I think it’s fair to say that Kitely’s pricing model rubs some people up the wrong way. People look at the pricing plans and feel that a metered based world is not a good place to socialise, and perhaps they’re right. Kitely’s pricing plans look like this:
Monthly Plan Cost Minutes KC Free Worlds
Free Plan Free 120 0 1
Bronze Plan $5 1200 300 2
Silver Plan $20 5000 1000 10
Gold Plan $50 12000 3000 30
Platinum Plan $100 Unlimited 5000 100
Now compared to Second Life, this looks both great and bad, depending upon which end of the spectrum you’re coming from. Social users on a premium plan of just USD$72 a year can use Second Life unlimited, have a small plot of land, for free you can use Second Life unlimited anyway. However people who like to build, well the Kitely Silver Plan gives you 10 sims, 100,000 prims each sim, costs less a year than sim in Second Life does for a month and there’s no upfront purchase cost. Ok you haven’t got unlimited access on that plan, but it’s still over eighty hours a month.
Ideally, I can see the Kitely model complimenting Second Life, rather than competing with it.
Let’s take a look at how this could work, you have a lot of buildings, you can’t fit them all on a sim in Second Life, but you can on the ten Kitely sims. So you blog the location of your full catalogue in Kitely and sell your items on the Second Life Marketplace. Obviously you’d need to maintain your Second Life presence too, but Kitely presents you with some cheap land that you can further advertise your wares on.
Now obviously a lot of your Second Life customers aren’t going to be remotely interested in signing up to another virtual world, but a handful might and that handful may end up further promoting your wares.
Kitely answers the tier issue challenge, because compared to Second Life it’s cheap, however it doesn’t answer the social issue, Second Life is the winner there because it’s far cheaper to socialise in Second Life.
There was at one stage talk of being able to telport to different grids from Second Life, that idea seems to be dead in the water. This is a shame because Kitely offers the sort of complimentary interoperability that would compliment Second Life well, if all Second Life users could get the two free hours a month in Kitely, it would be a great way for art exhibitions to thrive, whereas Second Life’s model makes it the place for social activities to thrive.
Horses for course and all that but tier is a massive massive barrier to many things in Second Life, Kitely answers the tier question but it doesn’t answer the social question.
Hi Ciaran,
People initially join Kitely for the low-cost building options. However, once they buy KC or get a plan to build their own Kitely worlds then they have enough time already paid for to also spend socializing with other people who came in to build Kitely worlds. That may not be as big a crowed as what can be found in SL but it does enable a community to be formed.
In addition, as the barrier to becoming a builder is lower in Kitely than in SL, a lot of people who can’t afford to build on SL are trying it on Kitely. They may continue doing some/most of their socializing in SL but, as I’ve been told by more than one Kitely user, once they get a plan they actually want to spend time in Kitely so that the Minutes they bought (which expire at the end of each month) won’t be wasted.
BTW, the Silver Plan enables you to get up to 100 hours per month inworld if you use the KC that are included in the plan for buying time instead of content. Minutes are automatically bought using KC (one at a time costing 1 KC per 1 Minute) if you run out of Minutes and need more.
Join the Kitely Group in Second Life
https://getsatisfaction.com/kitely/topics/join_the_kitely_group_in_second_life
We endorse cross-platform use, meaning using Platform A AND Platform B, not A OR B.
Cross-Platform Case: How about enabling Newbie Dual Login from Second Life to Kitely?
https://getsatisfaction.com/kitely/topics/cross_platform_case_how_about_enabling_newbie_dual_login_from_second_life_to_kitely
Philip Rosedale, the owner of Linden Lab, talks about the Social Issue of Cartoon Class platforms like this…
http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20111109/NEWS0107/111090344/
Philip Rosedales’ assessment applies to SL and Opensim: “The problem with creating an immersive 3-D experience is that it is just too involved, and so it’s hard to get people to engage,” he said. “Smart people in rural areas, the handicapped, people looking for companionship, they love it. But you have to be highly motivated to get on and learn to use it.”
Google Trends http://ow.ly/9qwdr%20
Kitely also enables an Incentive > Referral Minutes
Are referral credits still available in spring 2012, and if so, how?
https://getsatisfaction.com/kitely/topics/are_referral_credits_still_available_in_spring_2012_and_if_so_how
http://www.kitely.com/#!faq#do-i-get-a-reward-if-i-refer-new-users-to-kitely
Don’t forget to mention that the Kitely time-based meter also enables Monetization.
How about the Monetization of Concurrent Users / Visitors in a Kitely World?
https://getsatisfaction.com/kitely/topics/how_about_the_monetization_of_concurrent_users_visitors
You forgot to mention the Value-Add Content Creators opening a shop, Kitely is merely the Utility Provider for these shops, like or telco or power company. Opensim portrays those role definitions much more vivid…. SL needs to grasp this role definition as a back-seat Utility Provider for front-seat Sim Owners…
Looking at the Number of Sims is the old SL Metric for Procurement from 2006… thus leading to lots of ghost town sims at monopoly fixed cost pricing in 2012, AND even worse the Vendor Lock-In of Assets… an anti-trust issue.
Yet, time-based metering of Kitely means measuring Concurrent Users on a Sim (a competely different Lead Metric for Procurement), and going for the time-based Monetization of those users, who visit a value-add Use Case… Kitely has No Vendor Lock-In!
Kitely’s variable cost pricing level and Monetization feature is fully competitive with Gaming Industry prices (like World of Warcraft), which is adopted By Millions…
“1,000 sims and 1 concurrent user at monopoly fixed costs” is a far worse Procurement Metric than “1 sim and 1,000 concurrent users being time-based monetized at variable pricing”.
Not to mention the Lag Factor of SL… SL cannot scale up to 100 avatars on a sim like Opensim/Kitely does… soon 500 – 1,000 avatars are possible…
I pay $14.95 on an MMO and I can stay logged in for 127 hours if I so chose, or just 1 second – and the cost stays flat. I don’t need to worry about it.
Kitely charging by the minute – that’s freaking scary. That model died for the internet in the 1990s, and its not going to work at trying to come back.
Amazon are trying to bring it back with their cloud services, Kitely utilise them but I pretty much agree with you, for a social user it’s not a good model.
Hi Ciaran,
Kitely lowered the costs of it’s time-based billing plans. See: http://blog.kitely.com/2012/07/17/lower-priced-plans-and-new-monetization-options/
Kitely now also offers worlds on a fixed-monthly-cost basis (instead of the time-based billing option you covered). See: http://blog.kitely.com/2012/10/03/unmetered-regions-for-40-month-much-less-for-bigger-worlds/
Just to inform you: there is a brandnew discussion forum for Kitely users called KITETALK and we hope to enhance the socializing dimension. You may want to join us there:
http://kiteflying.vanillaforums.com/
I think there is a free rider question here. The spaces you socialize on in SL, except your free small home plot, are paid for at standard SL rates by someone. Those rates are a LOT higher in SL than in Kitely. In Kitely anyone that wants can pay $40 dollars and have their single region world open to anyone what wants to visit any time for no charge to visitors. Or $60/mo for a four region world with the same deal. Also anyone that wants can swallow the cost of visitors to their Kitely regions.
When this is considered Kitely is a LOT cheaper for even those who are more into socializing and experiences.
It is true that Kitely doesn’t have as many people in it by a long shot and that its marketplace is very young and doesn’t have as much ready content yet. But this isn’t much different and is a lot better quality technically than say the similarly early days of SL. SL didn’t have media on a prim, mesh, voice or much else back then. Yeah you need a bit of pioneering spirit right now. But I think it is more than worth it.
My biggest challenge is persuading enough friends to take the initial pain points of rebuilding or reinventing avatars and slowly building their extensive SL inventory back up. Or at least the small percentage of it they use or even remember they own. 🙂
I moved to Kitely as a builder and land developer but Im feeling deeply frustrated because even if I get money I can’t find anything decent to buy and for several months the Market Place has been growing to slowly – You can’t find a free flying bird at Kitely and you have about 40 homes in total for example – The day SL allows Avis to visit opens directly than SL will die because I will set my Kitely land for Free Rezz to all and afterwards will use my SL Avatar to visit the Kitely land and rezz all the thousands of great items I have stuccoed on my SL inventory