As Shai writes, she had been a Second Life resident since September 2006. Technical problems, the lowering of sim pricing and the Openspaces issue led to her making a full migration to Openlife.

Shai goes on to put the case for Openlife having a greater sense of community, something that can be expected given Openlife’s current size. She also agrees that Openlife is a long way off providing the range of services that Second Life does, but is excited about progress to date and the new possibilities on the horizon.

You can read Shai’s piece in full here and discuss the issue further as well. My view is fairly similar to Shai’s in that Openlife has a very different vibe to Second Life – primarily due to its stage of development. This is something that’s appealed to a number of people, as have a number of other alternative grids. The real challenge for the alternative grids is maintaining infrastructure and momentum – only then will Linden Lab start looking over their shoulder regularly.

Just for interest, Openlife is certainly growing judging by the world map:

As always, we’ll keep a close watch on Openlife, one of the many grids popping up. If you’re running a grid that’s developing a community, let us know.

Jump in and give your thoughts about a significant change to Second Life.

So, I’ve created a topic on the SLOz forums to delve a bit deeper – why the slump? Wold love to hear your thoughts.

How have you found it? How often do you use voice versus text?