Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Monday, October 08, 2007
Facebook is a virus
I got in contact with Facebook just a little more than a month ago thanks to a guild friend in World of Warcraft (thanks a bunch Aggro). At first I wasn't really impressed, and could hardly find anyone there I recognized. A week later it all just exploded and goddamn acquaintances and old friends were everywhere int hat place. I was intrigued and for a week or two I enjoyed the freshness of the community a lot. Until I realised what it really was: A disease.
Now, before I get started, I should point out that Facebook has a lot of things that older/earlier communities lacked, such as MySpace or LiveJournal and the likes. All those were based on profile focuse where the profile was all about marketing you. Older communities are all about what you are, what you do and think, and reflects the world through your visions. That made them quite limited in the sense that it was harder to create networks in them than in Facebook. You had to wade through thousand upon thousand of individuals (that more or less served as their own ads for themselves) and figure out who's who. If you added someone it was usually because you were already networked through some other means first.
Facebook changes that entirely, because Facebook changes focus totally. Facebook isn't about you anymore, Facebook is ALL about who and what you are in the context of who you know. It is in fact perfect for networking. Finding friends and people is way easier and it expands with you as your profile and network grows. You share your applications with your friends and you are instantly compared to anyone else you know if you happen to use the same applications.
But still Facebook is just a facade for a much more deceiving principle; that of disease. For every contact you get you expose him or her for other contacts, that add them to their network to expand their own community and further define themselves by who they know. And as such it is the perfect place for contamination. Everyone knows everyone and is but a click or two away. If you add an application, you will expose others for this "disease", leaving them a risk to be "contaminated". Those who get contaminated they expose their contacts in the same way, and plagues are literally born on Facebook every day.
It is totally genius. But it is also in the end boring, trivial and lacks of personality. You are deleted from your own context as you define yourself by others. And, to be honest, how fun are those small applications, really?
I mean, REALLY?!
No. I thought so. They aren't.
Now, before I get started, I should point out that Facebook has a lot of things that older/earlier communities lacked, such as MySpace or LiveJournal and the likes. All those were based on profile focuse where the profile was all about marketing you. Older communities are all about what you are, what you do and think, and reflects the world through your visions. That made them quite limited in the sense that it was harder to create networks in them than in Facebook. You had to wade through thousand upon thousand of individuals (that more or less served as their own ads for themselves) and figure out who's who. If you added someone it was usually because you were already networked through some other means first.
Facebook changes that entirely, because Facebook changes focus totally. Facebook isn't about you anymore, Facebook is ALL about who and what you are in the context of who you know. It is in fact perfect for networking. Finding friends and people is way easier and it expands with you as your profile and network grows. You share your applications with your friends and you are instantly compared to anyone else you know if you happen to use the same applications.
But still Facebook is just a facade for a much more deceiving principle; that of disease. For every contact you get you expose him or her for other contacts, that add them to their network to expand their own community and further define themselves by who they know. And as such it is the perfect place for contamination. Everyone knows everyone and is but a click or two away. If you add an application, you will expose others for this "disease", leaving them a risk to be "contaminated". Those who get contaminated they expose their contacts in the same way, and plagues are literally born on Facebook every day.
It is totally genius. But it is also in the end boring, trivial and lacks of personality. You are deleted from your own context as you define yourself by others. And, to be honest, how fun are those small applications, really?
I mean, REALLY?!
No. I thought so. They aren't.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
I'm back
After having this blog lying dormant for almost a year I've decided to return and start blogging again. Maybe not as actively as when I started it, but at least a few times a month.
It's a real shame though I haven't been able to post here. I've had tons of ideas, thoughts and stuff over the past year I have thought of writing about here. Such as my view on what elements that make a good mmo, well, good. Rants about Mutant Chronicles... you know that old swedish sci-fi/horror-rpg that's about to become a b-movie, and worries of what Paradox will do with the game-license.
(Actually they almost wasted it on a crapgame some years past.. I did some research and came up with some scary facts about that embarassing project.. good thing they pulled the plug tho. Hmm.. might actually still write that rant.)
What else.. oh yeah. I thought of making a long comment on Neil Strauss 'The Game - Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists', and all the theories in that book about male and female interaction, and of the whole pick-up artist society. (Yeah made some research into that too.. morbidly fascinating I might tell you. There's a lot of that stuff on Youtube actually.. try searching on terms like "PUA". "Style", "Mystery" and "Juggler" and you might find some of it at least).
One of the reasons I never got down to write the stuff down here is because I really didn't give myself the time. And much of my writing-time gets spent on Gameplayer and the newschronicles I prepare for every friday there. Of course they aren't as personal or interesting as a real blog. But they somehow drain the blog-energy out of me. Which somewhat is related to my return here. I need to start write more for myself, and not only others as of late.
Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of days with a more proper update. This is just a small headsup. And I promise, this time I'll be back for sure.
It's a real shame though I haven't been able to post here. I've had tons of ideas, thoughts and stuff over the past year I have thought of writing about here. Such as my view on what elements that make a good mmo, well, good. Rants about Mutant Chronicles... you know that old swedish sci-fi/horror-rpg that's about to become a b-movie, and worries of what Paradox will do with the game-license.
(Actually they almost wasted it on a crapgame some years past.. I did some research and came up with some scary facts about that embarassing project.. good thing they pulled the plug tho. Hmm.. might actually still write that rant.)
What else.. oh yeah. I thought of making a long comment on Neil Strauss 'The Game - Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists', and all the theories in that book about male and female interaction, and of the whole pick-up artist society. (Yeah made some research into that too.. morbidly fascinating I might tell you. There's a lot of that stuff on Youtube actually.. try searching on terms like "PUA". "Style", "Mystery" and "Juggler" and you might find some of it at least).
One of the reasons I never got down to write the stuff down here is because I really didn't give myself the time. And much of my writing-time gets spent on Gameplayer and the newschronicles I prepare for every friday there. Of course they aren't as personal or interesting as a real blog. But they somehow drain the blog-energy out of me. Which somewhat is related to my return here. I need to start write more for myself, and not only others as of late.
Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of days with a more proper update. This is just a small headsup. And I promise, this time I'll be back for sure.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
About time...
...I update this blog. I haven't written in it for about half a year. Oh, well that isn't absolutely true, I do have written maybe 20 posts for it, all in my head. Things I thought of while walking with my dog or riding the bus or working. But I haven't really had the time nor the spirits to actually write all those thougths down. So now they are gone... well most of them at least...
Anyway, aiming to get back and blog some more from now onwards again... but it's a bit weird keeping up two blogs at the same time, one in swedish and this one. I'll ponder on how to solve that.
Anyway, this is just a heads up to show I still live and breathe.
Oh, and I got my Wii this week. Only got Wii Sports for it yet, and Mikaelas been occupying it most of the time, but it's fun. And a damn good exercise too.
Anyway, aiming to get back and blog some more from now onwards again... but it's a bit weird keeping up two blogs at the same time, one in swedish and this one. I'll ponder on how to solve that.
Anyway, this is just a heads up to show I still live and breathe.
Oh, and I got my Wii this week. Only got Wii Sports for it yet, and Mikaelas been occupying it most of the time, but it's fun. And a damn good exercise too.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Catching breath
Haven't blogged in what feels like two months time. Probably is two months also. Haven't had the time to read other blogs neither, which feels like a huge loss really. But there's been to much stuff going on, on a personal level, for me to really give time to blogging. Contradictory, because at times I really could have needed to vent a little. God knows I have had a lot of ideas for blogposts, stuff now more or less forgotten or irrelevant.
And in the midst of this I get order from my chief editor on Gameplayer: You must start using our internal blogsystem. Whop-de-do. Yet another blog to keep updated regularily. But I have a plan. I'll post more personal and interesting stuff here (although I have a tendency to never get to personal.. I shun from exhibitionistic behavior. The virtual Johan is quite different from reality Johan.) and leave the fun rants and easier stuff for Gameplayer. After all they have different audiences. You can find my GP-blog here.
I can already hear some wise-ass mongrel starting to object and say, "So you guys are gonna promote your writers via blogs just like Loading.se". You couldn't possibly be more out there grasping at straws than that. Our blog system has been integrated since day one of GP 2.0, and we've discussed our plans for it internally for a long time and when it is all finished it will be a lot more useful feature of our site than the halffinished solution we gave Loading.
Actually the reason to why you are seeing Gameplayer getting a lot of new functions right now is because we had to take a break working with the site just to prioritise finishing the new Loading for Reset Media. They are really the copy of us, since the backbone for all their features are the GP-core.
Anyway, was gonna keep this short, but went on ranting. So I'll stop.
And in the midst of this I get order from my chief editor on Gameplayer: You must start using our internal blogsystem. Whop-de-do. Yet another blog to keep updated regularily. But I have a plan. I'll post more personal and interesting stuff here (although I have a tendency to never get to personal.. I shun from exhibitionistic behavior. The virtual Johan is quite different from reality Johan.) and leave the fun rants and easier stuff for Gameplayer. After all they have different audiences. You can find my GP-blog here.
I can already hear some wise-ass mongrel starting to object and say, "So you guys are gonna promote your writers via blogs just like Loading.se". You couldn't possibly be more out there grasping at straws than that. Our blog system has been integrated since day one of GP 2.0, and we've discussed our plans for it internally for a long time and when it is all finished it will be a lot more useful feature of our site than the halffinished solution we gave Loading.
Actually the reason to why you are seeing Gameplayer getting a lot of new functions right now is because we had to take a break working with the site just to prioritise finishing the new Loading for Reset Media. They are really the copy of us, since the backbone for all their features are the GP-core.
Anyway, was gonna keep this short, but went on ranting. So I'll stop.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Why buy a PS3?
Haven't updated this blog in a while... but I've just been busy with other stuff. Will get back tot hat in another post though.
Today I wanted to bring the topic of PS3 up. Why should anyone buy one? When it was announced together with Wii (revolution back then) and 360 I ruled Microsoft out as a competitor. I knew Nintendo would succeed because of their smart audience targeting strategies. But comparing the Xbox to the Playstation the Playstation looked like a winner. On the paper.
Today we know better.
I am actually not gonna debate this myself, because others have don it so well before me. One of my most favourite arguments are those of Gaming Steve. Here's a post he did the 2nd of October:
As the PS3 launch fast approaches I keep asking myself a very simple question ... why would I want to buy a PS3? And if I'm asking this question, a person who has owned every single game console released since the Telstar, the so-called "hardcore" segment that Sony is banking on to buy their $600 monstrosity, I have to wonder who is going to buy the PS3 and why? I keep thinking to myself, why do I need to buy a $600 console which doesn't offer me anything I don't already have?
Blu-Ray? I already have hundreds of DVDs thank you very much.
Online access? I already have the Internet and Xbox Live.
New games? I already have more games than I can play for my Xbox 360/PC/PS2/DS. The last thing I need is more games.
Unique PS3 titles? I will say that Resistance: Fall of Man looks and plays great ... but so does Gears of War. And Gears of War doesn't require me to buy a new console to play.
So why do I need to buy a PS3 exactly? Why should I kill myself looking for a PS3 this holiday season and spend $600 for this system? Why?
I can not think of a single reason that I would want to buy the PS3 right now. Not a single one.
Perhaps in a few months if/when the PS3 gets its legs and finds its place in the console landscape. But right now all I see when I look at the PS3 is a bloated, overpriced console which offers me nothing new. I truly hope that Sony manages to get their act together and releases some awesome unique content in 2007, but right now I just don't see the need.
Now the Wii ... that's a different story.
Today I wanted to bring the topic of PS3 up. Why should anyone buy one? When it was announced together with Wii (revolution back then) and 360 I ruled Microsoft out as a competitor. I knew Nintendo would succeed because of their smart audience targeting strategies. But comparing the Xbox to the Playstation the Playstation looked like a winner. On the paper.
Today we know better.
I am actually not gonna debate this myself, because others have don it so well before me. One of my most favourite arguments are those of Gaming Steve. Here's a post he did the 2nd of October:
As the PS3 launch fast approaches I keep asking myself a very simple question ... why would I want to buy a PS3? And if I'm asking this question, a person who has owned every single game console released since the Telstar, the so-called "hardcore" segment that Sony is banking on to buy their $600 monstrosity, I have to wonder who is going to buy the PS3 and why? I keep thinking to myself, why do I need to buy a $600 console which doesn't offer me anything I don't already have?
Blu-Ray? I already have hundreds of DVDs thank you very much.
Online access? I already have the Internet and Xbox Live.
New games? I already have more games than I can play for my Xbox 360/PC/PS2/DS. The last thing I need is more games.
Unique PS3 titles? I will say that Resistance: Fall of Man looks and plays great ... but so does Gears of War. And Gears of War doesn't require me to buy a new console to play.
So why do I need to buy a PS3 exactly? Why should I kill myself looking for a PS3 this holiday season and spend $600 for this system? Why?
I can not think of a single reason that I would want to buy the PS3 right now. Not a single one.
Perhaps in a few months if/when the PS3 gets its legs and finds its place in the console landscape. But right now all I see when I look at the PS3 is a bloated, overpriced console which offers me nothing new. I truly hope that Sony manages to get their act together and releases some awesome unique content in 2007, but right now I just don't see the need.
Now the Wii ... that's a different story.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Tilt the universe with Tiltor
We got a post from one of our users over at the Gameplayer forums where he linked to a small but fun game he and some others had put together. It's a simple but challenging puzzle game in cosy pixel-graphic retrostyle. I have taken a liking to it and I urge you all to download it.
It's hosted here.
It's well worth the download. Tilt on. Oh, and if you solve level 32, give me a hint. I'm stuck.
It's hosted here.
It's well worth the download. Tilt on. Oh, and if you solve level 32, give me a hint. I'm stuck.
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