Jim Bruene on March 10, 2007 9:59 AM wrote a short summary of banking situation in Secold Life. Key points:
- Sep. 2005: Wells Fargo is the first real-world bank with a presence in Second Life (SL)
- Dec. 2005: Wells Fargo leaves SL, moving its Stagecoach Island to a new platform (see previous coverage here)
- 7 Dec 2006: ABN Amro becomes first European bank in SL (press release here)
- 7 Jan 2007: BNP Paribas opens a small test area (post here)
- 7 Feb 2007: Swiss bank BCV opens its doors in SL (press release here)
- 21 Feb 2007: ING Bank launches website and blog to get users involved in building what it calls Our Virtual Holland
- 2 Mar 2007: Danish Saxo Bank announces plans to create trading platform in SL (Reuters article here)
The above picture is one bank effort… as the original post says:
But if you are going into SL, make sure you mirror the effort with a Web presence that lets the other 1 billion Internet users see what you are up to. And there is no one doing that better than ING, who’s taken a Zen approach to its SL strategy. They’ve made the process of building a SL presence more important than the actual result. Their Web 2.0-inspired website ourvirtualholland.nl involves the community with blogs, suggestions, and an email list (see screenshot below).