Tag Archives: gaming
Tweeting and gaming to save a tech entrepreneur’s life
I’ve come across a lot of cool social stories while writing Social Six, but this is potentially one of my favorites.
Amit Gupta, a tech entrepreneur, has recently been diagnosed with leukemia. Having to undergo chemotherapy, Gupta also found out he will need a bone marrow transplant. But being a minority, finding a match isn’t easy. So Gupta, and all of his coworkers and friends, took to social media to encourage people to “Swab for Amit” to see if they are a bone marrow match. Gupta posted on his Tumblr blog, Twitter campaigns were launched, bone-marrow donor drives popped up, and Facebook pulsed with Gupta’s name.
Google+ vs. Facebook: The war for online social games
Since day one of the launch of Google+, there has been a constant battle between them and Facebook. Up to this point, it’s been made pretty clear that Facebook has nothing to worry about. Even though Google+ has been one of the fastest growing sites, with over 25 million users, that number pales in comparison to Facebook’s 800 million.
However, Google+ has made an announcement this week that many people think might give them a leg up. They have announced that they will be launching a social gaming service, which will offer 16 games and will provide software developers more generous financial terms than competitors. With this gaming push, the question remains, should Facebook be worried? Will this launch of social gaming on Google+ be detrimental for Facebook?
After a year of patience and a failed launch-day trek to the Apple Store on March 2, I’m finally the owner of a new Apple iPad 2.
The iPad is Apple’s flagship “post PC era” device, but I’m not sure we’re ready to ditch our laptop shackles just yet. The magical aura surrounding my unboxing of the product was cut short when I pressed the power button for the very first time. As the screen began to glow for the very first time, I was quickly met with the “must connect to iTunes” screen- no cosmic intro video or helpful setup assistant here. This might one day become a post-PC device, but not without a digital tether to the machines of today. I hope that future versions of iOS will allow some onboard functionality without the need to first connect to iTunes.
Once the iPad synced all my stuff- photos, podcasts and apps, it was time to see if this tablet could really fit in my digital life, or if it would live as the evil middle child between my Macbook and iPhone.
Photo Credit: CNN
After watching a talk with Dennis Crowley the founder of Foursquare, one of the big thought provoking statements he made for me was that Foursquare is about‘ getting people out into the real world’.
Later, as I watched him play a real game of Foursquare with a group of kids, it got me wondering, could location based mobile games be the answer to getting kids of their bums and out of the house again? Obviously I’m not talking about 3 years olds here, but kids who should be outside discovering the big wide world (then again, with a parents participation it could even work for 3 year olds!).
I grew up in a world of tree climbing, outdoor swimming and bike riding through the leafy suburbs of London UK, at it shaped the adventurous side of my personality that I have today. However, with the world of education, sharing and gaming becoming increasingly digital, it’s often commented on that kids don’t get outside enough to get their hands dirty and breathe in what’s around them.
Photo Credit: Richard Tseng
No one argues that games are a huge part of our culture (especially here, btw), but I’ve been hearing something you don’t often hear; we as marketers ought to be integrating the principles and qualities that make games enjoyable into our brand experience.
In yesterday’s keynote, Seth Prietbatsch showed how the mechanics of game play are being used successfully in some unexpected places. From the classroom to loyalty marketing programs, game mechanics can improve poorly designed systems. For example, “Grades are a naïve implementation of a status mechanic,” Prietbasch said.
After a few other examples, he used a crowd participation exercise to illustrate the power of a large group to achieve surprising results. Each of the 2,500+ members of the audience was given a card with different colors on each side. There were 5 or 6 different colors in all. He issued a challenge to the audience; organize each row into holding up the same color, by trading cards with neighbors in front or back if needed, within 90 seconds.He said that he’d only tested the exercise on a group of about 25 prior to this, and in the end it worked. Through cooperation, we were able to self-organize without the benefit of a leader and without being able to communicate to people beyond just a few feet from us. This exercise was used to show how large unorganized groups could overcome complex challenges.
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By Neil Clemmons | Critical Mass Chicago
There’s a lot being written about the iPad – reviews, new applications, the ongoing debate on Flash, what the device does and what it doesn’t do.
Beyond the device, however, there are some implications and the longer-term impact it will have as we create digital experiences. New devices and interfaces have a profound impact on consumer expectations, competitive moves, and the evolution of digital interfaces. The Wii ushered in new interface concepts and ideas. Same with xBox and xBox Live. The iPad will do the same in its influence on the conventions and expectations of our industry.
We have several of the Wifi iPads in our offices and have had a number of discussions with our team about its implications. Some see immediate opportunities for the iPad to ‘fit in’ to their lifestyles. Others are still debating if it replaces something or is a supplemental access and consumption device. It’s bigger than a phone with no ability to do more than SKYPE calls. But it’s not quite a notebook with all the file access and productivity tools – so the iPad makes compromises in both directions. The limitations will change in time as new applications, new peripherals, an updated OS, and improved connectivity come.
One thing the smartphone and iPad do is to force a focus on ‘what’s important’ versus ‘what’s possible.’ As sites or applications evolve, they become more bloated, more confusing, and lose the punch they can have. Redesigns of a site or an application can be liberating, in removing the old conventions. But invariably we worry about ‘moving the cheese’ of the habituated consumer and thus add rather than subtract in making experience design tradeoffs. This is where Apple and the developers of iPad apps demonstrated tremendous courage in leaving behind the conventional interfaces and tools. We need more courage to advance the customer experience.
What’s the take away after a week of using the iPad from an experience standpoint?
Here are the 7 Areas of Implications for digital marketers:
#1 – Fragmentation.
Josh Bernoff (Forrester) wrote about the Splinternet earlier this year. That theme is in full force on the iPad. Media and content fragmentation continue as new devices enable content consumption in new and different formats. Information ubiquity that started with the smartphone is further exacerbated with a new form factor. iPhone apps that are played on the iPad look OK, but you’re much more engaged by an iPad native app. The need for liquid experiences that adapt to the screen become even more important as we look at alternative form factors.
#2 – Development Challenges.
We have to think differently about how content and experiences are created, disseminated and maintained. Monolithic frameworks start to break down when there are hundreds of thousands of developers creating new experiences. And with Apple changing their developer terms and conditions, it looks like Apple will expect you to use their tools and frameworks, rather than many of the cross-platform frameworks. We have several clients working with Android, iPhone, Blackberry and other instances for applications. The iPad and follow-on products from other vendors based on Windows 7, Chrome, or Android tablets will further exacerbate the challenge of consistency and maintainability.
#3 – Personalization.
We’re at the early stages of more personal (and relevant) consumption of media – that means the customer is even more in control of the experience. Most will seek out an application rather than a web browser to consume their content where possible. Android, the iPhone OS, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry are all targeting what Mary Meeker with Morgan Stanley says will be a bigger market than the desktop PC market by 2014. The browser lives on at the desktop, but many of these new devices will take a very different approach to content and experience access. Remixing content from feeds, apps, alerts, and personalized experiences will become even more important. Add in the intersection of social to these experiences and you quickly see that use cases with these new devices will become even more personal.
