I hate to be so negative about something so positive, but the only word that comes to mind is ghastly. I was actually thrown off a bit by the dissonance between the positive tone of the article and the product being described.
>themed Stars with messages like “UR CRAZY,”"UR CUTE,” “BFF,”"Frenemy”"Bromance,” and (!) “Mom Jeans.”
I don't think you're going to find too many adults who are really all that interested in embracing their inner 12-year-old girl.
>Both the actions of giving and receiving Stars cause new and more diverse stars to be unlocked
The reason games like WoW work, IMO, is because there's enough shininess to distract you from the TINO (time in, numbers out) nature of the game. If you distill that down to its core I don't know if people will like what they see. Kind of like how I'll enjoy broccoli smothered in butter or mixed into a cheese dip, because it doesn't really taste like broccoli, but eaten plain it's a chore.
Hey, I'd love to be wrong. I generally want people to succeed, and I'm sure everyone involved here is a nice person...but I'm not sold.
This is the product from someone with a doctorate in neuroscience? So much for moving the human collective forward. Now I don't feel so bad about the kids coming out with undergraduate CS degrees feeling like they don't know how to program.
I don't use Facebook but I do use Twitter. I do love games. What is it in regards to social networks, games and the idea of positive reinforcement am I missing with this project?
Well, it is cloying and silly. But it has something many, many games do not: actual feedback. So many have none at all, or unrelated to real positive values.
I wonder if it will be 'gameable' - elementary school kids giving one another stars to pump their stats.
Yup, Josh has a history of dumb. I mean, who would invest their time in making an online bookmarking service when browsers had bookmarking capability? Yeah, like that would ever allow you to cash in...
I (like yourself) don't see myself having any interest in this startup--but I'm not the market. I see you are new here (if your account isn't a throw away), but amidst all the down voting you are getting, let me welcome you to HN and say don't build any animosity over getting down voted by the community. It's only because you didn't write a valid argument and instead slapped "dumb" on someone. I believe you have a good argument in you and are probably quite intelligent. I look forward to seeing you contribute on HN in your more capable capacity.
While you start off with some (probably deserved) snark, I want to thank you for the way you wrote your second paragraph. I wish every downvote HN newcomers get came with a comment like that.
Thanks. We're all here for the better of ourselves and others (at least that's how I feel). BTW, I'm going to try one of those crazy jellies from the site you are working on.
Next time you are in Philadelphia or NYC I'll buy you a drink. Come to think of it, you are one of a few intellectuals I haven't had the pleasure of bs'ing with anyway. Cheers.
Did any of the haters on this thread watch his TED talks? There's the one linked to in the article (from 2004), and another one Ze gave last year (http://www.zefrank.com/ted/2010.html).
Having watched "the show" back in the olden days before youtube, i'm convinced ze is a genius. He's incomprehensible to HN because he really doesn't care how it works, he only cares about how it's being applied.
It's all about the application of technology to make a human connection for him. His only metric is the quality of that human connection -- which is weird to people who care about clean design, or scalability, or neat javascript "fade" effects.
>themed Stars with messages like “UR CRAZY,”"UR CUTE,” “BFF,”"Frenemy”"Bromance,” and (!) “Mom Jeans.”
I don't think you're going to find too many adults who are really all that interested in embracing their inner 12-year-old girl.
>Both the actions of giving and receiving Stars cause new and more diverse stars to be unlocked
The reason games like WoW work, IMO, is because there's enough shininess to distract you from the TINO (time in, numbers out) nature of the game. If you distill that down to its core I don't know if people will like what they see. Kind of like how I'll enjoy broccoli smothered in butter or mixed into a cheese dip, because it doesn't really taste like broccoli, but eaten plain it's a chore.
Hey, I'd love to be wrong. I generally want people to succeed, and I'm sure everyone involved here is a nice person...but I'm not sold.