Did you use it last year? Do you have any comments or ideas? Drop me a line if so.

This week’s readings were particularly relevant to my project research, so it was exciting to read these having just returned from the [extremely chilly pre-snow] OccupyBoston site. I only got two interviews in before I had to head out (I’ll be returning for more soon), but I think I gained some important insight into the relationship between the “I” and the “We” at Occupy. Mostly, though, the interviews I conducted at Dewey Square got me thinking about the role professionalism and locality play in the success of an anti-establishment movement, and also what a move from fringe to mainstream does to that movement.

Read more at civic.mit.edu.

Related: now you know when to rob my house.

You hear (and read) a lot of criticism of SXSW lately, mostly surrounding its size and popularity. Even as a first time goer, I find all of this disappointing.

I’ve been trying to get to SXSW for a while, but it wasn’t until I started working for myself that I could convince my boss to send me (har har). I felt I wanted to be down there to be close to the innovation and the products that were driving my industry and what I do on a daily basis. As it turns out, it was the thinking that I found most valuable. I went down there looking to improve my skill-set and knowledge as a creative developer. But, as I’ll note in my upcoming panel reviews, it was my role as an MFA candidate at MassArt’s DMI that led me to gain the most value. And I still got a bit of networking (and celebrity sighting) in.

Me, Mr. Daly, and Don Dr- sorry, I mean Jon Hamm.

I realize the festival has grown exponentially over the past few years. I also realize that there are a ton of people who go down there just to party for a few days. I heard many veterans complaining about not being able to find any good panels (which amazes me, considering there were at least 10-15 going on at any given time). And I am definitely glad I’m not an Austin resident having to deal with being inundated with tourists for 10 straight days in the middle of March.

But there are a lot of smart people in this world. And it’s great that a lot of them all go to the same place to share their smarts with people like me. I really enjoyed the show, and I can’t wait to get back next year.

One catalyst, however, was the reading and analysis we’ve been doing for our seminar class at DMI. Last semester our focus was on the history of dynamic media–reading mostly philosophers, scientists, and technologists who wrote during the 1950′s, 60′s, and 70′s. They had no idea what was about to happen to the world, but some of them had rather vivid predictions.

One such vision was the Memex, a system of documentation, tracking, and sharing that would enable scientists (having just come out of WWII) to better collaborate on findings. The idea, according to its inventor, Vannevar Bush, was to better mankind by spurring innovation through this improved collaboration. Bush’s Memex (as described in this Atlantic Monthly piece from 1945) was never seen through to mass production (or even much serious prototyping), but the concept that sharing information would better society has stayed consistent. It was what Ted Turner believed in when he started CNN, and it’s what Mark Zuckerberg believes.

But something happened along the way. Bush wrote that

“there will always be plenty of things to compute in the detailed affairs of millions of people doing complicated things.”

But what he was describing was a process of introspection. By the time this charge landed in the laps of guys like Zuckerberg, the process has turned into over-sharing. So where do the two systems (Memex & Facebook) converge? How do they differ?

I wrote a paper for the DMI last October that touches on those questions. It was featured on the DMI website as an abstract. If you’d like to read the whole thing, you can do so here (pdf).

Great client, talented designers, simplicity, and running for beer. That’s a dream project right there.

So it comes as no surprise that when offered the chance to combine my love of emerging technology with some sort of competition, I’m, um, game. Enter: social gaming.

Social gaming is the use of social media for competition. You’ve seen it already: games built on social media platforms (Farmville, Mafia Wars), social media platforms with game layers (Foursquare, Whrrl), and games built on their own platforms (SCVNGR).

Completing a SCVNGR Trek Activity. Noooooorm!

Last week I had the opportunity to try SCVNGR at the AdClub’s Hatch Trek, a hunt around the city of Boston, culminating in a cocktail hour to introduce the judges for the 50th Hatch Awards. My partner in hunting, John Park, and I moved through the city, completing certain tasks and answering trivia questions.

The team over at Allen & Gerritsen have put together a great recap of what SCVNGR does well and what it does poorly but here’s my quick summary: It was a great way to learn about the city, showcase the event sponsors (each stop had a tie in to a sponsor), and get out on a nice (albeit muggy) evening in Boston. The problem is when it came to announcing a winner. John and I completed every task, answering all trivia questions. But if we didn’t type in the answer exactly as the administrator expected us to, it would lock us out after a few tries. And while I was on a team, there was no real way to connect John’s SMS interaction with the system and my iPhone app based interaction.

These points seem minor. And they were. Like I say, we had a lot of fun and eventually ended up at the cocktail hour to network and enjoy some post-game refreshments. But even these small flaws in the system highlight something important about social gaming: it’s still a game. I mean, I wanted to have fun…but I also wanted to win an iPad.

We’ve already seen plenty of discussion about how platforms like Foursquare are working against “cheaters.” The CEO of SCVNGR, Seth Priebatsch, spoke at TEDxBoston 2010 last week and said that “the previous decade was about social, this one is about gaming.” He’s probably right – just take a look at Google’s recent acquisition of Slide.

People are competitive. They like a challenge. In fact, the reason some Apple Stores were built with a false floor is because once someone takes a step on to the six inch incline at the entrance to the store, they want to complete that challenge and come all the way in. But with competition comes other problems. I hope Priebatsch is right and we’re about to see a huge expansion in the social gaming sector. I’m extremely curious to see how these problems get worked out.

There has been a great deal of chatter about LBSs over the past few months, especially after Foursquare and Gowalla went at it for the public’s love and attention at SXSW in March. Amidst all of this buzz, I was fortunate enough to attend an Ad Club event where Dennis Crowley, one of the founders of Foursquare, spoke about his company’s journey. Dennis, along with co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, built Foursquare (which is really a reincarnation of the Google-killed Dodgeball), wanted a way to keep up with what their friends were doing on the weekends. So they built a system that let people “check-in” to locations, automatically alerting a list of contacts to their whereabouts. As the number of users and venues signed up with Foursquare increased, cafés started offering free coffee to those who check-in the most, users started showing off their “badges,” and restaurants started learning where their clientele were going before and after their meals. Through a series of [awesomely genius] discoveries by the developers, the venues, and the user base, the service now acts as a conduit between venues and consumers; it’s like a virtual membership card – without taking up more space on our key-rings.

I can certainly understand, however, why some of my tech savvy friends still wish 4sq and the like never came to be. In doing what startups do to promote their new service, LBSs are integrating with Twitter and Facebook streams. It’s free promotion. Normally this isn’t a big deal. One Tweet here, one status update there. But with the LBSs, what was originally intended to be shared with your close group of friends is now being broadcast to all who follow you on Twitter – which has come to include professional and social contacts. It’s a catch-22 of viral-ness.

I think eventually those using LBS’s will realize they need to opt not to share every single check-in with their social stream. Personally, I share only those which I would have Tweeted about anyway (I’m in London…I’m at the game…I’m the mayor of CVS ’cause I’m a hypochondriac…ok, maybe I should tone it down a bit myself). And until the volume of context-less irrelevant check-in updates diminishes, maybe LBS’s will still have a stigma about them.

But if you’re one of the naysayers, I implore you to look beyond the quasi-spamming and give it a try. The badges and mayorships seem petty at first. But brands and venues will continue to reward users for checking in. If you’re someone who likes to play with data, I suggest you check out the APIs being provided by these services. There is so much we can do when we have a better understanding of where people are going and when (especially combined with some of that open government data I was talking about a couple weeks ago). And if you’re into sharing more than just the fact that you’ve checked in (tips, photos, etc.), it turns out LBSs are for you.

And who knows, maybe your competitive spirit will inspire you to become mayor of your local taxidermist. Now THAT would be Tweet-worthy.