Digital media: explained by others, compiled by me, presented to you

Each month, I spent 2 minutes tops using the iPhone to speak to other people. The other 43, 220 minutes I spend using my iPhone as:

- my new book library. I installed Kobo and thanks to some regularly appearing coupons in my email, it’s my new book store. Books were getting annoying to move all the time, anyway. While it doesn’t have everything I’d like to read, I can only assume it will one day.

- my fitness guide. I use the Nike+ system with my shoes to know how far I’ve run and the speed, and it automatically updates my running progress on my Twitter acct (ask to follow for now!). I use RunKeeper Free to help calibrate my Nike+ system with its GPS tracking of my runs. I also use the Nike Training app when it’s a kajillion degrees below zero outside. And finally, I track my chocolate  consumption with Livestrong’s Daily Plate app.

- my notetaker and to do list. I have too many projects on the go, always, with more being added on a regular basis. I was a pen and paper gal when I needed to create to do lists (for the rewarded check mark upon completion) but so far the very popular Things app is helping keep me paperless and less encumbered during meetings. I’m not sure if it qualifies for my day to day work (where I often need to keep 48 things on the top of my head at any given moment) but it’s good to keep me focussed on one project at a time.

- my guitar tuner thanks to Guitar Toolkit and a fun music maker with Groove Maker and of course, autotunetastic I am T-Pain. I can also see song lyrics and locate who’s listening to the same tunes as me on TuneWiki

- my game console. Tons of games – what’s your fave?

- my weather guide

- my news guide

- etc etc etc

How do you use your iPhone outside of dialing up?

This news is everywhere to those who love wordgames, Facebook and copyright infringement. Yes, I’m sure someone loves copyright infringement. Scrabulous, the incredibly popular Facebook game that played an awful lot like an online game of Scrabble, if off Facebook for North American users. Speculation runs rampant that it’s down because Hasbro (its IP owner since the ’80s) just debuted its own Scrabulous inspired Facebook Scrabble game, thanks to a partnership with EA Games.

Why is this news? The new marketplace is about “if you don’t build it, your fanbase will.” Scrabulous was huge on Facebook (approximately 2.3 million users) because it played well (once the bugs were sorted out). It’s success was built purely from word of mouth (or in this case, word of the Facebook wall). Seeing this potential of losing possible revenue, Scrabble’s IP owner Hasbro decided to sue in a New York court. This lawsuit started back in January 2008, but only now the hammer has been dropped because EA’s version is online and available to North American users.

This has given Hasbro a whole lot of bad press. So much bad press that someone hacked the Hasbro Scrabble game. 

I used to play Scrabulous, so much so that I almost considered buying the Scrabble board game. I’m sure many other users gave money to Hasbro via Scrabulous. This will be interesting…

Ok. The internet has a lot of information in it. A lot of this information is clutter that’s difficult for a search engine to navigate. So some websites are asking its users to tag images, words, music and other things to help populate search engines and make the internet faster… through games. Yay.

Google started this back in 2006 with Google Image Labeler. I just played it and you just have to keep entering in words you think would match the image on the screen. If you and your anonymous partner come up with the same tag, you get points.

Personally, I prefer Games With A Purpose. The games are really fun, as they’re focused on whether you’re a word person, a music person, a visual person, etc. Just don’t play it at work. The games are timer based and you might end up yelling at co-workers who innocently come up to your desk to ask a question. “Can’t you see I only have a minute left to describe this picture of a cow?!”

There’s also this relatively new one for corporate branding, Brand Tags. There’s no game involved – you just see a brand logo and type the word you think best describes it. I tagged Exxon “spilly.” 

Why is this important? Users are being asked to populate a service they use with the words and phrases they use and understand. Brilliant.