Dutch Banker goes Supermodel

Dutch Triple A rated bank Rabobank has been fiddling around with gadgets, widgets and virtual worlds a lot in the past years. Their first metaversal experience came from Why Robbie Rocks and in april 2008 the bank hit the typical avatar-based 'girlworld' goSupermodel targeted at a 12 to 17 year old audience, loosely styled like Habbo Hotel.

goSupermodel has about 250.000 unique visitors a month, which log in about 200 times a month and spend 22 minutes each session. Rabobank has launched a chatbot, called Yvette. Through the chatbot Yvette you can ask questions about finance. This financial coach is also reachable through SMS, MSN, Hyves and Live-spaces.

Actual numbers from the first week of operation are promising:

• 5.881 mails to Yvette
• 25.901 chatsessions with the girls
• 44.305 visits to the Rabobank office

Virtual Chatrooms

Yesterday I've posted a first overview of the VW industry with several charts. Although I said it wasn't exact science, I received many comments trough twitter, IM and other media. Thanks for the feedback.

One of the first changes I've made is to add specific categories for 'adult worlds' (with the input I received about 4% of the market) and chats (19%) (no games included)

The chatrooms are both 2D and 3D worlds, many aiming at different agegroups.

1. BlaBla


2. CityPixel


3. Cybertown


4. Dubit


5. Faketown


6. IMVU


7. Kids com


8. Mokitown


9. Moove


10. TAATU


11. Towerchat


12. vSide


13. WeeWorld


14. Whyville

This list is up for discussion. I for one am not sure Whyville or vSide are really chatroom focussed. Here some screenshots:

Additions are welcome!