This is PMOG, an online game that allows you to earn data points, level up and create thematic “missions” from your web surfing. You can also create portals from one page to another or drop some loot or a mine on a page for another PMOG player to discover. All you need is a free PMOG account and the browser plugin and you’re ready to play! PMOG is fun for anybody who likes the internet and has special potential for teaching and learning.
Let’s start with what you’ve just read.My keyword specific headline tells you what this post is about in plain language. The two sentence lead gives you a why and a how. Writing this way saves you time by conveying context and, possibly, value - simply and quickly.
Yesterday I posted an intentionally provocative question on Friend Feed, which was inspired by commentary I’d read in recent weeks about the value/nature of what we share in relation to differing motivations.
While I admit the distinctions are simple and that I’ve created a bit of an either/or dichotomy (as a couple of people pointed out), my intention was to identify two impulses that - while not always divorced - stem from somewhat different motivations and objectives.
What’s far more interesting than my question is the resulting discussion -66 comments long (at the current count), which amounts to a shared collaboration between myself and everyone who partcipated. The point of my question was to obtain some concrete statements about how each of us perceives what we’re engaging in (with my question as a starting point).
I’m not sure what it is about the nature of Friend Feed that’s inspiring this much participation but it’s a very promising result in comparison with other similar services/tools like Twitter. I’m not saying FF is an alternative to these other services but that it functions in a very different way. Like Steve Rubel and others, I’m impressed.
Apple’s 3G iPhone may well hit all the right notes with North American consumers but will it go big in Japan? WIRED writer Lisa Katayama isn’t so sure:
Practical considerations aside, perhaps these questions are better left to philosophers. Is the cell phone market in Japan about going big or going Big Mind?
Functionality or philosophy?
From the emergence of Keitai culture until now, Japan is the most definitively mobile culture in the world. It is also a culture deeply informed by a very different philosophical aesthetics than the West. And this is precisely why this market is so different than anywhere else.
The cultural significance of these differences has a basis in Japan’s Iki or traditional aesthetic ideals, which are informed by principles of depth (Yugen) as well as incompleteness (Wabi Sabi).
Right now, technology is still discussed along pragmatic lines of functionality and usability. But as technology takes on greater significance in human society, our unconscious may be seeking out more profound experiences. In these terms the question of complexity in mobile design transcends the pragmatic to the awe and wonder of Yugen.
“Transliteracy might provide a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the twenty–first century. It is not a new behavior but has only been identified as a working concept since the Internet generated new ways of thinking about human communication. This article defines transliteracy as “the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks” and opens the debate with examples from history, orality, philosophy, literature, and ethnography.”
“Social networking technologies, web mashups, multicore and hybrid processors and cloud computing are amongst the ten most disruptive technologies[1] that will shape the information technology (IT) landscape over the next five years, according to research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.”
“One important goal of the project is for the environment to be completely extensible. Developers and graphic artists can extend the functionality to create entire new worlds, new features in existing worlds, or new behaviors for objects and avatars. The art path for Wonderland is also open. The eventual goal is to support content creation within the world, but in the shorter term, the goal is to support importing art from open source 3D content creation tools as well as professional 3D modeling and animation applications.”
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