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

The Grand Ducale and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

The Grand Ducale

Sticking in the same region as my former blogpost on the Belgian recruitment sim of Vacature Reference there's another one from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , not surprisingly called "Grand Ducale" which is surrounded by sims called Luxemburg Careers and Luxemburg Business. Unlike the "Grand" part of the official name, Luxemburg itself is a pretty small country, I have no doubt there are ranches in the US and Australia which have larger backyards. A little history:

"The recorded history of Luxembourg begins with the acquisition of Lucilinburhuc (today Luxembourg Castle) by Siegfried, Count of Ardennes in 963. Around this fort, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a small state of great strategic value. In 1437, the House of Luxembourg suffered a succession crisis, precipitated by the lack of a male heir to assume the throne, that led to the territory being sold to Philip the Good of Burgundy. In the following centuries, Luxembourg's fortress was steadily enlarged and strengthened by its successive occupants, the Bourbons, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns, and the French, among others. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Luxembourg was disputed between Prussia and the Netherlands. The Congress of Vienna formed Luxembourg as a Grand Duchy in personal union with the Netherlands. Luxembourg also became a member of the German Confederation, with a Confederate fortress manned by Prussian troops." (Wikipedia)

The triple sim setup is not about promoting Luxembourg by displaying it's landmarks, but is a rather cartoonish carnival of recruitment stands. It's lively colored and an original design. I like the small details like the sculpted trees and the overall quality of the build.

To get down to business, most of the time sites like these are rather empty, but it seems they are preparing themselves for large recruitment event, not only aimed at Luxembourg, but

The 3 sims, taken together, provide a large recruitment facility. The first event was actually held at the end of November, 2007, to recruit staff for GAX Technologies. I think this may have been something of a proof of concept, since GAX are (I think) the builders of the site. According to the Working Worlds website, the next fair is on the 28th March, 2008 - though the information on the island itself points towards a fair on 29th May. (Aleister Kronos)

Some familiar names appear (again), like recruitment companies Randstad and Manpower, both active in Second Life as well and a number of dedicated spaces for clients like Dexia (finance)

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grand%20Ducale/128/128/0

The Grand Duchy

There's also a sim out there called "Grand Duchy" which seems to be the national immersion zone for Luxembourg, but aside from a few shops it's still rather empty and under construction.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grand%20Duchy/128/128/0

PS: I'm having a Technorati-frustration at the moment. It hasn't updated my blogposts for a while now. Either I screwed my rpc-ping settings when I changed the template, or Technorati is screwed for the weekend.

Virtual Banking (16): Keytrade

Upon posting the update RL Brand Directory for Second Life just before the weekend, I received a number of tips on Belgian firms from my pal Pieter Bosch over at the Second Life Crew blog. One of them was already on my to do list, the Keytrade Bank. So, moving from Italy's Banca Carige to Belgium's Keytrade Bank would be a nice contrast.

The Belgian Keytrade Bank is an internet bank and is a 100% subsidiary of Crédit Agricole, also present in Second Life and blogged here at MindBlizzard in summer 2007.

Belgium's first online investment site VMS-Keytrade, saw the light of day in 1998. It experienced immediate success and dazzling growth. In 2002, VMS-Keytrade became Keytrade Bank and acquired its banking status by taking over RealBank.

Today, Keytrade Bank is part of the Crédit Agricole Group, one of Europe's largest banking groups (total assets of € 913 billion and own funds of € 66 billion).

The bank's build is quite simple: One main office at a small island, a little gardening to liven up the terraforming and that's it.

On the inside, there's a difference though. It's quite spaceous, with several seats and small offices filled with Scope Cleaver design.

Upon entering you cannot miss the sim's prime feature: The exchange. This is one of the first actually usefull features I've seen in visiting 16 banks and various financial corporations in Second Life as it gives a live exchangerate of the Linden Dollar against various currencies.

Aside from the live exchange, you'll find some freebees (T Shirts) and a nice Zeppelin to fly over the island. We're not done yet. Among the freebee stands, there's another usefull tool to be found: A HUD which also gives you the conversion rates plus financial news

"KEYTRADE BANK and DOW JONES NEWSWIRES launch on Friday the 23rd of November 2007 a NEW second generation Financial NEWS and Currency Conversion HUD in Second Life.This second generation HUD features besides the currency converter with Real Time currency conversion rates of 12 different currencies in relation to Linden $ now also Real Time FINANCIAL NEWS from DOW JONES NEWSWIRES.The NEWS are accurate financial breaking news and headlines, together with rolling commentary and in-depth analysis.With a click of a button on the Keytrade Bank
HUD a stylish news screen slides out of the HUD and displays more than 2000 characters of financial NEWS.The slide screen displays the NEWS with a Headline and date. You can further browse the NEWS feed by simply clicking on the page arrows." (SL Newspaper BNC)

Although I can't say the build is spectacular, the HUD and exchange make up for it as this actually is a serious attempt at connecting the RL and Virtual markets.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Keytrade%20Bank/128/128/0

Virtual Banking (15): Gruppo Banca Carige

Sticking in the Italian corner, there's the Gruppo Banca Carige, one of the many banks in Second Life and the 9th largest bank in Italy with a market capitalisation of 3.0 billion Euro's.

One of the things the bank boasts about is its international orientation;

At last a bank that cares for those who come from afar. The Banca Carige Group has created "Carige Senza Confini", the account that speaks every language in the world. But that's not all: Carige Senza Confini offers you an international
prepaid card to make payments and withdrawals, a money transfer service, a mortgage for your new home in Italy and much more. Carige Senza Confini is a service dedicated to all foreign nationals with residency in Italy.

Although, at the sim there was one building dedicated to the Senza Confini account, the only language on the sim was Italiano again. Let's have a look at the build:

It's main venue is something what I'll be calling Italian style. I've seen quite a number of Italian builds which have typically arched constructions build with aluminium and glass. The main office is dominated by the sound of silence.

Again it's hard to find a business sim that hasn't been blogged by Al Kronos already, and this one is no different:

"The previously mentioned Leisure Area seems to take up around a third of the island, with a (short!) golf course, tennis court, gym and pool. In a nod towards the city of Genoa, there seems to be a recreation of the city's
lighthouse. But we've not finished yet - no sirree. There are several more buildings - all largely complete: a recruitment office; an overseas relations office and meeting spaces for both domestic and business clients. Oh... and
finally, there's a dance area. Phew! And all of these set around an ornamental lake. It is a neat piece of juggling to fit in all of these features without it looking strained and crowded."

Here are the snapshots of the assorted melee of buildings:

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/CARIGE/128/128/0

1st Metaverse Meetup - Amsterdam

At exactly 0.00 I returned from Amsterdam where I attended the first Metaverse Meetup (Amsterdam Edition) in "De Balie" which was initiated by Joja Dhara and Ze Moo.

As this was a first meetup, apropriately themed "Meet the Avatar", the most timeconsuming event was the introduction round, but on the other hand it was nice to know who was who. We saw representatives from several MDC's such as Jeroen Frans, Executive Director of the Vesuvius Group (the guys that brought us Google in SL), Damian Simmons of Lost in the Magic Forest (Content, Essent, Aegon) and Up the Vortex (blog), and on the corporate present there was 'moi' for Sogeti, and people from ING (Our Virtual Holland), KPN and Philips Design, researchers from EPN, bloggers like Roy Cassini from Digado and excellent freelancers such as Ollie Kubrick from Unreal Design.

And off course, Bart DutchX, Founder of the Dutch Echange was present. I seem to run into him at about every metaverse related event these days. The Linden Lab banking ban doesn't seem to affect his business, as it is still expanding and they're hiring new people and adding new payment methods continuously.

As it was the first meetup I won't do an assesment of the contents of the meetup, as it was primarily a networking event tonight. I hope we'll get to discuss hot metaversal topics in the future.

Sogeti Kicks Off in Second Life

Earlier this evening I was present at the Sogeti Netherlands Kick Off party 2008 in the Heineken Music Hall. Over 2000 colleagues filled the hall to the max.

This years' kick off was titled Sogeti 2.0 and the keywords 'innovation' and 'participation'. Sogeti Netherlands is one of the leading IT companies in the Netherlands, so off course we used lots of web 2.0 stuff in the presentations. First of all, Sogeti CEO Jeroen Versteeg started the kick off from Second Life.

Contrary to previous years the CEO speech was not prepared in advance but was user generated as colleagues were asked not to turn off their phones but instead sms their topics for the keynote which generated the tagcloud below:

Menno van Doorn and Sander Duivestein of the Sogeti VINT research institute lifeblogged the event at the Vint.Sogeti blog (in Dutch) and a group of 32 Young Professionals who are currently at the Ohio University Without Boundaries (who also have a very strong SL presence) were plugged in through webstream and Second Life.

One of the fact-parts of the show was the financial and performance speech. We've had a great year and Sogeti Netherlands has grown 18% in 2007, outperforming every other Sogeti and Capgemini SA groupmembers by miles.

Right after closing the show, CEO Jeroen Versteeg took some time to chat with the Young Professionals in Second Life.

Generali's Virtual Heroes

It's been quite a while since I first noticed the Generali island, but at the time it was still under construction and closed for the public. Today I tried once more and it's open. It's a good build with a lot of detail and well designed furniture.

Generali, Italy's largest insurance company plans "to engage with the SL community and explore the nature and ‘insurability’ of risk in virtual worlds, as well as to interactively promote the Group’s image and business."

Let's start of with a few snapshots:

Since it's still early saturday morning I'm not going to describe the island but quote from Generali's Second Life flyer:

In Generali’s perspective, Second Life represents an opportunity laboratory for innovating (prototyping new products and services), learning and communicating as well as an interesting emerging market – virtual worlds inhabited by dynamic and knowledgeable users.

The main objectives of “Generali Virtual” could be summarized as follows:

On the left, places and areas on Generali Virtual

• explore the extent to which virtual reality might affect and extend the nature of risk and risk management services
• experiment with new insurance-related services relevant to a world where connectivity and virtuality become dominant features: insuring virtual risks in reality and real risks in virtuality
• witness Generali’s effort in providing innovative services, and promote the Group’s image throughout non-traditional environments and communities.

The success of Second Life itself may be transient, but the phenomenon of technology-enabled virtual worlds will not and the Group is keen to put itself in a position of monitoring and learning early on in order to be ready for future challenges.

The Generali island is organized around a central piazza – the Community Area – which provides a space for presentations and virtual encounters, and potentially an alternative channel for real-world corporate events. A large screen can be used to show a registration or the live video from the event. On one side of the piazza the Generali Building provides up-to-date information about the Generali Group and links to the generali.com website. Close to it, a structure informally known as “Chill Area” is designed to provide a context for hosting some social, educational and entertainment activities of the SL community.

The large Water Tower is a panoramic view point with a room that gives a view of the whole island. The most interactive part of the island is the Warehouse Set, where a game can be played by visitors, in fact Generali Virtual offers to visitors an interactive game, a sort of “car chase” with prizes to be won, that is meant to convey a simple but effective message about the rewards for risk-adverse behaviour.

To be honest, I really couldn't spot the interactivity, tried a few warehouses but couldn't really get in. Perhaps there's a teleport point somewhere. A second thing I couldn't really figure out is what the islands' subtitle "keeping heroes safe" means.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Generali/128/128/0

Does Robbie Rock?

There's a platform out there that has some attraction to corporations, but hardly known in the regular Virtual World Business, named Why Robbie Rocks.

Now it's pretty hard to define what exactly is a virtual world (see this discussion at Metaversed), but I think Why Robbie Rocks should be considered one, except... it doesn't really show. There's quite a bit of preformatted avatar pimping, but that's about it.

A feature on the website is the Elle Girl shop / site which uses WRR. As for serious business, also Dutch banker Rabobank (one of the few triple A rated banks in Europe) runs WRR and the latest is the Dutch One Campaign version.

The fun parts though is that there's web 2.0 integration. You can put your avatar on the (Google) map, push it to MSN spaces, MSN Messenger or embed it on your website or as a gadget on the ruling Dutch social network site hyves.

I haven't been able to see the full potential of Why Robbie Rocks, so tell us, why should we sign up?

Virtual Banking (13): BCV

Sharp readers will have noticed I skipped no. 12 in the series of Virtual banking. No. 11 in the series was Crédit Agricole and no. 12 is Cofidis, as French banker and insurance company. That blog was titled "Have a little Cofidis" due to the Tour de France debacle.

Bank number 13 is a Swiss bank, called the BCV (Banque Cantonale Vaudoise). Here's their profile from their website:

"BCV was founded over 160 years ago to serve the people of Vaud, and we have kept our strong community focus to this day. We offer a full range of services, including retail banking, corporate banking, private banking and asset management.In addition we engage in BCV has trading activities in various financial markets. "

The island is quite craftly landscaped, stepping away from the 'normal photorealistic' trees and stuff, but doesn't hold much more than BVC's virtual Headquarters, but for a venue dating back to 7 februari 2007 it's part of the early bankers in Second Life.

In a second stage - a second Island - they've must have started looking for deeper involvement with the Second Life community and opened up BCV island 2. On this sim you'll find different venues, maybe from partners, or maybe collaborative builds but of lesser quality and inspiration than the main venue.

In a past life I used to do some webdesign and one of the deadliest sins in the business was - and still is - putting a visitor counter on a professional website. On BCV island 2 there is one ! It's on a building which counted me as visitor no. 63 since june 17.

(Okay, it's nice if you're called Esmee Denters and get 0ver 40 million views on youTube, but it's a bummer when you're a big corporate name and get only a few visitors).

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/BCV%20Island/156/121/60

Rectification on Cofidis

My previous post, titled Have a little Cofidis, needs rectification.

It's the time of the Tour de France, one of the great sports events. The past week has seen allegations made against Rasmussen -who came through clean on 15 consecutive anti-doping tests and the climax yesterday with the positive results on the Vinikourov tests and the withdrawal of the complete Astana team.

Despite the allegations, Rasmussen kept his head cool and the Rabobank mountain-goat declassified Discovery's Leipheimer and Contador in the last mile to the finish.

This morning, before today's monstrous mountain stage I blogged on the island of Cofidis, dubbed the blog have a little cofidis, meaning confidence. I'm not sure if this was a bad omen, as today it turned out that a Cofidis member returned positive on the doping tests.

Yesterday Eric Boyer, the Cofidis manager spoke disgrace of Vinikourov, calling him a dirty ****-something and demanded the whole Astana team would withdraw from the competition. Well, it's pretty obvious which course of action should be taken now with Cofidis.

Will they draw back their Pro Tour cycling team oriented island in Second Life as well?

[Pictures by AP press]

Have a little Cofides

Et maintenant? (and now what?)

Yesterday didn't see a spectaculair stage in the Tour de France, but a media circus and extremely volatile situation with Rabobanks' Rasmussen under attack and Astana's Vinokourov being tested positive on doping.

Hardly a time to take a Tour de SL, but I jumped in at Cofidis island.

Here's the Wiki knowledge about Cofidis:

"Cofidis is a French company, one of the Otto Group's financial services providers.
Founded in 1982 by 3 Suisses International in cooperation with Cetelem, Cofidis specializes in the consumer credit business of the 3 Suisses Group.

Its business concept of offering customized consumer loans either by phone or over the Internet has been exported to other countries - Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Czech Republic and Greece. In 2003, Cofidis combined with Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe to found a new joint venture, Créfidis. And in 2004, Cofidis acquired a 66 % equity stake in C2C, the financial services provider of the French Camif Group."

Again it is a Financial Institute coming to Second Life, but focussing on their Pro Tour cycling team

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cofidis/130/133/27

Virtual Banking (8): BNP Paribas

The title of this blog is the the order in Which I've blogged financial corps in Second Life, as Aleister already described the Japanese Suruga bank. For a chronological timeline of entries you should check Nic's blog

BNP Paribas Group-sim

First of all BNP has a group island in which it promotes their French and German CRR brands. This island is partly accessible and has a major promotion-wall (left) stating it'll open in June. The only finished items I can spot are the press center (right).

Next to the press center is a nice pond with terras and the rest of the sim consists of restricted parcels. A large parcel in the SE corner is covered with a white box, but with some camera-juggling I managed to peek inside. It looks like some offices are being build here (left)

BNP Paribas-sim

The second sim is totally inaccessible, but from the BNP Paribas group sim you can have some view on what they're up to. (above right, below left and right).

From this distance I can't really see what is going on, but the build has a nice fresh look to it. The circle in the bottom-right corner is meant for recruitment and on the left pic it shows several funplaces, like jetskis and campfires.

Sofar, it's a regular sim, no new things spotted. I hope to get a good look soon to judge the build.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/BNP%20PARIBAS%20GROUP/128/128/0

Crowd Sourcing Project

It was just another day on the job. As a Project Manager I pick up a project, find resources, get the thing going, deliver on time and within budget and end of deal. Seemed to be true for this project.

However, it turned out to be a success (wow, how's that for a change?). The project received national media attention, was mentioned in the weblog of the parting Dutch Minister of Finance and suddenly became a Crowd Sourcing showcase. For those who're new to this, here's the Wikinition:

"Crowdsourcing" is a neologism for a business model that depends on work being done outside the traditional company walls: while outsourcing is typically performed by lower paid professionals, crowdsourcing relies on a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D. The term was coined by Wired magazine writer Jeff Howe and editor Mark Robinson in June 2006.

Now, what's the big fuzz?
Crowd Sourcing is big business for companies. Let's start simple. A large company changes name and starts a contest for a new slogan and the winner receives a luxurious Holiday in Spain. That's a good deal for the winner, yet a better deal for the company since it saves thousands of euro's otherwise spent on expensive Marketing & Advertising companies.

In short, Crowd Sourcing is a money saver. It allows businesses to gain expert opinion free of charge (or at extremely low charge, a nice incentive).

Additional Resources:

• Wikipedia: Crowd Sourcing
• Wired: The rise of crowdsourcing
• Business Week: Crouwdsourcing: Consumers as creators