Friends and Games--For Me the Relationships Are the Point

I have a confession today.  I am almost 47 years old, but I am still more than a bit of a little boy when it comes to games.   I tend to be a monogamist when it comes to games.   As a child I went through phases with many different board games like Monopoly and Battleship and Scrabble.   As a new computer user I got really hooked for several years on Tetris.   And then I went online for the first time and stumbled into Multi User Dimensions.  It was a sort of Dungeons and Dragons-- but played with people all over the world and with none of that tiresome fixation on various-sided die and no need to continually buy additional sets to keep the game fresh.

I spent hours and hours every day  using Telnet to connect  to quark.gmi.edu: 4150.    Honestly,  I had never been real big on Dungeons and Dragons;  some folks took it  so seriously that it was hard for a casual player not to exhaust their enthusiasm, long before the perpetual arguments about what a particular roll Really meant in terms of game play or just how the words in the book should be interpreted could get fully underway, let alone resolved.   In my real life experience,  D & D people were dull because they rarely wanted to talk about anything else.   The wonderful thing about Timewarp was that it was a place I could constantly chat with an ever-expanding roster of good friends that I talked to every day, and whose real lives I was a part of, as they were a part of mine.    Online friends, and particularly people I met on Timewarp changed my life, perhaps as much or more as any other experience.

My friend Mangus, it eventually developed worked in Tech Support at Microsoft.   When I pissed and moaned about my job one day, he said to me "Why don't you move out here, Outofit.   I could help you get a job with a tech company."    I had long decided that Boston was not the right place for me.    And when I kept on talking to him, and he seemed to honestly believe that I could get a much better job in Seattle,  I quit my crappy job and my crappy apartment, leased a new Toyota for three hundred bucks and set off down the yellow brick road to Oz.   In Chicago I stayed with one online friend (on Christmas Eve-- she took me to her sister's dinner and they made me feel like family, even though I had never before met them face to face).   I detoured to San Rafael, California to visit and stay with a friend who had fled Boston not too long before me and had a great job with a Marin software company.    After a breathtakingly beautiful and deeply emotional, almost spiritual seven day journey I docked in Tacoma, Washington  and spent three month's camping out on my incredibly generous and wonderful friend Loofa's couch.     All of these people were just "folks I played games with".  But they all gave me food,  a place to stay and a real chance to change my life so much for the better,  that I know I will never, ever be able to re-pay them-- except of course to the extent that I too extend love and kindness to people around me who are in need at the moment they pass through my life.

Today Spiggi  told me that "friends and games are unrelated."    This post is to reply, in friendship and without rancor that that is the most asinine thing I have ever heard.

Riding The Rollercoaster

Image: anat_tikker / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some days,  I just really hate riding the roller coaster of bi-polar disorder.   Usually,  I sort of enjoy the manias.   When I'm manic I have tons of energy and enthusiasm.   I'm likely to begin new projects, chatter merrily both to the people around me face to face and to distant friends online.   I'm quite lucky in that I don't have problems with doing very destructive things when I am manic;  often times people in manias are known to spend money they don't have, embark on business ventures they can ill afford and do other things which will have consequences they will have to pay and pay for, long after the mania has passed.

And inevitably,  manias do pass.   Usually I am well into a day that seems to be going very badly when I realize that the problem is that I have become depressed.   It is always such a shock, somehow,  even though of course it is a long familiar experience.   When I get depressed I seem to take every little set back as a huge major big deal and become inordinately frustrated at the very least provocation.   And what is most frustrating about it, is that understanding that the problem is my bi-polar disorder very rarely has any impact on my feelings of  anger and frustration.   At these times I feel like a small child whose teacher repeatedly tells him  "I know you could do this if you would Just Try!" even though the child knows that he Is trying his best and simply can not do what is asked.

As is often the case on days that depression begins to set in I did not accomplish very much today.  Although I did finally publish a book review which I had been working on for weeks  (albeit a day late).   I also participated in the #definethis  word game that I frequently enjoy;  today's word-- disseise  was wonderfully odd ball.   When the squiggly red line spell checker has never heard of it,   it's a great word for me.    Here's hoping that your Wednesday has gone a bit better than mine did,  and that Thursday will be a better day for us all.

Tweeting Away To Margaritaville

I've been using Twitter for three or  four years now.    I don't in any way, shape or form claim to be an expert Tweeter.   Though I do well understand that Twitter is all about conversations.   I only have a bit less than 400 followers.   Yet I actually know most of these people.   I've visited their blogs and  chatted with them on various websites and forums.   In many cases I know their spouses names and their children's names.    Some of the publicists, publishers staff and authors in my  TweetStream are a bit more professional contacts than friends,  but again I do really know most of these folks.

As I said, I  know that Twitter is all about conversation,  and I have developed a pretty fair knack for having real back-and-forth conversations in 140 character blips.  (If only there had been a college course in editing down to 140 characters back when I was in college--- would have saved me nearly 4 years of experimentation and discovery.)   My activity level on Twitter has certainly had its ups and downs over the years.  There have been days when I tweet and tweet and tweet all day and other days when I just couldn't be bothered.    But yesterday and today as I  (SHHH!!! don't tell) prepare to launch a quirky new site in collaboration with a dear new friend,  I found myself reaching out to people I haven't spoken to much in ages,  calling in favors,  exchanging re-tweets.    I found that Twitter enabled me to put my name and handle in front of a whole bunch of people-- in preparation for the big launch which we will be doing in a week or two.

Today,  I find myself falling in love with social media all over again-- excited and thrilled by all of the great friends and acquaintances  I interact with online and looking forward to a future in which the sky is the limit.   Thank you so much for being part of my online 'family'.

Walking Down The Avenue

I'm reminded, frankly, of the early days of Entrecard.  Before bad management changed a clever and effective social network to a tired traffic exchange,  Entrecard attracted a group of smart, clever bloggers and allowed them to meet, mix, mingle and place small box ads all over each other's blogs.    For me it was a very exciting time when in short order I met dozens and dozens of great bloggers,  made a whole bunch of new friends and saw my blog's popularity skyrocket.   I've been involved in many web sites and forums since then,  but until my recent foray onto Empire Avenue  I had not experienced anything like those heady early days on Entrecard (which, btw, were also remniscient of my early days on Blog Catalog.)

I remember explaining to Rich Becker, shortly after catching the Entrecard bug that Entrecard was Really a social network,  decked out in advertising service clothes.    Likewise Empire Avenue is Really a social network that struts about dressed as a stock trading game.   Each member of EA selects a  Ticker Symbol (1--12 alpha-numeric characters) and other users buy shares in their stock.   You can of course invest your precious Eaves (a virtual currency) in such luminaries as Tony Berkman(e)MEDIAMOGUL,  Johh Gushue (e)GUSHUE,  Richard Becker (e)RRB  or even your humble correspondent, (e)LIBDRONE.

You will connect your social network accounts-- specifically Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Flickr and YouTube,  as well as your blogs to your EA profile.   Your participating on each of these networks, as well as your participation on the Empire Avenue site contribute to raising your share price,  which also goes up each time someone buys shares in you.   Your shareholders earn dividends each night, which are based on your level of activity on your blogs and social networks.    As successful photography blogger Henry Plumley  (e)PHOTOSBYHANK observed:  "It really is a great new way to approach networking. Soon after you sign in, you become wrapped up in researching your target audience and making sure your message is out there for all to see.  What I feel is the best feature of Empire Avenue is the ability to see all your other social networks at a glance. Empire Avenue uses a 0-100 scoring system to rate your performance on all your networks. It’s so easy to see where your strengths and weaknesses are which helps you decide where you need to improve.  "

I've spoken with many members who have found that Empire Avenue gives them the push they need to keep focused on creating quality content and interacting with their audience,  both for the success of their blogs and careers and to keep their share price up.   When someone's share price increases over 100e  they are declared Centurions and are toasted by everyone on the Avenue.   If you do sign up,  be sure to send me a private message.   I'll be happy to invite you to join the #SocialEmpire group on Facebook,  where lots of great EA players hang out and talk about everything from tips on social networking, blogging and EA success to movies, music and their personal lives.    It's a boat load of fun AND it helps you to succeed at blogging and social networking.   What do you say?   Why not try Empire Avenue now,  and receive 2,000 Eaves on me! 

How many people can you really be?

Some days,  blog posts seem to just pop up in my mind,  flow quickly through my fingers and keyboard and onto the screen and twenty minutes later,  I am doing something else.   Other days,  like yesterday I type a title,  spend hours searching for an image,  make multiple false starts and never do get around to finishing.

I have been thinking a lot lately about identity and being online.   When I first when online on Compuserve, our "handles" were longer than phone numbers (mine was the very catchy, memorable 74220,741) although most of us had our settings to display our real names next to them online.   I remember being quite surprised when a friend mentioned to me that she was using a pseudonym on Compuserve.   Were people really whom they presented themselves at online?    On local "bulletin board systems" most people only used handles-- though honestly I never spent much time on BBS's.    In the early days of Internet discussion boards and forums (post Usenet, pre-Facebook) the use of handles was pretty standard,  although it varied a great deal as to whether the handles used were readily associated with the user's real names.  

I have friends I've know and talked to for years  (looking at Cardiogirl) whose real names I don't know.  I also have friends whom I've known by both their name on one site and their handle on another site-- and never realized that both were the same person.  (glancing at Lord Zod)   Facebook seems to have a policy of requiring only real names--  I've heard stories of people who have been locked out of FB for using a handle.  Although I have a friend who does.    And it was on FB that I was chatting with some folks about all of this name/handle, online-identity stuff,  and was a bit surprised at how vehement most of these folks are about only using their real names online.  Honestly,  it seems to me that life is sufficiently complex that there can be perfectly legitimate reasons that some parts of one's life are better conducted under a different handle.

Where do you fall on this?   Do you use your real name Everywhere?  or nowhere?   Do you use different handles for different parts of your online life?

If We All Hate FB, Why The Heck Are We There?

I spend a lot of time online.   I meet and chat with rather a lot of different people.   But I don't recall Ever chatting with anyone who had much nice to say about Facebook.   It's detractors of course are legion.     One woman I know pointedly refuses to get a Facebook account,  saying that the site is data-mining scam that no rational person should ever trust with their personal information.

Many people complain that it is literally _impossible_ to contact them for customer service.   They seem to take feedback only through online reporting mechanisms which often fail to foresee customer's situations,  and since they only allow selecting alternatives,  rather than entering  questions or concerns,  quite fail to anywhere near adequately address situations.   Indeed when one presses the Help Center option on the Account menu, one is presented with a huge array of issues one might need help with.   And information, advice and links are available for any problem Facebook thinks one might be having can be readily found for each of these issues.   But nowhere in all of that is there ever any option to call or e-mail for assistance.

Which leads me to ask,  why the heck do so many of us use their service So much,  even though we all should know by now just how difficult it will be to fix things if,  for example, we accidentally delete or get locked out of our accounts.    One user I spoke with-- who is creating FB   page applications for clients,  said simply that his clients are asking for FB apps, so he is coding FB apps.   Apparently,  Facebook is what people want today.   Buy Why?

Welcome To The Browns

I can't say I wasn't warned that one day my share price would stop rising and would then fall,  displayed on the site as a brown, negative number in parentheses after the share price.   I've noticed for a couple of days now that my growth was beginning to level off, so it wasn't exactly a surprise.    But it definitely is not fun.

I'm not sure if I ever did fully figure out what made me so anger about the departed's sudden re-appearance yesterday.   Part of it I came to realize was anger at myself for having been so very drawn in by someone whom I'm beginning to see is largely a very big ego leading what a friend has described as a "social media orgy".   ("It looks more like a circle jerk to me,"  I replied.   She laughed.)   I still have to look at things like Amplify and paper.li  and decide what other social media/content-creating things I want to do.    Nice as the ego-stroke is from having a rising share price and dozens of stockholders,  I am realizing that the biggest value from participating in EA lies in occasionally meeting a really special new friend you would not otherwise have ever encountered.      Hopefully then,  my EA-addiction is well on the wane and I can continue having fun with it,  but stop taking it quite so seriously.