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What do you mean when you say Facebook apps are "fake social"?
by pw 16y ago
What do you mean when you say Facebook apps are "fake social"?
- patio11 16y agoI mean that use of them is about as solitary as games get, and the prevailing reason they're known as "social" is because of artificially engineered spam-your-friends-to-advance mechanics. I play a particular RPG on Facebook -- beating some monsters requires getting 100+ folks to click on a viral link for you. We've got our own little social norms and lingo for dealing with that: I click on your link and tell you "PRTF http://example.com/12345 http://example.com/12345 -- for "please return the favor", because since I'm telling that to several dozen people I don't know and don't care about every day I'll be darned if I actually type it out. None of my friends have ever come over in real life and told me "Patrick Patrick guess what guess what I got a new FarmVille cow." That would be really, truly social for me. (And I say this as somebody who regularly hears stories about WoW loot or D&D games from days gone by.)
- whatusername 16y agoTo keep with the anecdotes - I have friends who when they meet up normally pull their laptops out for some farmville (and to plan how to get the next level/cow/whatever). It does happen. But great observation on the iPhone games thing - one of the discussions at our extended family dinner every couple of weeks is the new iPhone/iTouch apps we have.. "Hey check this out" is really effective marketing (as of course it is in every industry)