Is the time right to bring back something like Mogi Mogi to the USA?

I was reading an interesting article on Techcrunch about FourSquare and although i've never been a user it's been curious to me how viral the concept got (and what are the elements needed so I can replicate that success for LiveChatConcepts) and how long the 'checkin process' was going to interest people.


Over the last six months just about all of my tech friends have started using Foursquare, a geolocation-based game that was built by the creators of Google-acquired Dodgeball. Some of them will literally pull out their phones as soon as they enter any restaurant, event or even TechCrunch HQ and check in just so they can be named ‘mayor’ of that establishment (whoever checks into any particular location the most times becomes mayor of that location). It’s fascinating and a bit bizarre to watch, and it clearly shows that Foursquare has tapped into something powerful.


But all this time I’ve had a nagging feeling that Foursquare, at least in its current form, is not going to be the next Twitter, as some people have concluded. Because as good as Foursquare is at figuring out where and what your friends are up to, they can’t hope to compete with Facebook. That is, if Facebook does Geo right.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/28/facebook-foursquare/

So I'm wondring, if 'checking in' isn't enough to keep Foursquare going (and i'm not sure i agree with that statement anyway), Do you think the timing and technology is right to introduce something more complex like Mogi Mogi?
http://blog.collins.net.pr/2006/07/do-you-mogi-mogi.html

Something that introduces gaming/competition points and real time elements to the location based 'check in process'. Or are the FourSqaure guys onto a good thing and there is no need to mess with the success considering they only just launched their '50 city' major push?

What features would you want to add to Foursquare if you are a user?

And if you aren't a user what would convince you to become a user?

Cheers,
Dean

Do you Mogi Mogi?

www.mogimogi.com

Mogi Mogi is a very interesting real world gaming concept that has been launched in Tokyo.

It's an online game that is played on both a pc but predominately it is played on your mobile phone. What is unique however is that it uses your phones GPS (gps is physical geo-location feature not gprs which is the mobile data service - not a lot of western phones haves GPS built in).

With this GPS information, the game knows where in Tokyo you physically are, the location of you and your cellphone is then overlayed with the fantasy land of Mogi Mogi.
















Real world elements may or may not be combined with the gameplay itself, such as the park highlighted above is an actual park in Tokyo.

Not only do you get to interact with creatures in the game itself but you also need to interact with other people playing the game themselves along the way.

You may meet up to swap "trinkets" eg. a spell may be swapped for a clue to another level, or similar. But there is also a thriving social community evolving with chat, character or avatar development and physical interaction.

What is neat is that the gameplay is continuous 24x7 for example some characters may only appear at certain times of the day, if you are not at the park at that time you don't get the opportunity to collect those points.

It certainly brings a new meaning to the term MMOG (massive multiplayer online gaming).



The developer www.NewtGames.com hasn't specified how extensive they intend to make this game, or if they intend to interconnect other locations around the world (such as "Spore"), however the ability to implement content, social networking and physical world tie-ins are obvious.

Some of the user comments I've been able to find on the web are "eye opening" to say the least such as;

All the trips I make in the city are now randomized, as I will often divert a few hundred meters to go and collect an object around me. I get a chance to discover parts of the city that I ignored, a motivation to check out that parallel street I never took.

and

It has a community dimension to it, I chat with other players, I also know how far I am from them and finding out some are less than a few hundred meters to me is really exciting. I had to race to pick up a flag that had been put on the map at equal distance between me and another player to encourage us to meet.


Links:
Good article that has links to a research paper discussing social interactions of online gaming
http://www.thefeaturearchives.com/100501.html

List of other mobile location based games
http://www.in-duce.net/archives/locationbased_mobile_phone_games.php

A blog detailing the first US mobile location game from Boost Mobile (hmmm I don't think Boost get it).
http://mobilegames.blogs.com/mobile_games_blog/games_location_based/index.html

An older Wired Article
http://www.wired.com/news/games/1,63011-0.html

For a 'unique' perspective, here's a link to the Slashdot forum
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/02/0113231


Either way, this concept is definitely one to watch.

Although Newt Games have gone heavy on the technology, as long as carriers allow mobile triangulation information or western handsets start getting GPS functionality, this physical/fantasy world interaction can be implemented into concepts as simple as Urban Dare (read my last post) or even the one off Smart Improv (search my blog for the article).

As I'm pretty much pure geek, for a wider sample I'd love to hear your own thoughts .


Cheers,
Dean

Minecraft reality not Augmented Reality

Ok now this is H-O-T hot!! This is exactly where SL went wrong.

Virtual worlds should be based on REAL worlds and melding the two is what is going to make them S-T-I-C-K-Y.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/25/3688674/minecraft-augmented-reality-iphone-app
For many players, the best part of Minecraft is building things, and a new app for iOS lets you see what your creations would look like in the real world. Called Minecraft Reality, the augmented reality app lets you upload your creations to a website, and then place them in the real world so that you can view them through your device's camera.




Doesnt look like http://13thlab.com/ have an Android version available yet (tsk tsk....pretty lame). but will be interesting to see if "reality" matches up with the video.

This app does bring up an interesting point in that its the second "geo location" app that i've seen this morning (www.Wyst.it) the question is will people really have all of these apps running in the background as they walk around?

I can see that some apps need to be on all the time (eg Mogi Mogi) but its almost like we need a standardized API from Apple/Android that corals these apps into just a "popup" that says hey there i something here do you want to be interrupted by Wyst right now or, there is a 13thLab alert, dismiss or fire up the app now. Its only so long before someone posts some Augmented Reality Spam

I'm just not sure how this "interaction can be done" without the apps themselves running.....screw software I'm going to start spending 24x7 on battery research.

BarCampNYC2

So I had the amazing experience of attending my first BarCampNYC2 this weekend.

For those of you not familiar with BarCamp check out their 'global event wiki' and go along to the next one in your city as they are relatively global. (also check out these 10 tips for getting the most from BarCamp)

Lots of Flickr photos here

It was a 2 day event from Saturday morning to Sunday evening where approx 180-200 people from New York and the surrounding area got together to have an "un-conference" about technology.

There are no specific agendas and most important the event is free being fully funded by local Sponsoring Companies (yes Cognation did kick in) however a big shoutout has to go to Microsoft who provided the venue, lets face it, any company who would let 200 geeks sleep over in their offices for a weekend cant be all bad, and I have to point out that apart from 1 session they kept a very low profile. Barcamp is everyone's event.


It's a two day self managed, self organized, self driven geekfest.

Where 30 minutes before it starts there are no agendas and it's not only suggested but actually required you get up and walk out of a session if you are not interested.


Everyone participates and often some of the best advice or experiential information comes from people in the 'audience' if you could call them that than people who are leading the sessions.


The sessions leant towards software development (with some amazingly cutting edge development techniques being displayed).

There was a general skew towards a younger group of people, I'm guessing that the average age was 22-24? However age certainly wasn't a reflection of experience or potential, check out the Session Page above to get an idea on what was being discussed, these people are the future of IT development, and let me tell you it was very bright indeed.

These guys, and quite a few girls, are pushing the envelop of technology further than most of us even think is possible.

Special mention has to go out to Dennis Crowley the founder of Dodgeball (sold it to Google) for his session on Pervasive Games (massive urban games). It made me realize that this is an area I think I want to pursue on a commercial basis, I've thought about it in the past (read my post on Mogi Mogi) but it's an area where I think I can develop some real value.

Not to downplay the rest of the sessions, I learnt at least 3 or 4 new things in every session and I learnt about two whole technologies I didn't even know existed Json and Amazon Mechanical Turk. Some of the implementations of "ruby on rails" / web mashups / web delivered interactive content / social networking that these people are implementing is amazing.

I saw at least 3 business concepts over the weekend that I would be prepared to put my money where my mouth is and fund.

I don't think I can succinctly capture enough in one post my experiences but it's basically changed my mind about the depth of talent out there.

Yes some of it needs a little structure and yes some need a lesson about how coming up with great technology or a business idea, doesn't a successfully ROI make'th', but the enthusiasm and excitement was unstoppable. Besides they might even teach some of us older people whats really possible.



Cheers,
Dean