John "Pathfinder Linden" Lester Presents Jibe, a Unity/Web-Based Virtual World from ReactionGrid

Jibe is the name of a new virtual world platform for web browsers, running in Unity 3D and able to import mesh files from Sketchup, Maya, and other standard build tools, with scripting in C# or JavaScript. [Check it out here if you have the Unity web plug-in] Developed by ReactionGrid, which also develops in OpenSim. as with Henrik Bennetsen's Kataspace, Jibe is a web world with another Linden Lab alum heavily involved: In this case, John "Pathfinder Linden" Lester, who just announced meeting hours in Jibe, so you can ask him the many questions this new offering will undoubtedly raise. For instance: With a starting price of $47 a month, Is this an alternative for educators currently paying twice or more that price per month in Second Life, or floundering in the free but pre-Beta shoals of OpenSim?

Comments

[Simeon Beresford]

and no doubt Jibe will have a big influx of people from SL. just as the Open sims did, strange how people who do not like change are happy to move to new worlds.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Hamlet, you know just about zip about the "pre-beta shoals of OpenSim."

We had a decent-sized group tour Jokaydia Grid last night during the VWBPE conference, some from other OS grids connected by hypergrid. It's rougher than SL, but certainly as good as what I encountered in 2007-8 when I brought in my first classes. And OpenSim is maturing fast.

Other colleauges are teaching in OpenSim now, and my students will return to virtual worlds this fall.

There was no floundering going on, other than in your post.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

That influx won't include me; there's still no Linux version of the Unity plugin.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

One other factoid to share: Server space in OpenSim grids is cheaper than SL, but it is not "free."

[Arcadia Codesmith]

20+ users will run you $175 a month plus $275 setup fee. Too rich for my blood. For that sort of money I could have my own modest little server farm within a year or two.

[Machine]

I have much less interest now in SL and virtual worlds generally because of this blog.

Bye, bye lap top, hello RL.

[Foneco Zuzu]

As i dont see any official LL coment on this blog recently I can assume the author just not speak in their behalf.
With debates and discussions one can make a reasonable idea about the subject.
If so I hope LL finnaly understood that lack of trust, bad implemention of new features, old buggs still not solved, High tier prices, thats what is preventing Sl to keep growing and making residents quit or move as new options are showing.
And Social networks as facebook, that can be a good way of trying to make people come to Sl for the 1st time cant never be compared.
On times of recession, one must make the support base confident, cause its what keeps paying the bills.

[Steven Grant]

I agree with Machine and others who say that this blog has an agenda, promotes Facebook, downplays Open Sim and generally seems to be designed to support a "floundering" pundit's career.

I agree that it's more than ironic that you keep telling us that Second Life customers resist change and then show us the various alternatives and tout Blue Mars.

What exactly has fundamentally changed in the Second Life product in the last 5 years? What significant product or feature was rolled back due to the customer's reaction? Second Life customers are simply people who want a entertainment and value for their time and money - they are hardly an organized force of resistance. Having worked at the Lab for a few years I know that new features and product changes are often not embraced with open arms - but neither are changes to Facebook, Microsoft office or New Coke.

If the Second Life customer wanted to use Facebook to support their Second Life activities they simply would use it - they know where it is. Instead they use Flickr, Plerk, Blogs, & Twitter. It probably better for your career and Linden Lab's ability to satisfy it's board if it was associated with Facebook, but it is not somehow the customer's "fault" that they choose to use other products.

Pathfinder is a true believer in virtual worlds, promoting education and community. What does this blog promote other than clicks?

[rikomatic]

Looks interesting. Can't wait to check it out.

[Pathfinder]

I'll be in my Jibe world today (Friday) at 5pm and 7pm Eastern (2pm + 4pm SLT). Come visit me! :D

[Ener Hax]

Jibe is very pricey for what it is (the Unity browser access is a huge plus though) and content has to be created outside in something like Blender 3D. that last part makes it harder to adopt imo and also much less of a creative tool

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Unity based worls are NOT the future, because those Unity folks are so clueless they ignore Linux users (who tend to be early adopters)

And OSgrids are also not the future. Sure the University crowd might be pissed off about losing their LL discount, so they try those out, and a few geeks with too much time and money on their hands might host some servers, but that's going to be it.

They have no content, and without content, you can forget the masses. And what content they do have is often stolen/copied from SL.

And it's funny, all these OSgrid types say they don't like SL, but everything they do is based on work LL did. Without that LL opening up their code, these people would be nowhere.

[Pathfinder]

If folks want to hear me talking more about Unity, Jibe and web-based virtual worlds in general, I'm speaking about it at the VWBPE conference in SL this Saturday at 7am PDT. Details here: http://vwbpe11.vwbpe.org/v11_presentation.php?id=1542

[Maria Korolov]

ChronoCloud --

OpenSim is not the result of Second Life opening up their code -- it is reversed engineering by listening to the messages sent between SL viewers and servers. The back end systems were all written from scratch, and architected very differently than SL.

Meanwhile, content is coming fast to OpenSim grids, as some of the commercial grids have extremely through content protection measures in place, attracting a variety of content developers.

Another source of content is all those educators -- they and their students are making things, and sharing them with one another. It's very similar to the early World Wide Web, where universities flooded in, then hobbyists followed by setting up their own websites. Yes, the content on the early WWW was pretty sorry compared, to, say, AOL. But content developed fast due the fact that it was so inexpensive to create your own website.

Similarly, the number of new OpenSim grids is going up all the time, users numbers are growing, new hosting vendors are popping up, and folks are downloading the software on their own and creating their own grids (for free).

We still don't have a decent browser -- it's like of like living in the pre-Nescape days of the WWW -- but once that comes out (and there's probably a kid in a college dorm room somewhere building one right now) I think that OpenSim grids will explode.

-- Maria

[Hamlet Au]

Maria, how many monthly unique users does OpenSim currently have? OSGrid only lists them as 3513, is it more?

[Sterling Wright]

I am coming months-late to this thread, but where is all of this hate for Hamlet coming from? And why? I heard that the user base of SL had taken a real nosedive into the gutters. Is this what I am seeing here? Ewww.

I still think you do a great job, Hamlet.