MetaCard Use Quashed By Economic Woes; First Meta Rebounds With FMX

27Nov09

By Se7en Wirsing

When the First Meta virtual credit card, MetaCard, was introduced in 2007, it received a fair amount of media attention inside and outside of Second Life® as a novel concept. Now, two years down the road, how successful is the first virtual card?

The MetaCard, with its buy-now pay-later concept, functions similarly to a regular credit card. The avatar has a credit limit, can purchase goods and services at participating stores, gets monthly statements and pays interest on rolled-over balances. He can even pay his bill in-world at one of the ubiquitous First Meta ATMs. According to www.firstmeta.com about 170 stores participate in the MetaCard program, although some of the listed stores appear to have closed. The participating stores offer almost anything one would want in SL, from clothing and furniture to birthing service and tattoos.

The MetaCard’s image could use some polishing. Its website desperately needs refreshing. Many of the SLurls (location-based linking in Second Life®) on the participating merchant page are broken, leading to empty lots, and on the press page, some of the links are broken or lead only to the source’s home page. The page for Tangs contains outdated information and the SLurl leads to the nonexistent store. The blog was last updated in June 2008 and promotions listed have been long over.

This is not to say First Meta is on the downhill side. On the contrary, Aileen Sim, the Co-founder & Director of Business Development has recently been awarded a Shell Merit LiveWIRE Award. “The Shell LiveWIRE Awards 2009 showcases creative business models for our modern times…The Shell LiveWIRE Awards is co-organised by Shell Companies in Singapore and the Institute of Technical Education, in partnership with ITE Alumni Association and Singapore Press Holdings Chinese Newspapers Division. Not just an award, the Shell LiveWIRE Awards offer shortlisted applicants a holistic programme which includes insightful training workshops in business management and networking opportunities,” according to Shell’s website.

First Meta was repeatedly contacted for comments for this article and had no response. Perhaps the firm is busy with its Beta project, First Meta exchange (FMX), “a multi-world virtual currency exchange.” Within the FMX, US dollars or Euros may be exchanged for currencies in virtual worlds, including SL, and currency from one virtual world may be exchanged for currency in another, such as Lindens (SL) and IMVU credits may be exchanged. If you are involved in more than one virtual world, you may exchange one currency for another and there is an option to manage all your avatars from one account.

From the few participating merchants who responded to inquiries, opinions varied on the usefulness of the card. Wayne Babii, owner of PixelDolls, said, “I haven’t had a sale through MetaCard for about 4 months. I used to get regular sales, then it slowed down, and now nothing.” When asked how much of her sales (approximately) are by MetaCard, Anuitka Barthelmess of kraftika jewelry stated, “less than 1%.” CCTV Giant of Shoe Fly Shoes explained, “With the global downturn of the economic markets – I think more folks are using MetaCard less.”

In that case, why would they keep accepting MetaCard? “It is worth if customers are happy. Usually there is a promotion for MetaCard users, price reduction,” Barthelmess said. Giant thought similarly, “Giving customers options is always a good thing,” but went on to say, “There are a couple of drawbacks to using MetaCard, as a third party merchant. MetaCard disables the ‘touch to buy’ option which a lot of customers do not like. All Card based systems are limited by how much people read. There is always some level of support with any kind of attachable object that is related to the sales of merchandise. Proper training and conditioning of customers is a must.”

As far as spending habits, it doesn’t appear that people in virtual worlds spend more if they are purchasing by credit card. Barthelmess suggested, “I think it is more like the way to organize your funds.” “At one point they did. Decline of world economic market made people think more about their lindens,” Giant stated. They will continue to participate in the MetaCard program, even as Barthelmess asked, “Question is: do customers really need a card in virtual world for virtual money?”

While talking about the MetaCard, CCTV Giant explained a newer product that promised to track and increase sales. In the beta testing stage now, the Grid Card was conceived by Giant in 2007. He explained, “It is an in-world solution that communicates with our website – www.thegridcard.com– which collates the sales data so that merchants can get a quick and comprehensive snapshot of all activities — we give a snapshot of cash sales [Lindens], gift card sales, MetaCard, store credits, and XStreetSL, which can all be exported to a CSV format.”

“While the system is tied to the web to gather data, it is not dependent on the site for operation exclusively. In addition to normal gift card operations, the Grid Card has a loyalty points system, instant rebates and store credit management. Store credits can be added to a customer’s account from the website,” he stated. Loyal to the MetaCard, he still accepts it as a component to his Grid Card system he touts as “the first gift card system to integrate with First Meta.”

He elaborated on the system, “the Grid Card has multiple split options — unfortunately, in order for this to work — the splitee (partner) must also have a MetaCard account just for the system to work correctly. The Grid Card will work fine in this scenario as a standalone; however MetaCard will not.” It is fortunate for First Meta he operates the system in this way, as it promotes the MetaCard.

The MetaCard may have lost its novelty, although it was a forerunner to innovations like the Grid Card system. First Meta, however, is bouncing back with unconventional new services.

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