playing with my standalone grid I find myself looking at images of the future, like how would any business use their own grid. Imagine a TV network wanting to promote a show like Stargate Atlantis by reproducing their version of the city of Atlantis on a 8 X 8 regions grid. That would be something huge to build, requiring the hiring of several builders to get this done in a reasonable time. Not to forget scripters, texture artists, etc...

If standalone grids become stable and easy enough to setup, and their popularity grows to the point of becoming commonplace, then one skilled builder can specialize into whole private grid building. Imagine getting a contract to reproduce the Yosemite national park in real scale? A university campus? The Babylon 5 space station (drool)?

With the ability to connect private grids to each others, the new internet could be born. And since the ability to view web pages from inside the virtual world is already here, what's to prevent people to use systems like paypal for transactions? I'm sure someone will come up with a way to pay for virtual items by clicking on them and choosing "pay with paypal"...never mind $L...

Ahhh to dream...

No doubt about that. I'm just imagining that with further progress in personal computing power and internet bandwidth capacity, there will come a time when anyone (almost) will be able to host their own grid on their home PC and have it connected to a global grid, thus only paying for the internet connection. Contrary to the SL model, which is really too expensive to allow the average resident to build any kind of big projects.

Also home-grids are the only way to do away with the chaos present in SL's mainland. Just like a personal web-page, residents will have total control over content.

Yeah man, that's totally how i see it too... I'm very greatful to teams like RealXtend that make this a reality. Grids shouldnt be isolated like SecondLife, and shouldn't require their own login system. Only a list of  "avatar services" allowed onto the grid, kinda like how some forums can restrict access from certain IP's or ISP's. Not only does that save alot of database cluster issues for the seperate grids, but the full access to the sims, their modular architecture, and python scripting would allow any company to develop amazing new features on their grids for their own purposes. I saw this neat feature in a multi-user software called "Croquet" where an avatar could simply jump into a window and get teleported into that window's world (kinda like in the game Portal :D ), or a live webcam stream pop-up window over the avatar's head. Those things can be made easily when the platform allows it.

Yes folks, I think you have the idea. OpenSim  and RealeXtend are just the beginning. Once the medium becomes a bit popular and a dollar can be made, parts will become closed and proprietary as companies hit the stockmarket...

I'm a "big picture" person. When i come up with some fancy idea while having a beer with my brother, he immediately shoots it down with some tiny piece if detail. "What about this" he says. I usually reply with, "That's a small detail which can be overcome with some thinking." And I'm usually right nearly every time. He's the detail person, who does not see the "Big Picture" within his closed mindset. With my big picture thinking I can easily zoom in to the detail and sort it out. He cannot do the opposite. Some people on other forums are the same.

My big picture is that the grid will be alongside the current web. A lot of users will not see, care or want the grid. Others will.

Those people and or companies will need content if they can't make it themselves. Along comes software to do it yourself, whole worlds/servers in a can. And they won't be free, some might. Go to software store (online or not) pick a pack in a style you like, install and away you go. Plant the pre-fab gardens, houses, furniture. Buy the expansion pack to have more than one simulator/region.

Content creators will be needed of course and I guess that's what I'm doing now, an appreniceship. Content can come from the can or be custom built. I would prefer to do the latter. But there should be plenty of work in the former. Also Furniture stores and the like would love to re-create their gear and have you sit on it and buy it there and then. Fashion stores should be a boom market. Soon, you should be able to get your "Real" shape and photoreal skin onto you avatar. People will love this when shopping for new clothing at kmart. They may even give free sim sofware to get your money into their stores. Supermarkets should do the same with 3d content makers on the payroll. Or some such wild vision of mine.....

And I believe a spherical grid is on the OpenSim roadmap. I read that somewhere.