Deus Ex Machinatio

Creative Spotlight: Jay Bushman

I've blogged about Jay before, for his Loose-Fish projects The Good Captain and his Spoon River anthology. But you really want to hear about the latest from him -- he's taken his talent at literary adaptation and bent it into some wonderful new pop-art configurations.

In 2009, Jay did the infamous SXStarWars and replicated the climactic trench run on Twitter. This year, he naturally did the sequel -- The Empire Tweets Back. Using Twitter's new list functionality, he's put together a production of Empire that you can follow along with on Twitter whenever the mood strikes you. It's running right now, go take a look!

But I have to tell you, my most favorite Jay Bushman Special was what he did for Halloween last year, and that I shamefully didn't call your attention to in time: Cthalloween. Jay organized the rise of the Lovecraftian Elder Gods on Twitter as one massively collaborative, synchronized whole, and it was freaking awesome.

The next time he does something like that, I'll tell you ahead of time, folks. I swear I will. You won't want to miss it.

Booyah: My Review

Have you seen the buzz around Booyah? I was intrigued by a particular Tweet from Jane McGonigal. A social reality game! Earn achievements for doing the stuff you want to do with your life! Awesome.

And then I downloaded the app to give it a whirl. Unfortunately, it's not the app I thought it would be, which means I still want the app I thought it was going to be. Booyah start with a cute little robot-looking avatar which you can customize with various colors and patterns. And then it pops you into a screen where you can browse categories of achievements to unlock, or the robot can give you ideas for "Booyah moments" to go after.

The problem, though, is that the process of recording those achievements wasn't what I had assumed. You don't just check a box saying "I did this today!" Instead, the social network component is all but forced on you. So if I want Booyah to help me record and celebrate that I went to the gym every day this week, or that I tried a new dish at dinner, or that I finished Chapter 5 of my novel-in-progress... I'm supposed to Tweet it, or put it on my Facebook status, and broadcast it to all of my friends. Why the heck should I spam my friends every time I go to the gym or hit my writing quota? Why can't I be quietly proud of myself, eh, Booyah?

I briefly flirted with the idea of setting up a separate Facebook account to keep private, for Booyah. And then I recovered my sanity.

Worse, half the achievements available in Booyah aren't even under your immediate power to achieve. If you get a certain number of Likes or comments on one of your Booyah updates, that can earn you even more achievements. This is irritating at best, and counterproductive at worst. If I'm going for a particular achievement -- say, getting five friends to comment on a fitness Booyah -- and I don't hit it, then I'm going to be disappointed. And maybe even discouraged. And then I just might give up. You just can't control other people, and it's ridiculous to make that a component of a validation system intended to make you feel good about yourself.

Now, the overall concept is still spectacular: Earn achievements for stuff you do in real life. I still want that app. Booyah, if you happen to read this, here's what you can do to turn me from a grouchy crank on the internet into an evangelist:

1. Don't give me a uniform set of achievements to go after. Let me pick and choose, so I don't have to even look at the ones I don't care about (like getting people to Like my gym workouts). 
2. Let me define my own achievements, and let me browse achievements defined by my friends or the Booyah community as a whole.
3. Let me keep my Booyah moments all to myself (unless I'm specifically in the mood for sharing.)
4. And let me choose a small group of friends to share Booyah with when I do feel like sharing; one cell who are my writing friends, another who are my gym buddies, and so on.

It really is a great concept; it's just that the implementation hasn't gone in the right direction for me. What I'm envisioning is probably a combination between 43 Things and earning Girl Scout or Boy Scout merit badges. For now, I'll keep waiting for the achievement app of my dreams. And who knows? Maybe when Booyah grows up a little more, it'll be exactly that. 

Updated to add: A friend has rightly pointed out that some of my criticism is unjust -- it's possible to keep your posts private, just in your Booyah journal, and share only some things with Twitter or with Facebook. Still, the whole philosophic focus of the game is around that sharing concept, and fully 2/3 of the available achievements are getting your updates Liked or commented upon. As a gamer, I'm a completist; but as a social person, I hate spamming my friends with stuff I don't think they'll find very interesting (like when I've gone to the gym). So the combination of achievements based on the reactions of my friends plus my drive to earn all available achievements makes Booyah particularly ill-suited to me. And probably others like me.

Madame Zee and the Shorty Awards

I would never in a million years have expected this, but my own Madame Zee is up for a Shorty Award in the #entertainment category! The Shorty Awards are, as they describe it, honoring "the world's top Twitterers." As of this writing, Madame ranked in the 13th place with eight votes. 

Madame has no hope of bringing the award home, of course -- heavens, the top-ranked contender has more nominations than Madame even has followers at all. But it is delightful that anybody could think of her this way. 

And maybe -- maybe -- if a few of you have it in your hearts to nominate her, perhaps she can make it into the top 10, if only briefly? 

Of course, while you've got your nominating engine started, why not give a second to honor Jay Bushman for his fantastic Twitter story, The Good Captain? 

Good karma all around, duckling. Very fortuitous indeed. 

Update: Quick and easy voting guide... Click through for exact instructions on what to Tweet to nominate Madame Zee and Jay Bushman. Please note nominations from private accounts don't count.

Let Me Hear Your Voices

Some of you may remember me tweeting about the need for a private wiki for a Sekrit Project several weeks ago. (And I got a wonderful avalanche of volunteers, too. Thanks again!) 

Now I'd like to introduce that project: Voices. 

As it stands now, Voices is the seed of an exploration of narrative in the wiki format, and I hope to include elements of collaboration and branching storytelling as it goes forward. But to do that... I need your help. 

The structure of Voices is two-tiered. There are content pages, which only I can edit, and discussion pages, which can be edited by anyone with a user account. (I apologize for the need for a user account, but a stunning volume of pharmacological spam in the planning phases for Voices made that necessary.) The story will grow slowly over time, in response to the participation of, well, YOU. So we'll be making this thing together, you and me. Teamwork.

I've also included a page for donations to CARE, a reputable non-profit organization, and I'm hoping to raise a respectable amount of money for them. 

Obviously this won't be a successful project if I can't get anybody to come play with me. It should be fun, and it's all in a good cause, so go and raise your Voices right now. Tell a friend, email your buddies, Digg it, spread the word however you know how. Let's see where this thing can go!

Twistori: Another New Twitter Trick

I just stumbled upon Twistori, a site that pulls anonymized Twitter updates based on... well... just go see it. It's mesmerizing and comforting, little cross-sections of other people's hearts and minds. This is nothing short of a work of art, though the artists, Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs, call it the first phase of a social experiment. I wonder if there's really any clear distinction between the two anymore?

This is one more to add to my list of unusual uses people are finding for Twitter, along with The Good Captain, which has concluded, and my own Madame Zee project. There's certainly a lot more to come.

Thanks to @playbe for tweeting about it!