<\/p>\n
While the total number of registered OpenSim users increased by 2,528<\/span> this month, both land area and active users were down by 271 regions and 803 actives, respectively. However, Darkheart\u2019s Playground\u2018s website was down this month and I couldn\u2019t get its numbers \u2014 and, last month, that grid reported more than 400 regions and more than 1,500 actives.<\/span><\/p>\n So the drop in usage is most likely a technical issue, not a sign of decreasing traffic because of the nice weather outside.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a nerd who likes to see the exact totals, OpenSim\u2019s public grids reported 148,945 <\/span>standard region equivalents this month, 497,424<\/span> registered users, and 47,101 <\/span>active users.<\/span><\/p>\n The following grids were added to my database this month: Adrian Labs, Big City, Carnivale Grid, Cave Grid, Farm Grid, MS Axiom, Nemeton Grove, SnuSnu Island, Sublimit Metaverse, ThinkSim, Time Grid, Tranquility Grid, WonderVerse, and Xaara CA.<\/p>\n The following 12 grids were marked as suspended this month: Anubis, Czech Welcome Centre, Edge of Reality Grid, KittyBlue, LeBourg, Mysterious Grid 2, Otterland, Raynna, Sweet Life, Willow Lake, WoodstockSim, and XTAL.<\/p>\n Our stats do not include most of the grids running on DreamGrid, a free easy-to-use version OpenSim, since these tend to be private grids.<\/p>\n OpenSim is a free, open-source, virtual world platform, that\u2019s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.<\/p>\n A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. If you offer region rentals and are not on this list, email me!<\/p>\n You can download the recommended Firestorm viewer here\u00a0and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.<\/p>\n