Virtual Banking (10): Deutsche Bank AG

While I was reading this weeks AvaStar (issue # 29) there were two things that caught my eye.

AvaStar Omissions and Errors

First of all was their doublepage special on Universities from around the globe. Again I notice that there are missing several Dutch Universities which are pretty active in Second Life, especially the Free University of Amsterdam (VUA) that's been active for months now. Also, there is an error in their report on Princeton stating:

"Princeton University will open its five-sim site in time for the new academic year in the fall... ...The AvaStar was given exclusive access to the finished parts of the Princeton site.."

Well, not so exclusive. The site was (as is the case with many new interesting sites) spotted by Al 'super-scooper' Kronos who blogged it respectively at 3PointD, Ambling in Second Life and this very MindBlizzard blog having a first full set of snapshots. A little credit to whom credit is due would seem in place.

Q110 - The bank of the future

The second story that drew my attention was their short introduction of the Deutsche Bank AG coming to Second Life:

"THE future of banking has arrived in SL. Talking at a press conference in Berlin streamed live into SL the member of the board of Deutsche Bank AG, Hermann-Josef Lamberti, referred to SL as the “killer application” of the next few years that enables us to see how the future of the internet will unfold. That’s why Deutsche Bank have decided to launch their futureoriented
Q110 banking concept in SL."

This first image is a photoscreen in front of the real build. It's set up with a photocamera and a circle on the floor will tell you where to stand. Take your picture here, and have it printed on your Real Life credit card.

The build itself is inline with the current trends to let go of traditional 'gravity-bound' architecture and is basically an open banking floor with two hovering skyscrapers.

The towers themselves fullfill no particular purpose, business is done at floor-level or in three different skyboxes. Deutsche AG takes Skybox very literal in this build. The three boxes vary in style to serve different clientgroups.

One of the funny things in this build is the "Wishroom", a sort of holodeck with three theme options: marriage, future and buying a house.

I took the Future tour and was asked several questions. After each question the holodeck formed to suit my imagined future. Afterwards I received some three notecards with the Deutsche Banks tips to get where I want to be.

At the end of my visit I discovered why the towers were there. At the rooftops you'll find baseball courts.

My last thought was, why build on the IBM Boeblingen Lab sim and not a dedicated sim?

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/IBM%20Boeblingen%20Lab/156/83/133