Should everything be a game?

I'd like to disagree on this comment. Just because Foursquare and Facebook are integrating and building game mechanics does not mean every online community and brand/company site need to jump on the band wagon.

Here's my analogy: Social media, oh it's so great. It worked for Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, blogger sites, etc. Many companies, such as Google, saw this as a major opportunity to better engage and interact with their audience. Look what happened there with Google Buzz. Google I love you, but sorry that was an epic fail.

Gabe Zichermann, who is the CEO of startup beamME, argues that "fun is good and that game mechanics will find their way into all sorts of products and businesses." He suggests the following:

Facebook should incorporate a popularity game so users can more easily gauge their social graph. The game is to encourage to add more friends - ("add two more friends to beat Sam's score"). Users would be awarded when they connect and add more friends.. Are you serious?! This is exactly why MySpace has become loser-land, because people add non-friends, strangers..all of which are potentially creeps. Facebook is about connecting with people you actually know, not random people so that you seem more popular.

Amazon - Zichermann's concept to integrate a virtual library within Amazon, so that you can share books that you have read w/ your friends. This is interesting. Often times, I will either ask my friends to send me a book list, which they never get to OR I mentally take note of a book name and later forget. A virtual library seems perfectly appropriate in this instance, as many people do visit Amazon to seek out reviews for best sellers for purchase.

Fedex - the idea "to connect your social graph to your shipments, letting you see your en route packages on a game board relate to your friends. You could "talk smack" to friends whose packages were sent via ground (or USPS)" This is a stretch for me. I have enough games on my iPhone as is, in addition to all the endless game requests on Facebook. Moreover, I don't need to find Fedex entertaining. I visit Fedex simply to track my delivery estimate, status, get my information and go. I don't need to waste more time there.. need I say more?

Following the trend seems like a smart move and definitely tempting , however you really need to analyze, take a step back and look at your business critically. Before you jump to conclusion and make a rash decision -- What is your main purpose, goal, and who are you servicing? Think twice. Not all consumers would appreciate you force feeding, moreover adding distraction to the service they expect to receive.

Cheers!

Reference: How to make Facebook, Fedex, and Amazon More Fun

Dirty sexy gossip blogs

Here's a thought for the day. Online communities or blogs such as thedirty.com bring people together to trash talk and attack innocent people. Interesting thing you notice on these sites, people usually attack women leaving crude snarky comments about their physical looks and sexual behavior... hating on how fat this girl looks, how slutty they look, or how she will sleep with anybody. Whether or not these comments deem true, most of these women unknowingly have their pictures stolen by the attacker from either a myspace or facebook account, and you can only imagine how terribly embarrassing it would be to have a posting forwarded to you via email. 

These websites not only invade privacy, they also damage a person's reputation. Women who have seen themselves on these websites will face difficulties landing a job. Spreading gossip seems so easy to do over a click of a mouse, while victims of these websites go through extensive efforts to have the posting removed. Yet, will the defamation ever really be replaced?

Sadly, people still find these online gossip columns to be entertaining, guilty indulgence. Likewise, there are temptations to gossip about people you hate, since it's less confrontational and your identity is concealed.  It's an encouragement to those web attackers. No wonder web bullies still exist. 

Still, victims today are fighting hard to shut down these websites and find their trash talker. While commenters can be sued, they don't have the power to take down posts. On the other hand, websites are not liable for commenters' behaviors or actions. This is because they are protected by the terms and conditions of their online communities. All the power lies in the hands of the web owner, since he/she has rights to all content within the community. 

Most memorable from reading...

So how do we battle against these websites? Stop giving hate-spewers an audience.

How to protect yourself from online gossips?

1. Don’t post Girls Gone Wild-worthy shots of yourself on My Space, Facebook or anywhere they can be copied. On photo-sharing sites, use privacy settings.

2. Is someone saying malicious things about you online? E-mail a polite request to the site’s webmaster, asking that the offensive material be deleted.

3. You might consider calling in the pros, like ReputationDefender for about $15 a month. But, be aware: Web gossip is so hard to control that there are no guarantees.

Reference: Why are nice, normal girls getting bullied online?

Goldstar events

Thank goodness to Goldstar! Last year, when I moved to the east coast due to my job, I learned about Goldstar. Being in a new city, apart from friends and family, it is quite difficult to keep yourself busy. My roommates and I decided to sign up for Goldstar to seek out events going on around the city to keep ourselves occupied. This is an awesome tool that allows for customization based on location and special interests. I have been a member of Ticket Master in the past; however, it lacks the personalization that Goldstar allows for. While Ticketmaster is a useful tool to find special events that you have been predisposed to, it's difficult to learn about events nearby. Although, Ticketmaster has a more expansive category for sporting events, Goldstar promotes independent and small events to users. On the other hand, Ticketmaster may only reveal more mainstream events.

While Ticketmaster is able to recognize events similar to your interests and recommend them to you, Goldstar focuses more on the location and the type of events you are interested in. Ticketmaster bases search on category types while Goldstar focus its searches on location, date.

Users of both communities are able to purchase tickets for events, but they focus on different aspects. Ticketmaster enables its users to purchase pre-tickets, while Goldstar offers users advantages in purchasing discounted tickets. What's more useful to you?

Comparative Shopping Made Easier

oMoby is a new app on the iPhone that enables you to do comparative shopping in real-time, anywhere you go. This application uses Google technology to search for items similar to what you are looking for. Rather by searching for your desired object, simply take a snap shot of the item. oMoby will search for visual objects similar and spit back results based on the visual identification.

I cannot remember the number of times I've gone shopping at Fry's or Best Buy, hoping to buy something. I usually end up standing around wasting time searching for similar products on Woot and all over the web. In the end, I usually end up going home deciding that perhaps I should do some more research. Problems solved. I will test this application out..



In addition to this functionality, oMoby allows you to save your visual searches as well as share visual searches with your friends via Facebook, Twitter and email.

See demo video here

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edit: this is a free application. Unfortunately, it's only available for the 3GS.  booo...


Reference: Omoby: Visual Serach for the iPhone