrid actively going. 15 years is a long term in terms of the operations side and the OpenSim community has helped keeping things running.

OSgrid teleport locations (must be user of the OSgrid for access)

Please spread the word about OSG-15B! 🙂

OpenSim Usage Drops Due To Closure Of The Metropolis Grid

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Daniel Voyager

According to the July 2022 OpenSim grids report apparently OpenSim suffered a noticeable drop in the overall usage for active users, registered users and standard regions for the past month. There was a seasonal drop in OpenSim statistics as its the summer holidays which is worth pointing out. Some smaller grids experienced downtimes this month.

OpenSim Stats as of July 2022

Registered OpenSim Users: 464, 887
Standard Region Equivalents: 112, 581
Active Users: 38, 957
Stats Collected: 276 grids in total

The main reason was the popular Metropolis grid closed down at the end of June 2022 due to the owners/admins shifting their focus to Yunis and not having the time to take care of it anymore (likely more reasons). The Metropolis grid had more than 1, 600 active users, almost 20, 000 registered users and more than 800 regions.

The decision to shut down the Metropolis grid has sent shockwaves around the entire OpenSim community. It’s such a shame because its been a popular grid on OpenSim and it’s been around since 2008.

Latest OpenSim Stats as of July 2022

OSgrid (4, 779 active users), AviTron (2, 861 active users) and DigiWorldz (2, 140 active users) are now the most popular grids by active users.
OSgrid (36, 590), Kitely (18, 678) and Wolf Territories Grid (13, 200) have the most regions by land area.

Kitely Market

There are now 19, 576 product listings on the Kitely Marketplace which now contains 38, 622 product variations and 33, 477 of which are exportable to other OpenSim grids.
Kitely Market has delivered orders to 554 OpenSim grids to date

Future of OpenSim Grids

With the cost of living including inflation going up in the months/years ahead there could be more OpenSim grid closures as unless there is massive money support behind them and further grid investment. It’s been reported that many users have been cutting down on virtual land ownership during the past few months.

Hopefully most OpenSim grids will be able to survive the upcoming economic downtime but time will tell. I hope those that have used the Metropolis grid are moving now to other OpenSim grids.

2022 is not over and there may be some shocks in the down the road.

North East Bellisseria To Satori Expansion Speculation

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Daniel Voyager

There has been a lot of discussion recently on the Linden Homes section of the Second Life Forums about Bellisseria expanding into the Satori continent. I think this would be a great idea with plenty of water regions linking everything up even up to the Blake Sea. The connection could be at SSPLa Mer region over to the Smythe region. There is more possible connection points along the west side of the Satori continent to keep in mind.

It’s important to note that no official confirmation has been said by the Moles or Lindens as far as I am aware. We will have to wait and see what happens going forward. There is already one connection between the two continents from the Carmine Sky region to Scratchy region down south. There is a lack of water regions around the Satori continent in general.

Recent new batch of new houseboat regions have been added north of the Newbrooke homes and work has started to fill them with new Linden homes. Work should be finished very soon. I will keeping a closer eye on this development in the days ahead.

The Moles are working on the houseboats batch on the west coast of the Newbrooke continent which is due to be finished in the weeks ahead. There is big development going on from SSPThimble Pond Farms to SSPPierless so keep eye out for new developments there.

There has not been much new activity over at the SSP development zone since the start of the summer.

Stay tuned for more Linden Homes news soon on my blog.

2 Months Later

Posted on July 15, 2022 by Daniel Voyager

It’s been two months since my activity dropped in Second Life due to RL issues but the good news is that now I’m back from a two month break basically. I have missed Second Life and it’s good to be back again blogging about the big news and events.

I missed SL19B, Relay Weekend, the launch of Premium Plus, event regions pricing news and other events but I will be catching up on that in the days ahead. The Bellisseria continent has expanded out further during the past few months which is great to see and I will be tracking it’s growth progress again very soon.