Cieffe are Watching You

It seems like ages since I've swung by the Millions of Us cluster of islands, so I have been unaware of the build for Cieffe, whose strapline: "We power your eyes" initially struck me as somewhat surreal. When I Googled for information about Cieffe in Second Life I found precious little - no press releases or, indeed, little in the way of blogposts. So I will have to fly blind on this one.

Cieffe's line of business is "the design and implementation of digital technologies in Integrated Security Systems." They seem to have a particular focus on CCTV, hence the strapline. Headquartered in Italy, they now have offices in a number of countries, including Benelux, New Zealand, Australia and Dubai. Of particular relevance to me, as a Brit, is the fact that they also have UK offices. For those who don't know - the UK allegedly has the World's highest ratio of CCTV cameras to people. In November 2006 the BBC reported that the number stood at 4.2 million, or 1 for every 14 people. The number will have increased since then. And does all of this make me feel more secure? haha... if only.

The Cieffe build is in 2 parts. The first part happens at ground level, where you will find the presentation area: a number of rather elegant buildings, each dedicated to one aspect of their product portfolio. The second part happens at around 300 metres up. A teleport takes you to a "city scene." It's a rather odd city, since about 25% of it is airport, and it also has some kind of petrochemical works stuck in there too.

The Ground Level:


The City Level:


I like the architecture on the Ground Level - clean, simple and, as I said earlier, elegant. The site is not going to win any awards for innovation - but it does tell you all you need to know about Cieffe products, and I guess that meets the client's brief. For me the City Level is less satisfactory. At first sight it looks quite cool, with a well-constructed city street scene. However, the petrochemical works and airport seem shoe-horned in, and there is a general lack of information to explain why this whole level exists. It doesn't seem to serve any obvious social function, while if the intention is to show off the use of the products, I think it falls short in this department too. Maybe it is not yet completed - in which case I would expect a lot more information to be provided here.