musings of a social architect

GDC Followup

I had a fantastic time at the Game Developer's conference this year, re-connecting with old friends and making new ones. My talk on Social Trends in Mobile Entertainment went incredibly well -- I was SO nervous before the talk, I didn't know if the audience would be receptive to the material. They were -- boy o boy, were they ever. I was mobbed afterwards by game developers who said "I'm so glad to hear you talk about this stuff, I thought we were the only people doing this kind of work." I've tapped into a trend that's growing, and I'm looking forward to riding this wave and creating some cool new social games.

Salon reports on Programmers@Work

Over at Salon, Scott Rosenberg has a column about the Programmers at Work panel I mentioned yesterday -- a good read if you're interested in this topic.

Programmers@Work

Last night, my husband Scott Kim participated in a public reunion of people profiled in the book 'Programmers at Work.' a Scott particularly enjoyed being 'the mobile game-designer guy' on the panel (he's currently designing puzzles for mobile phones). He found it fascinating to see how everyone had evolved over the years, and also how much they'd stayed the same -- e.g. Jaron Lanier isn't running a company anymore, but he's still a masterful communicator and vivid public presence.

Scott, too, has changed in the years I've known him - and also remained true to his basic nature. When we met, we were both recently out of grad school -- over-educated, idealistic, slightly rebellious, and ready to take on The Establishment and radically change how things are done. Scott dreamed some big dreams about visul computing - he wanted to redesign how people and computers interact at every level, from interfaces to programming languages to operating systems, even down to circuit design.

Now Scott creates games and puzzles for magazines, websites and cellphones that reach millions of people. He took his 'tilting at windmills' passion for reforming computer science and turned it into the drive and talent to create engaging, mentally stimulating, and visually rich interactive experiences. He remains as passionate as ever about visual communication and learning, and he finds ways to channel that passion into his creative work and everyday life.

I think that's pretty darn cool :-)

A picture is worth a thousand SMSs

I recently purchased a cameraphone (Nokia 3200), and I'm pleasantly surprised by the pictures I'm able to snap -- like this one from my son's swimming class. For casual, unobtrusive documentation of everyday life, it's good enough for now.

According to a new research report, cameraphone sales are expected to reach 150 million in 2004, and 650 million in 2008 (based on a compounded annual growth rate of 55%). That's going to enable of LOT of user-generated content on the network. I wonder what kinds of games and services people are going to invent that take advantage of social groups who're all equipped with cameraphones?

Social Networks and Game Mechanics

I had a fabulous time guest-blogging at Many-to-Many last week - thanks to everyone who joined in the conversation! A few folks have asked me to post URLs for my comments there, which centered around the convergence of social networks and game mechanics. Here are the links:

Are social networks a collecting game?
Rules & Rankings in Social Systems
Exploration & Discovery in Networked Social Spaces

Moblogging MTV

Gotta love Technological Overkill, the first music video shot entirely on a Nokia 3650.

business2blog: Notes from the Apple Store San Francisco

I'm doing more and more shopping online, and loving it. But this makes me want to visit the new Apple store in San Francisco and buy a cool peripheral (or three) for my new Mac. I want a brand immersion infotainment experience -- and I think the Apple store might deliver that. MUST GO SEE.