Google Maps released a new feature where you can view the current temperature at different points on the map. It is similar to what you see on a television newscast.
I first heard about it this morning on ABC7News. They showed a quick clip about it, and my first thought was they could just use the feature for weather reports.
Before I finished my thought, the newscast transitioned to a three-shot introducing the weather segment. The weatherman started off trying to downplay the feature, saying that he was still needed to provide a forecast for the next seven days, which he assumed people were still interested in.
It was a humorous transition, but there was definitely a thought that was considered at least one view. Could this be pivotal?
The two are in different markets and will probably never affect each other. Television viewers will still seek a real human to incorrectly forecast the weather. Web users will now use the weather layer to plan their travels, adding another tool to their arsenal.
But it’s always something to remember. Technology is our friend, but can be evil too.
While I’ve been on Twitter for some time now, I’ve only recently found an irritating act some users do. A user follows a large number of other users. By default, each of these users will be notified this user is now following them. A few days later, this user unfollows many of these users.
Human curiosity makes us want to know who follows us, so we click the link to this user’s timeline in the email notification. The first thing I look at is the ratio of followers to following. If you’re following several hundred users and have few followers, my first thought is you’re a spammer. Or an overly bored unpopular user.
I’ll give you the benefit of doubt. If your tweets aren’t interesting, I will delete the email and continue with my day. I won’t follow you. I already have way more tweets from those I follow that I don’t need even more wasting the little precious time I have.
What I find fascinating is that many of these random followers will unfollow me a few days later. This catches my attention. My first thought used to be what did I tweet that could have offended the follower. Now I just don’t care.
This has happened with more frequency. I’m starting to believe there’s a motive behind these users, and it’s not interest in what I say. They want people to follow them!
Here’s what I think happens. Follow a user who is actively tweeting. Hopefully some will feel obligated to follow you back. While they are busy tweeting their lives, unfollow them and you have another follower to add to your count.
Some questions I won’t discuss that come to mind are:
- why does a user feel obligated to follow someone who follows them, but doesn’t know personally (or even have a connection with!)
- doesn’t Twitter still have a record you followed and unfollowed, so you can still be flagged for following a large number of users (aka spammy activity!)
- exactly what do you get out of having someone follow you if it isn’t a mutual connection?
I would do more research on this, but it is a deep hole similar to why people email spam with complete trash. If you can answer it in 140 characters or less, feel free to tweet me.
If you’re thinking of following and unfollowing me, please move on to your next victim. Better yet, delete your Twitter account.
I attended Startup Weekend Bay Area this past weekend at PayPal’s headquarters. It was an awesome experience and very exhausting. Here are ten things that I found noteworthy with the experience of developing an idea within 48 hours of the pitch. They are in no particular order.
Everyone has an idea
There were some 51 pitches of ideas on Friday night. If there wasn’t a long line of people waiting to pitch, there may have been more. Many of the ideas overlapped.
Pick the idea that you are most passionate about
If you aren’t into the idea, you won’t last the weekend with the team. Things get hairy and you have to be motivated to see this thing through.
Some people are strong minded
Being open to new ideas and the knowledge of the group is important. Being set on something is only going to make the whole experience more than frustrating for you and the team. Speak your mind but roll with it if the majority does.
Use each person’s talent to the maximum
Ask each person what their strongest talent related to the project is. Put each person to work on something they know how to do and get stuff done.
Some stuff has to wait
Prioritize what’s important for the first version of the product. Tackling too much stuff at once is going to distract the team. Get the core stuff done and if there is any time left, progressively add more to the core. It’s called a “minimum viable product.” Write down the ideas so you can refer to them later.
It’s gonna change
The product/idea will change a number of times throughout the weekend. Pages that seemed like a good idea initially may be scrapped because they just don’t fit. This is called iterating.
Choose one platform
One team had multiple different platforms all pieced together. This is a great case study for using multiple platforms, but the team had to focus on integration rather than the idea.
You will step on toes
Someone in the team will step on someone else’s toes. Acknowledge it, apologize, and let it pass. Being under pressure of 48 hours is going to increase emotional levels and it most likely wasn’t meant to be a personal attack.
Get some sleep
A fresh mind is wonderful when tackling a bug or problem. If you can’t think clearly, you’re not going to enjoy it.
Have fun
While developing a product is great, having fun is what counts. Making new friends that you can connect with after the weekend is valuable. You can (and should) continue to work on the project with your team into the future.
Would I do this again. Definitely. Being able to quickly adapt to different personalities and viewpoints was a great experience. Making new friends and having fun was all I could ask for.
Keeping up with social games like Farmville and Social City can be difficult if you have a life. These appointment-type games require you to plan how long you will be away from the game for. If you miscalculate, your crop or factory may expire and you lose the progress you’ve made. Fortunately you are given a number of different timed products that range from a few minutes to a few days. If you know you won’t be able to play until you get home from work, you can schedule a crop or the factory to be ready in nine or ten hours.
Social City recently released an iPhone app that extends the game on Facebook to your phone. After linking the two using your Facebook credentials, you can manage your factories and residences on either platform. Throughout the day when you’re on the go you can receive a notification the factory contract is complete and you can quickly clean and start a new contract. There’s no need to bring your laptop along and provides a minimal distraction.
Currently the app is limited to collecting new residents and starting new factory contracts. But if you’re looking to get more resources, like money or population, this is a great option. The iPhone doesn’t support Flash which most of these games use. Using your phone to play these games is nearly impossible.
While Mafia Wars has been on both the iPhone and Facebook for some time, there is no link between the two platforms. This makes advancing difficult across platforms as you’re playing two different games that have no connection to each other.
As a developer, this dual platform is both easy and difficult. Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash, the game has to be recoded into Objective-C. It also has to be reformatted to fit within the screen resolution and style of the iPhone that users have come to expect. It can be easy since most games call a web service that can be used by both platforms at the same time. This allows sharing some resources across the different platforms.
Hopefully we will soon see more of these cross-platform games that allow players to play for even longer.
Social networks have allowed the average user to create a ton of messages to people they know and don’t know. On Twitter, any 140 character message you can think of can be broadcasted to a few to hundreds and millions of people. On Facebook, every time you level up in a game like Farmville, you can broadcast your acheivement to your friends. This can engage the people you know, but can also overload many of your closest and most interested friends.
When developing games like Farmville, developers have had to constantly adjust the dynamics between users. Some players will broadcast every acheivement to their friends, with no regard to how many messages they actually send out. They will invite every user they know plus some, even if they don’t play the game.
Allowing these different means of communication and marketing is great for the developer. They don’t have to spend massive amounts of money on marketing and gaining the trust of new users. Having a friend who plays a game validates that the app is trustworthy and is worthy of a look. This is a very valuable connection that most games take advantage of.
Social games also have a method to post your achievements to your news stream. Players are enticed to post an entry to show off how well they are progressing through the game. This is similiar to showing off trophies and can help create competition to see who is better at the game.
While these techniques can be advantageous in the short-term, it can become a disadvantage as time goes on. If I don’t play a game or have lost interest after playing once, I may consider these streams full of trash. Filtering is the least of possible actions I may take. Therefore it is important that developers provide a method of giving users options to find users who actually engage in the applications you’re posting about, limiting the audience to those who are actually interested in the notifications. If I play a game, I will be more interested in reading notifications in such games.
For those more restrained players, posting their achievements can be viewed as a nuisance to their friends. They won’t post each notification because their friends aren’t known to respond positively. For these players, popping up a box every couple of minutes will only annoy the player and lead to a poor game experience. Having an option to post to just those friends who actually engage in a game could entice these restrained players to post more notifications.
Finding the right balance among your players is critical to keeping your game positive in the minds of everyone, players or not. Not finding the right amount can cause many more problems.