Virtual Banking (20) Westpac

I've been pretty extensive in blogging banks that immersed themselves into Second Life, but here's one I never noticed; Westpac.

The following article is grom Virtual Worlds News: UPDATED: Australian Bank Westpac Exits Second Life

In November 2007, the Australian bank Westpac had set up shop in Second Life for
internal use. According to a ZDNet article from the time citing then-CTO David Backley, IBM and Westpac had experimented (with positive results)with using the virtual world for centralised onboarding for staff from offices around the country. The National Business Review reports today, though, that the bank has cut the project in
spite of positive feedback. [Update at bottom]

It sounds like the results weren't enough. Backley joked that he's now GM of application development ("Read into that whatever you will") and said that returns weren't strong enough to support the project.

"Failures can become expensive. We do massive systems rollouts and we expect huge paybacks," he told the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum in Sydney.

I don't point this out to sound the death knell of Second Life as Valleywag has (earning it a link from the National Business Review) or any number of publications. I think it's silly to look at the departure of one project as the tipping point, especially since that one project was likely generating more money for IBM as a technology partner and consultant than Linden Lab through land sales in Second Life.

I think it is worth noting the reaction that companies like Westpac are having. For one, it entered Second Life long before Linden began to seriously refocus the virtual world to serve enterprise customers needs. For another, in the current economic climate everyone, possibly especially banks, is looking to cut costs.

Experimental efforts, which I think is what most organizations label virtual world projects, are attractive because they're a new option to save money, but there's an ever-increasing need to show ROI--and apparently enough of a return that you don't get demoted.

UPDATE: Metaverse Journal was also at the event where Westpac's efforts were discussed and has a much more positive takeaway than the National Business Review: Westpac regarded the effort as a project ahead of its time, but the costs of maintenance and implementation were too high and a key sponsor left the company, stalling momentum. The new insight here is less about corporate reactions to Second Life and more about the media's: fyi, there's still some bias against it.

To learn how to successfully take advantage of virtual worlds for business, come to the 3D Training, Learning and Collaboration conference taking place April 20-21, 2009, in Washington, DC.

Related Articles:

• Taking residence in virtual worlds, Australian IT (december 2007)
• Deloitte and Westpac explore Second Life, Metaverse Journal (december 2007)
• Westpac reality check on Web 2.0 IT News (february 2009)
• Westpac pulls plug on virtual reality training National Business Review (february 2009)

World Economy Crash

These days you might be willing to be everything but a bank, or at least stay away as far as possible from anything just remotely looking like money. The world is in bad shape as it is with the credit crunch and the recession taking its toll, but I am noticing a rise in bad tidings as well.

Security Plan leak

Todays latest news is that the security plans for the renovated Dutch Ministry of Finance have accidentaly thrown out with the garbage in december. The plans contain checklists of camerapositions and many more details. (source Nu.nl)

Credit Leak

Earlier this week, on tuesday, Ars Technica reported that millions of US Credit Card details may have fallen into the wrong hands.

...payment processor Heartland Payment Systems has potentially leaked up to 100 million credit and debit accounts into the black market. That number, if verified, would make this the largest data breach on record. It also means the United States has managed to set two national records in the same day. Guess which one folks are paying attention to? Awful convenient, that.

The giant leak may have been a result of a malware infestation, but according to the Ars Technica report, Heartland doesn't really know what really happened. That's hopefull (not!)

Russians launching attack on Dutch Internet Banking System

Another troublesome newsitem was Nu.nl reporting that the Russians are planning an attack on the Dutch Internet Banking system last monday.

According to the article Russian gangs would be increasing their activity in the Netherlands and other European countries according to Ultrascan, a financial research institute.

Ultrascan says the criminals are looking for ways to hack the banks systems, already probing the ABN Amro Wincor Nixdorf cash registers and are installing skimming software all over Europe as well as having developed software to launch an all out out attack on Internet Banking. According to the research institute the current operations appear to be unprecedented and urge banks to take precautionary measures.

Amidst a credit crunch and a recession where we see thousands of jobs disappear and billions of dollars evaporate due to bad banking, it is extremely sad to see leaks and security breeches on top of that. Our money is melting fast, too fast to handle for some. Maybe it's time to reconsider the gold standard?

Virtual Banking (18): Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank

Among the first countries to ditch Second Life last summer were Germany and Austria, where public opinion rapidly went from ecstatic to outright negative and focus was laid on the dark side of Second Life. But they're back. Slowly (very slowly), companies are coming back to Second Life. This time it's the German based Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank which opened up their virtual shop earlier this week, making it real world bank number 18 to immerse itself in Second Life.

Initially I thought this build was from the Austrian based Volksbank AG, or Volksbank Group, but that's a mixup. This presence is the German Volksbank, a cooperation of different local banks.

Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken with over 15,7 million members and 30 million customers, is a pillar of the German banking industry and a major force in the German economy. As the central organization of the cooperative banking group, the BVR (Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken), functions as a promoter of, representative for, and a strategic partner of its members. [bvr]

Aside from an apparent turn in public opinion, this new endeavor supprisingly comes at a time in which most financial institutions keep a lid on their expenditure and innovation budget due to the Credit Crunch.

The Volksbank comes in a double sim presence, first of which is the Orientantion Island and the second one is the main sim. The main sim holds the VR Marktplatz (market) and VR Finanzlounge (finance lounge), which is built like a typical smalltown city center.

The Volksbank has a different approach to their presence than most other real life companies have, which is good. Most corporate sims are empty spaces, with only their own private little corporate build. Alongside the marketplace however, we find various shops, inworld, Second Life based boutiques. Also the Volksbank has set up a Real Estate agent at the corner of the marketplace, which offers building tips for building in Second Life. I think this is a very good crossover, as real estate products and real estate financing are closely tied in with the core products of a bank.

While exploring the sim I ran into two Volksbank teammembers, Alexander Auerbach and teamleader Pedro Barbosa, who kindly gave me some background information. The Volksbank presense is mainly a research project which is not directly focussed on doing actual banking business in Second Life, but in getting in touch with their clients. They want to collect experience which can help them improve their services and consultancy. They do want to find out though how far one can go in 'vermittlung', consultancy in an environment like this.

Their Second Life presence will a place to meet new customers, but since finance is a very private business, follow ups will have to be done the old fashioned way, with visits to your local bank. The lack of privacy was also one of the reasons ABN Amro moved over to Active Worlds.

They were quick to point out that the presence isn't finished yet, and were still working on filling in some details. The concept for the sim was made by people from GAD, a calculating center for banks and a member of the Volksbank cooperation. Also cooperative banks like the geno-verband Stuttgart and Rheinisch-Westfälischer Genossenschaftsverband participate in this build, which are both part of the Volksbank coop as well. The concept developed by GAD was checked with a Second Life agency though to see if it would hold up, but the build was entirely done with own employees.

Here's two promo videos about the Volksbank presense in Second Life:

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/VR%20Land/114/19/24

Air France-KLM on a Cloud

You don't see too many new companies taking a dive into virtual worlds these days, so I was really excited to see Air France - KLM immerse last month.

Air France-KLM, is a European airline holding company incorporated under French law with its headquarters at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris, France. It is the largest airline company in the world in terms of total operating revenues, and the third largest in the world in terms of passenger-kilometres and passenger fleet size. Air France-KLM is member of the SkyTeam airline alliance. They offer a frequent flyer program called Flying Blue. The company's namesake airlines rely on two major hubs: Roissy-Charles de Gaulle International Airport, near Paris, and Schiphol Airport, near Amsterdam. [wikipedia]

The airliner has asked iMarginal to build a virtual presence where the company would be able to interact with their shareholders, or as introduced on the AFKLM Second Life website:

The Air France-KLM island in the Second Life universe aims to offer Air France-KLM shareholders a space with the Group’s financial news. For shareholders and visitors, this space is structured in order to help them learn more about the Group’s activity and to participate in financial events. On the island they can find an auditorium, a lounge, the share price in 3D, a Sustainable Development space and the Air France Museum.

I'm happy to see they've done a great job at the build; it's of exquisite quality and they've actually managed to skip a few of the traditional, gravity bound builds we often see in virtual environments. The island is called 'ile dans le ciel', or in plain English 'island in the sky', which suits the company as their core business mainly is up in the clouds.

As for moving around the sim you will need a jetpack to move from room to room, or use the teleport hub above.

There are four primary areas to explore: First there is the Home sphere: where you can view movies about the Air France-KLM group and download PDF's containing the latest financial reports. The second shpere is the 'mandatory' auditorium. A third sphere houses the Air France museum with and exhibition of early Air France and KLM posters, bringing pack memories of the past when flying still was romantic and adventurous. The museum also contains a number of fine scale models of Air France and KLM airplanes. Finally, the fourth sphere offers room to a lounge.

Late last summer I have had some contact with KLM exmployees who were looking into the possibility of building a Second Life presence and were looking for some sort of justification for an airliner to get into a virtual world, in which people don't need transportation as they can fly, or even better, teleport themselves from point to point. I pondered that question when I blogged the presence of the Brussels Airlines in Second Life in March, as I wrote:

... and what do you do when you're an airliner and get down to the Metaverse? Exactly, an airline's core business is to bring people from place to place. In the virtual world however, you don't need transportation. You can just teleport. Airliners have become obsolete. Yet Brussels Airlines knows that bringing people from place to place is just a means to a goal. It is actually about people going to destinations. So if you can't do the transportation part, focus on the destinations. That's exactly what the B-Places directory does.

There's a slight French domination at the build, so I'm trying to find out more with the Dutch wing..

Here's a slideshow from the build's Flickr pool:

More info can be found on the Air France-KLM website where you can watch a neat video about the Second Life presence and an introduction by group CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/SecondLife/Air%20France%20KLM/128/34/232

Credit Crunch Crash Course for VW's

Amidst all the turmoil on the current Credit Crunch, twitterati Malburns pointed me to an excellent article from the Metanomics.

My social web life seems to go down the drain because of the banking crisis, which makes me work day and night covering the endless stories of banks going bust, regulators and politicians scrambling to save them, the doom and gloom spreading and making consumers and investors extremely nervous.

It makes me aware of the fact that connectedness has its idealistic, hopeful face, like one can experience in the online Connectivism course but also a more ugly face, of spammers, griefers, online communities which seem to deal in hatred and stupidity.

Relating this to virtual worlds, I think there are some interesting similarities between banking, society at large and virtual worlds and communities.

Banking is an activity which is extremely connected. Long before people started talking about web2.0, social networks or even the internet, finance professionals linked up all over the globe using telegraph, phone, spreading information through private networks or monitoring wire services such as Reuters.

Not only good ideas spread through those networks. Also toxic financial products, like repackaged dodgy loans, travel at the speed of light. Dubious financial practices originating in the US end up in Europe and Asia. Reckless over-leveraging in Europe affects Wall Street etc.

Read the full article here.

Enterprise mode? Why Bother?

After I heard 3Di is releasing an Enterprise version of Opensim, I read up on a couple of blogposts about getting the virtual workspace ready for business to prep my blogpost on 3Di (previous post). Most of these blogposts (including my own ramblings about making things fit for business) are very serious about this with all sorts of tea-circles and self-help-group-like things like the Interoperability Forum and groups like Professional Second Lifers, Virtual World Roadmap and Association of Virtual Worlds on LinkedIn and so on.

Don't get me wrong here. Virtual Worlds need serious pondering to make them fit for business. Companies do need privacy in certain areas. Think of what would happen if you could walk in, or eavesdrop on a session between a bank and a wealthy customer on how to invest his money, but every once in a while it would be good to take a step back, look at what you're doing and have a good laugh. Raph Koster did a very nice blogpost in which he wonders why we would have Enterprise VW's. Here's some quotes:

Enterprise VW's - do they suck ?

Second Life technology continues its slow move towards being an enterprise solution with the announcement that the SL-derived OpenSim project is getting commercialized by 3Di. Enterprise was a big buzzword this year at the Virtual Worlds conf in Hollywood. (Of course, in the midst of it, someone had to ask “what is enterprise anyway?” It means “selling VWs to businesses”). The penny has also dropped for some users that SL itself seems to be trending in this direction — as Tateru Nino writes on Massively,

When you look at the hiring of Tom Hale, the ongoing hiring of enterprise sales and marketing staff, and the licensing of the Immersive Workspaces product from Rivers Run Red, this all seems to signal a clear direction for where Linden Lab is taking Second Life. Clearer than anything else we’ve seen in a year, certainly.

Of course, we have also seen Forterra and their OLIVE platform (derived originally from the There.com codebase) continue to focus on this area over several years, with particular success in work for the military.

and

"So, no, the dream isn’t dead. Consumer virtual worlds are still coming on strong, despite the focus on enterprise lately. It may be that part of the reason why these slightly older worlds and platforms are having to shift is that they are simply the wrong design for the consumer space, and the future belongs to stuff that looks more like Lively, Whirled, SmallWorlds, Vivaty, and yes, Metaplace. I sure hope so, because the very different architecture choices made there can grow back to the big immersive experiences, but I am unsure that the big architectures can shrink down to the smaller needs of the ordinary person."

read the full article

When virtual money becomes a horrid reality

There's no denying trouble at the Dow, or any other Stock Exchange. Some even say the storm of the century is blazing across Wall Street. There's so much going on that even I felt the need to comment on it, even while I focus on Virtual Worlds.

Come to think of it, it isn't that farfetched as the NYSE guys and shortshellers didn't speculate with real money either. They've thought up a virtual capital, a virtual economy, uncovered wealth to push the market in the direction of real profit. Now speculating with this virtual wealth falls through and to many people it becomes a horrid reality as they run into credit or mortgage trouble, or might be fired in the coming months.

Techblogger Robert Scoble wrote an article called Economic Idiocy and at this point in time we may face Idiocy, maybe even frenzy, but at its core is something much darker: It is greed. A ‘little while ago” Descarte wrote: “Cogito Ergo Sum”, I think therefor I exist. In the past century -and especially in the USA -it has grown to I shop, therefor I am.

Marketing guru’s like Edward Bernays have found the triggers that make us buy things we don’t need, all to keep the economy running. Now throw in a bunch of greedy stockowners and shortsellers and you’ve got a volatile mix, focussed on short term profits. Profit is the main driver in our present economy. We lack long term vision and that’s what’s killing us now.

In our drive for profits and growth we have overextended ourselves. Where did sound economics go that said “Don’t buy if you can’t afford”? Instead we’ve invented credit card debt. We let go of the gold standard an have invented trillions of dollars of State Debt. We started speculating with money we don’t have.

Well, now we drop dead shopping. Back to thinking, looking at what we’re doing out there. What do we need, and why do we think we need more? Why do we desperately want to have a bigger car than our neighbours, or a bigger house than our colleagues. If you’ve done healthy financial management, didn’t overextend and are debt free, the storm will pass. Maybe we’ve got to accept the fact that in other cases it’s a dreadfull, yet necessary correction to our unbridled greed.

Virtual Banking (17): Banca MPS

Banca MPS

Amidst all the turmoil on the financial markets I decided to see if there has been any chance in the status of a couple of banks I spotted a while ago in Second Life. The sim is called Banca MPS, which stands for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SPA

"Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SPA (MPS) is the oldest surviving bank in the world. Founded in 1472 by the Magistrate of the city state of Siena, Italy, it has been operating ever since. Today it consists of approximately 1,800 branches, 28,000 employees and 4.5 million customers in Italy, as well as branches and businesses abroad. A subsidiary, MPS Finance, handles consumer finance.

Its headquarters in the Palazzo Salimbeni in Siena are host to a magnificent art collection and a large number of priceless historical documents spanning the centuries of its existence. However, this collection is not usually open to the public" [wikipedia]

On the sim you see a complex of buildings, in which nothing much happens. I've spotted this sim about a year ago and the evolution has been slow. Yet the the detail on the buildings is pretty good.

As I couldn't get in, I couldn't explore the buildings. However, I could peek through the opened doors allowing me to get a view of classical Italian paintings. I suspect this is the collection Wikipedia refers to. If the Real Life collection is not usually open to visitors, giving them a free entrance in Second Life would probably be a good thing. So why not open up folks?

In the Netherlands, Banca MPS is primarily known for acquiring Banca Antonveneta from Grupo Santander late 2007, which took over a part of the Dutch ABN Amro Bank, which in its turn had just aquired Antonveneta, making it the first non-italian takeover in the industry in Italy

(Okay, this is a soap... ABN AMRO was taken over by a trio of banks, aside from Santander, these were Barclays and Fortis. The latter of which is now being rescued by Belgian, Dutch and Luxemburgh governments and there are talks of selling the ABN Amro part again at a severe loss, most likely to the Dutch ING or French BNP Parisbas).

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Banca%20MPS/128/128/0

Banca Transylvania

The second bank on my list is Banca Transylvania, but this one is also closed for public. It has no neighbouring sims so I couldn't get any snapshots of that one. Hopefully someone can give me a few pointers.

SLURL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Banca%20Transylvania/128/128/0

ArcelorMittal: Virtual Stocks

Due to family issues I've not been poking around Second Life for quite some time now, and it's been a while since I've seen interesting reports and blogs on new companies entering the world of Second Life. Although I've not immersed myself for several months now, I did keep a close tap on several noteworthy blogs through my feedreader, and didn't see any new (noteworthy) companies entering Second Life.

We all know companies aren't as eager to enter Second Life as they once were (over a year ago), but every once in a while one does enter, and this time it's the worlds' largest Steel company:

"ArcelorMittal is the largest steel company in the world, with 310,000 employees in more than 60 countries. It has led the consolidation of the world steel industry and today ranks as the only truly global steelmaker. The company was founded in 2006 when Arcelor and Mittal Steel merged. It ranked at 39th position in Fortune Global 500 companies list. The company is headquartered in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg, the former seat of Arcelor."

[Wikipedia]

Somehow you don't see a steelcompany to be a hip, Web 2.0 ready company, but Arcelor is doing the social Jive. In 2007 it launched its own Web TV, and inaugurated their virtual presence on June 17 this year. Here is the account from the ArcelorMittal blog:

"On June 17, ArcelorMittal held its annual Individual Shareholder Event. Whether in Japan, Russia or Europe, shareholders were able to listen in, ask questions
and access information - all in real time - as they were transported into a virtual ArcelorMittal world!

15 ArcelorMittal shareholders arrived at the snazzy lounge set-up at Luxembourg headquarters as Lakshmi Mittal, our
Chairman and CEO, hosted ArcelorMittal’s 2008 Individual Shareholder meeting. Another 60 existing and potential shareholders joined the event via Second Life – a virtual meeting centre which enables you to create your own character by choosing your physical features and your virtual name.

Another great advantage for shareholders was the possibility to consult the Company’s different publications (Activity Report, Fact Book, Sustainability Report, etc.) in one direct click from the meeting centre.

After a brief presentation by Julien Onillon, VP Investor Relations, outlining the Group’s growth targets and ambitions, shareholders were invited to put their questions to Mr Mittal via instant message. My favourite one? How do you make steel?!"

I haven't visited the facility yet, so I can't really show much more than a YouTube video of the meeting, but I think I'll peek in to see what they've actually built.

Here's a number of links to press coverage of this event:

• ARCELORMITTAL INVITES ITS SHAREHOLDERS LIVE TO SECOND LIFE
• ArcelorMittal considering selling shares in SecondLife- Mixed Realities
• How to find young shareholders on Second Life - Metanomics
• Echte aandelen kopen in Second Life kan mogelijk binnen een jaar - TZine (dutch)
• ArcelorMittal vergadert op Second Life - Z24.nl (dutch)
• Ava Arcelor Mittal op Second Life - De Financiële Telegraaf (dutch)
• ArcelorMittal waagt zich op Second Life -de Tijd (dutch)
• ArcelorMittal sur Second Life - Press (LU) - PaperJam (french)

So what do we do now ?

The question is, did it work out, and what will ArcelorMittal do with their Second Life presence in the future? I don't know yet, here's a quote from a sceptic blog:

Just read in MINT newspaper that Arcelor Mittal had organised shareholder meeting in Second Life, the popular online virtual world.

The result?? Well, the results were not even close to good, atleast that's what the newspaper reported. for this 90-minute long event around 50 avatars turened up. The event was confused and uncertain. The residents were puzzledabout what are they suppose to do. They kept asking so, what do we do now?

As for as the company is concerned they realized that it is difficult to find investors, especially on such sites!

So, What do we do now?? :)

Well, I'm for one am going to enjoy my last day of the summer holidays and seek out to visit the Arcelor site in Second Life in the near future.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pando/135/143/100

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