I joined an international group of “Gridizens” a couple of nights ago to experience a hypergrid.  Our Avatars teleported from one grid to another.  In this case we teleported from Reaction Grid to Jokaydia.  The technical aspects are explained on the Opensim wiki. Hopping from one grid to another – hypergridding –  is like linking from one website to another.  We do that everyday on the 2D web without really thinking too much about it, and many create those links in wikis, blogs, and in social networking and bookmarking pages.  A virtual world is a little more complicated because you have an agent or avatar that is entering the grid.  Typically, the user needs to register in each of the worlds and use a different avatar or agent, so the benefit of the hypergrid is that it allows you to use the same avatar in each of these worlds.

Entering the Hypergrid portal on Reaction Grid.

Implications for education and collaboration are significant.  Imagine being able to do extend what is now done in a flat environment like Facebook,  Google Docs, or Diigo in a 3D environment.  A single sign-on, a single username and password,  a single inventory repository simplifies entering the Virtual Universe and visiting the worlds within it.

On Jokaydia Grid with a member of the Jokaydia Grid - the tags indicate the Grid of origin for the visiting Avatars