Stay Hungry Steve

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“I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” ~ Steve Jobs

This question impacted me quite seriously, when I was in college. The whole commencement speech helped changed my path; I’ll not say whether negative or positive, as the choices made were by me. Steve changed me, he sent me off on a mission to create the change I wanted to see and to always, “Stay hungry. Stay Foolish.”

He helped change the world from the very early days. He helped introduce the PC to the mainstream. Even after being forced out of Apple, he helped  push change with NeXT and Pixar. He was humble enough to allow a competitor to help him recover the company he founded, and recover he did. He made digital music available in a cheap and legal manner, as well as providing an integrated portable device to store them. The defining legacy is that he continually pushed further on with what worked and promoting changes to forge new paths to take them. Our world as it is now is indebted to the leadership he has shown.

My condolences to his family  and friends.

I say this as someone who has never owned an Apple product, and aside from iPod’s and a very short tech call, I’ve never touched an Apple product. My view of Steve comes from watching him lead for the past few years, when he was able, and looking back on those moments in the past where he had shown the qualities of a true leader. I truly thank him for that commencement speech.

“Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.” ~ Steve Jobs

Checking Out Of Social

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…for now.

Over the past few years, I’ve used social media as almost a full replacement for real social interaction. It started out nicely enough and I’ve definitely interacted with plenty of people that have changed me. Some positively, few negatively, and the rest have been there. Unfortunately, with time what I, and others, want or need has changed, not unexpectedly; operating as if nothing has changed leaves me feeling somewhat empty.

July and August of 2008 was when I started actually using social media for purposes outside of just keeping up with friends on Myspace and Facebook. I ended up on Pownce, Twitter, Friendfeed, Ustream, Seesmic and others in rapid succession. That was also when I began taking blogging a bit more serious, in retrospect a very bad thing.  I decided sometime around then that I had to interact and add value on Twitter every day, no matter how small.  I kept it up for a few months pushing a motivational quote or video in the morning to try and lighten the increasingly gloomy situation.

Come March and April of 2009, Friendfeed rolled out their real-time site and I became instantly enthralled in the interaction on the service. It was so far superior to anything at the time, and still to most today, that I gradually stopped devoting time to the other sites. In between April and August of 2009, I interacted and got to know many people on Friendfeed, one in particular was Holden Page who people used to confuse with me and likewise me with him.

August 10th, 2009: The day that Friendfeed was lost; Facebook purchased Friendfeed and in the next few weeks, a large portion of the English-speaking community leaves. This push left only the most diehard lovers of the site and community there, but with the knowledge that it’s not going to get better and there is a chance the plug will get pulled. Every time something new has come along the question has been, “Will, or can, this replace Friendfeed.” The answer never an absolute yes, and nothing came by that could truly match the service with it’s community for nearly two years.

July 2011, the weary ship set adrift just a few years, yet a lifetime, ago finally scrapes against something that can truly match it, Google+. When Google+ launched it immediately became a haven for the reFFugees, and has thus sucked most of the remaining members of the community away. My community there is now gone; it’s not where I want to be any longer, as shown by my interaction recently. I guess I could try to embrace Google+, but it is not the site or community I want.

So for now, I’m checking out on actively utilizing social sites. Will I come back? I don’t really know. I’ve had fun over the years, but it’s mostly been for naught or worse. With the time I’ve recently had, I’ve had time to think about a lot of things that matter and those that don’t. I want to spend more time creating value that is going to last and less on the frivolous affairs.

P.S. for Friendfeeders: Right now, I don’t think I’ll be going Full-Cristo, but it could be a possibility in the future.

P.P.S. to Louis Gray: I know it’s probably your job, but please don’t encourage people to +James Fuller on Google+. :P

Free Idea: Collect Your Friends

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A few weeks ago, I was working on setting up another webpage as a portfolio and jokingly made Holden Page a project. I then shared over on Friendfeed that Holden was now a personal project, which turned into a thread filled with Pokemon jokes. This is when I started thinking about how cool it would be if you actually could collect your friends in a game.

So with that idea I decided to lay out a few structures and ideas rather rapidly on what would be interesting. I’ve decided not to follow through with any of the aspects at this time and figured I’d make them public record. Obviously, the ideas are pretty closely related conceptually, they will be presented as such, but they may be applicable elsewhere. I’m just going to write it up as a bit of a package deal.

Concepts

  • Connect to one or more networks to gather friends
  • Convert your friends into  a set of useable gaming aspects
  • Random occurrence of friends or competitors
  • Should be able to collect, compete, or trade friends with others
  • Maintain a list of friends that will be commonly used

Connect to networks

Allow the user to import their Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ friends into the game. Personally, I thought Twitter would make a better base for the game, but it’s possible that both Facebook and Google+ would make better networks to connect with since they both have gaming platforms built in. There isn’t really anything novel here.

Convert you friends

This was the main idea that I thought could be used in an interesting manner, which also lent itself to Twitter quite well. Take the username of said friend and create a hash from it, doesn’t have to be unique. Use this hash to create parameters befitting your usage (e.g. Taking the Pokemon/RPG aspect, using the hash to determine HP ATK/DEF SPD S.ATK/S.DEF, and they’re various growth rates at level up.) In addition to or in lieu of the hash, you could also try to determine a type by analyzing the friend’s recent content and create a type for that user. This would be more advanced, but doable.

Random Occurrences

This is where I had issues, not so much the occurrences, but how the encounter’s would be handled. I couldn’t come up with any reasonable interaction for this portion of the game. The few very weak ideas I had were using recent content as a competitive method or creating a set of abilities from the hash.

Trade, Collect, or Compete with Friends

These tools are what I find interesting. By encapsulating these concepts into a game, you make sharing friends an aspect that would be a hopefully rewarding experience. This would hopefully increase serendipitous encounters with people you may not have encountered before, but also allow you to reward people for their interaction with you. I’m in love with this, honestly and hope to either come up with a decent way to manage it, or hopefully someone who sees this would.

Friends List

This would be the parallel to your team of Pokemon. The differences would be that it could be possibly generated by those people you interact with most, or people you most want to reward with experience. Experience could be tracked individually(only for the user) or by aggregate(for the friend id). This would allow for possible global ranking based on usage, which would be an interesting concept, compared to our current systems of trying to track and analyze social value.

Random Ideas Related

  • Items that can modify elements of the game, such as leveling up or accessing certain areas.
  • Add minigames for users to play, possible advertising location.
  • Allow users to send out and view network updates from in-game.
  • Instead of using network relationships, maybe use websites, or resources

Like I said, I’m not interested in following through with the concept at this time so go ahead and use them. If anyone would like to discuss them in a more in-depth fashion you can leave a comment or email me at jamesfuller@theinnovationist.com

Also I have to thank World of Higlet for getting this started, and had she not given me a nudge those many days ago I wouldn’t have thought about half of this.  In thanks I’d like to give a shout out to her current web-series, “Mind My Brains, Darling!“.

Pip.io Plowed Under As Seeds For Harvest Are Sown

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I was stumbling my way around on Quora and saw a link to Pip.io, which I used, for a period, as it was a promising alternative to Friendfeed. I decided to click the link to see how the service has changed since my last use, and discovered a message saying it had shut down. The message is embedded below.

Dear Pip.io Members,

Thank you very much for your guys’s support! We couldn’t have done it without all of you!

I have decided to shutdown Pip.io and pursue other dreams.

When I started Pip.io, I dreamed of a social web that was more than just what Facebook and Twitter offered.

I dreamed of a social service that could unify and simplify the social experience people have on the internet.

However, even though I will be shutting down Pip.io, I have not given up on those dreams.

The best way to stay up to date with what I’m doing is on my blog at http://www.leoshimizu.com

Thank you members and hopefully we’ll meet again!

Sincerely,

Leo Shimizu
Founder & CEO

After reading, I had two questions, the first, “When did it close,” and the second, “What is he working on now?” So first I checked out the link he posted, but there wasn’t much there, but the Twitter widget on the side was interesting; it was pushing a link, http://ha.rve.st/, multiple times. Checking it out, from as close as I could get, it is reminiscent, in look and style, of Pip.io,  but the copy on the homepage, is intriguing.

Harvest is an easier and better way to consume the social web. Harvest is a communication platform that not only gathers your posts into one stream in real-time but lets you be you. Experience the social web in a way you never have before!

It lets you be you, by at least, discussing the concept of social circles, or “Personas,” where the problem is you only want to share with certain groups selectively.  It also, appears to manage imaginary connections across services, though I don’t completely understand their solution there. It also appears to be a cross-client and aggregation tool. You can check out a few public pages of the interface at http://ha.rve.st/leo/ and http://ha.rve.st/matt/, most others appear to be private. Image at bottom.

As for the other question, when did Pip.io close, I had to travel through Leo’s twitter feed. On May 16th, he discusses the possibility of a Pip.io mobile app coming soon. His next tweet, on May 18th, pushes http://ha.rve.st/ to a user quoting the phrase, “I have decided to shutdown Pip.io and pursue other dreams.” So I assume that means the Pip.io was shutdown on May 17th.

Best of luck to Leo and his partners, on this new project.

Harvest Acount for Leo

Processing The End

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The Emptiness…

It is a lack of fulfillment, both metaphorically and in actuality. It is the knowing that something should be done, how it could be done, but stressing out over how it will be done. It is the ever present NEVER.

Never finished.

Never shown.

Never critiqued.

Never. Never. Nev…

Many Endings…

With many starts, there also comes many endings. And while all things eventually end, there is a period in the middle that can be seen as an end, temporarily. That middle, however, doesn’t contain the finality of an ending. It could, but it often doesn’t. An end: Must be declared. Must be defined. Must include some sense of finality.

To not have those, you have many threads. These threads are silent, until ruffled. They are known, but not seen. They are ready to be wove together, to be knotted. The knot is the end, but…

…Never Seen

Process Undefined

Without a solid process, with an ending. One that can be declared complete. There will be no final solution, though there may be a solution along the way.

Fighting against an end, is natural. It is nostalgia. It is delusion. There has to be a process that demands a sacrifice of resistance. Fighting the end is futile. Fighting the resistance to the end is key.

A well defined process removes friction. It makes the end have definition. It bears the path to follow. Thought can consume a process as process removes thought.

Destroying the Habit

Forget what you know. Remember what you know. Fight. Fight for your freedom. Freedom from yourself. Freedom from your habits.

Your freedom depends on the destruction. The destruction depends on how well you fight. Your tools are the ability to think and the ability to act.

Think of a process. Act on the process. Repeat the process. Think. Act. Repeat. Process. Process.

Habitual Creation

Finality in the process.