More Dutch Business in VW

Earlier this week I reported on the EPN survey that nearly 30% of the Dutch Top100 corporations is immersed in some virtual world or another, most of them Second Life, some in There.com, some in Why Robbie Rocks and some elsewhere. This seemed to be a highly bloggable item as the numbers rapidly got picked up around the globe. Many people would like to push those numbers to their management, using it as a stick to prod.

Today the e-mag Z24 is reporting a somewhat more negative view to things:
(a liberal translation)

Dutch Companies looking for Success in Second Life

Dutch Business isn't digging SL. With a lot of effort you can find 27 Dutch
companies in SL and the Dutch offices are empty, why do companies keep investing
in this medium?

The ABN sim sees about 70 to 80 visitors daily, but the numbers are falling
back, in the early days it was an average of 100.

Visitors of Second Life are an interesting targetgroup for companies, it is
a group that is close to new technology development and is very active at normal
internet as well. According to the official stats, Second Life now sees about
280.000 registered Dutch accounts.

During the mediahype in the first quarter of 2007, companies have plunged
headfirst into secondlife, with the immersion promising an enormous amount of
media exposure, but visitors kept away. Slowly the insigh comes that a mere
presence is not enough, companies have to look for added value.

Okay, nothing new here, this is what the blogs have been preaching for ages already ;). The rest of the article is on Randstand, Our Virtual Holland and 0031, so I'll skip that.

The Dutch work at home

The next report on the Z24 page reads that 1 in 5 Dutchmen regularly work from home, which is the hightest rate internationally. Could this be the source of the relative high participation levels of Dutch companies in Virtual Worlds?