Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Improvements to Kitely since April 2011


Since Oren Hurvitz and Ilan Tochner launched Kitely in early 2011, there have been a lot of changes. Some of those changes have been gained through improvements to the OpenSim platform. Many were the result of work done by Hurvitz and Tochner. Almost all of this information can be found on the Kitely blog. I wanted a relatively short reference that I could update easily and see most of the changes/additions to Kitely in one place. I won’t add every item listed in their blog, but I’ll try to list changes that might be important to users without listing items that are no longer relevant.

2011
Mesh was available on Kitely before the public beta began.

Major update made service more robust and manageable
Kitely’s first blog
Support site
Twitter account
Contact page
Announcements added to top of webpage
Kitely messages to connected users
Content protection including Abuse Report and DCMA Takedown notice and procedures to deal with copyright infringement.
Ability to set access of a world to “My Friends” restricting world entrance to facebook friends only.
Many bug fixes

Kitely released their Terms of Service

Opensim update allowing Shared Media (Media on a Prim) with a V2 viewer.

Kitely virtual world descriptions upgraded to allow hyperlinks, images, separators and text formatting options.

Added ability to choose viewer along with support for Safari on Mac
Digitally signed plug-in, plus notification of new plugin versions
Ability to export worlds to OAR files as backup for 10 KC.

Faster script loading
Exported OAR’s with creator information
Direct URL for downloading Kitely Plug-in

Faster loading of complex worlds
Buttons added allowing Kitely homepage or individual world pages to be shared with social networks
Improved IE9 support

Copy world allows multiple copies of a world on Kitley or export as OAR. Objects with insufficient permissions will not be copied/exported.

See visitors to your worlds and your visits to other worlds in History Panel.

Directory of all public worlds added showing visitors, with keyword search ability and common categories of virtual worlds.
World Maturity ratings: General, Moderate, Adult
Procedure for reporting worlds violating Kitely TOS
Added ability for World Managers to decide if KC’s are deducted from their account or visitor account at a rate of 1 KC for each minute in the World Manager’s world.
Kick users from your world

Improved world ranking search making it easier to find high quality worlds.
Sharable URL’s from search
Permanent World URL’s for easier sharing

All Kitely worlds are voice-enabled using Vivox with public voice and private calls.

2012

Billing System with several payment plans added
Ability to buy KC’s: 1,000 KC - $5 / 5,000 KC - $20 /15,000 KC - $50
Ability to allow others to access your world for free
History Table showing minute and KC usage

Ability to add a Kitely account using Twitter or an email account
Some OSSL scripting functions enabled

Teleporting between Kitely worlds enabled
Nine viewers supported. Viewer selection available on the Settings page
Viewers able to start automatically or manually

OpenSim and Mono updated for faster more stable performance
More OSSL functions including NPC functions  (bots)

OpenSim groups supported.
User Profiles avaiable
Offline Instant Messaging added
Security enhanced to allow only world manager to build in the by default. Can enable building by other avatars inside viewer. Pushing also disabled by default.
Updated OAR format to save region’s Telehub

Replace existing worlds with OAR files
Automatically disconnect yourself and others when idle for more than 30 minutes

Kitely Credits  becomes working virtual currency
Ability to send message to users from Kitely Website


New subscription plans
Price changes for storing and creating worlds.
Increase in amount of KC's that can be purchased - up to $500 worth.
More free time for free plan users during their first month.
Ability to pay monthly Kitely charges with Pay Pal and/or Kitely Credits.
Ability for World Managers to set a price for world visitors.
Ability for World Managers to pay others for their time in world.
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