The lead for this story had come into my editor and she'd asked me to chase it down. So, in following up on it, I IM'ed and made an appointment to meet with the MetaLife CEO and founder Robbie Kiama.We met at the Nokia SIM and Robbie was there to greet me when I arrived.
"Hello Nazz." He called out as I rezzed in. "Welcome to MetaLife. I hope my English is good for you. I'm from Lithuania in RL." He said.
I replied telling him that I thought his English was very good. We were planning to talk using voice chat, however we were forced into a text chat for a few minute while I connected my headset in order to use it and SL was being well, it was being SL.
Finally having straightened out and when plugged in and ready, I asked him, "Is this MetaLife's headquarters Robbie?"
He replied, "This is yes, we have another office as well. But MetaLife isn't about this location. It's about building a platform for other developers, land owners, business owners, and organizations ... Anyone who is doing anything in SL being able to connect using the MetaHUD flagship product. Using the MetaHUD, our members can travel to and tag favorite places, meet interesting people, shop and share their experiences ... making that information available to the MetaLife community ... they can comment on anything in the metaverse of SL. Once they do, it's available to their friends or the entire network of MetaLife users."
I commented on the uniqueness of that within SL and asked, "How does it work?"
"Well it's a HUD, so you wear it and it will position itself on the screen. You can of course move it around to your comfort level. Try it Nazz." Kiama suggested.
I wore the HUD I'd picked up and it rezzed on my screen, on center and to the right side. Robbie offered to be my friend and talked me through accepting the offer. In the center of the HUD, I could see comments posted by members, much like what I'd become accustomed to seeing in Twitter. He then walked me through the search function, asking me if there were any particular items I might be shopping for at this time. I told him that I'd been looking for a leather jacket and so we did a search and a list of the most popular ones appeared on the HUD. The most popular items first and the information included designer, location and price.
"This is really great Robbie." I said then continued: "How did this concept evolve?"
"We'd been planning for this for some time. A good friend had introduced me to SL and when I arrived and began to look around for opportunities, this concept was something we started working on. We tried several different models and it evolved to what you see. MetaLife has received backing from a venture capital firm in Europe. We've several projects in the pipeline now. I'd like to show you our soon to be released kiosk." Kiama said in reply.
We moved over to a display he had rezzed while we talked. "How does the kiosk work?" I asked."The MetaKIOSK, which we will launch on September 23rd, provide SL entrepreneurs a means to sell their items grid-wide. We also believe that for landowners, the system will provide an innovative way to resell items that are pertinent to their parcels. For SL residents, metaKIOSK will provide the ability to teleport to chosen locations, review, and leave comments about any displayed content on the parcel and all services are powered by metaLIFE search." He said and then continued: "We've already introduced our Metalife Partnership Program where the referring partner, who is the one who owns the kiosks and when sales are generated by the Kiosk, 97% goes to the developer, and the other 3 % is split between the kiosk owner and Metalife."
"It sounds to be an awesome concept Robbie, are there any plans to take it to other virtual worlds?" I asked.
"Only for SL, we have no plans for any other particular Virtual World now. Our goal is to build a strong platform in SL and look at other VW's and see what the need may be." Kiama replied.
I thanked Robbie for his time and headed back to my office to begin reviewing my notes. Along the way, I stopped off and using the MetaHUD, rated a few of my favorite places.
By Nazz Lane
