musings of a social architect

Lists as Social Artifacts

Lee Lefevre over at Common Craft has an insightful post today about data-sharing as a social act.

If I could see two things about you, I bet I could make a pretty accurate decision about how much we have in common overall. Consider a grocery list and a music collection. If I could see those two things about you and see that we are similar in those two ways, I bet we'd find a host of other consistencies.

I've been pursuing a similar line of thought - but with a focus on mobile apps and back-end algorithms for targeted matchmaking. It's nice to see other folks picking up on this theme. Many of the lists that we create in our daily lives have high info-density about our interests, and can add valuable personal info to social networking sites. These lists can ALSO be leveraged for introducing people to each other, and suggesting purchase ideas based on previous behavior (a la Amazon & Netflix).

In 12-18 months, I expect we'll see some innovative mobile apps that leverage these ideas. Stay tuned.

Collaboration Requires Contribution - Blogging Planet ENG

Smart Mobs points to an insightful post on community-building that gets to the heart of what makes a community tick.

ITV Advergaming in Europe

Mobile Game Developer reports on some recent numbers on how many people are playing & watching Playjam, a games-focused ITV channel in Europe.

According to recent research carried out by Millward Brown, the PlayJam games channel available on Sky's interactive service menu (ISM) is achieving a reach of 1.05m every month with over 50% under 15 years of age.PlayJam's recent decision to offer free-to-play, advertiser-funded games to their audience gives advertisers and marketers a new opportunity to reach their target audiences through a more engaging medium than the traditional 20-30 second spots on TV.

Data Highlights:
1.4 million individuals were aware of The Saturday Show game
788,000 individuals played The Saturday Show game
660,000 kids played The Saturday Show game (aged 7-15)

PlayJam was the first iTV games channel to launch in the UK, and has subsequently launched channels in the US and France. A selection of games are available to play on the channel, which change weekly. PlayJam is available on all digital and cable TV platforms (Sky, Telewest and NTL).

Top Mobile Downloads in Europe - April 2005

Mobile Game Developer lists the top downloads in Europe, coutesy of ELSPA. Note that casual (and familiar) games dominate the list, as usual.

1 LEMMINGS - IFONE
2 WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? - MACROSPACE
3 TETRIS - IFONE
4 PUB POOL - INFOSPACE
5 NEW YORK NIGHTS - GAMELOFT
6 TOMB RAIDER: THE OSIRIS CODEX - INFOSPACE
7 SPLINTER CELL CHAOS THEORY - GAMELOFT
8 SPACE INVADERS - I PLAY/DIGITAL BRIDGES
9 PRO BOWLING - MFORMA
10 PUB DARTS - INFOSPACE

Social Fabric

Shiny Shiny reports on an interesting dissertation project called Social Fabric.

Working with your mobile, Social Fabric provides avatars of the people in your life, and then keeps track of all your digital communications (emails, phone calls, appointments) you have with them. The avatar's posture and position will change to reflect the amount of commuication you've had with an individual. The avatars of friends you text all day when you're meant to be working will appear alert and active; whereas the avatar of your ex whose calls you refuse to return will sit and sulk, face turned away. It's a bit like turning your friends into Tamagotchis.

UPDATE: today there's a good discussion about Social Fabric at the Social Software weblog.

Mobile gaming & females

Mobile Game Developer reports on a study commissioned by I-play about mobile gaming habits. Here are some excerpts.

I-play: did you know?
Female gamers play embedded games more than their male counterparts. 48% of all females have played a preloaded game on their mobile compared with 44% of males

I-play: did you know?
Females play mobile games for longer In the US, 42% of females played a single game for over 20 minutes compared to 27% of men

I-play: did you know?
Women are more likely to play mobile games to kill time than men, and are more likely to do so at home. 72% of females Vs 66% of males play mobile games to kill time. 58% of females Vs 55% of males download games while relaxing at home. 43% of females Vs 36% of males play mobile games at home while doing nothing

I-play: did you know?
Simplicity of gameplay will be a key driver to growth of female gamers in the mobile gaming market with: 41% of females compared to 31% of males, claim that simplicity of gameplay convinces them to download games.

Boing Boing: Fridge-mounted magnetic board games

Boing Boing links to a cool site that sells Fridge-mounted magnetic board games. What a great gift idea!

Fridgeplay offers dozens of fridge-mounted magnetic board games, from checkers and chess to backgammon and Connect Four. Lots of nice grace-notes, like a "whose turn is it" counter that you magnet to the fridge between sessions so you can pick up where you left off when the dishes are done

Step into the Limelife

For the past few months, I've been working with LimeLife on a variety of projects -- including a redesign of Limelife's corporate website. If you're interested in cellphone games & apps for girls, check it out!

What (games) do women really want?

Check out this report from cellular-news. It seems that women are buying more mobile games - and certain ones in particular.

Newly released data from Telephia reveals that women buy more games for their mobile phones than men, and that certain games are much more popular among women. During the three months of February through April 2005, women bought 60% of mobile games compared to 40% for men.Telephia Audience Metrics, a recently launched product from Telephia, measures monthly mobile content purchase activity from the phone bills of 30,000 panelists. Supplemental information is captured through surveys. Telephia Audience Metrics allows wireless carriers, mobile media companies, and mobile device manufacturers to deliver better and more targeted content to their customers' mobile phones.Telephia reveals that the top mobile game titles purchased are often familiar names from computer or console game playing. The most purchased game overall was JAMDAT's poker game Downtown Texas Hold'em. Second on the list was the classic puzzle game Tetris. Downtown Texas Hold'em and Tetris were popular among both sexes, and were purchased by approximately equal numbers of men and women.Other top game titles show sharp differences among the sexes. Bejeweled, a popular internet puzzle game, was purchased by almost three times as many women as men. Buzztime, a trivia game made famous in sports bars, is purchased by almost twice as many men as women.Telephia's data, which is weighted to accurately represent the US population, shows that 6.3 million people, or 3.5% of the 180 million wireless phone users in the United States, purchased at least one game for their mobile phone during the February through April 2005 period. Women make about half of mobile phone users, but purchase a disproportionate share of games for their mobile phones."As mobile phone content consumption, including playing of games, becomes more popular, the demand for better information about consumers' preferences increases," says Sid Gorham, president of Telephia. "Telephia, as the leading provider of information to the wireless industry, provides the most detailed and comprehensive information on mobile content."

Fun Visual Illusions

Wonderland links to Ted Adelson's website of visual illusions. Ted is a longtime friend of mine - and his website is chock-ful of fun tricks that you can play on your visual system. If you're interested in brain science or visual information processing, check out this site.