Social Media & Privacy

I realize that last week I chose to write about social media as it pertains to OmniEXP, but I felt as if I would do the project a better service if I chose to write about the follow up lecture on Social Media Privacy rather than the other material, because it really pertains to OmniEXP in such a strong way, the project being a hypothetical social media website, as well as because privacy is such an important subject both in the realm of social media, and in the realm of video games. Just this past year we saw evidence of that with the attacks on the PlayStation Network and the devastating consequences it had not only for Sony but for third party developers developing for the PlayStation 3 and, really, for the industry as a whole.

The internet is a scary place, especially the portions filled with bored nerds with too much free time and eager for quick thrills. Unfortunately, that also happens to be the key target demographic for OmniEXP. So one might be able to understand why taking these bored, vindictive, anonymous nerds and setting them loose in a social media population also filled with innocent regular folks might raise some concerns, to say the least.

To compensate for this, OmniEXP would have to feature very robust privacy settings that allow for a lot of customization. We still might want to allow people the option to allow public access to more personal information such as full names, locations, etc. But we should make it very clear to people from the get-go that putting yourself out there in such a way carries with it very real risks, and maybe even configure the settings so that individual users have the opportunity to opt-in to those settings, instead of opt out.

Personal privacy is a hallmark of the gaming community. If you're not gaming on your own or with your friends, chances are you're gaming with total strangers masked by non-specific handles, with almost no other information about them. The gaming community has been very slowly moving towards a more social atmosphere, with voice communication, user profiles, and friends lists, but OmniEXP wouldn't be a gaming website if we didn't keep that option for near-anonymity available for the end user.

Introduction & Social Media

My entrepreneurial concept is OmniEXP, a website that serves both as an aggregate for several utilities already in place that video game developers and publishers have designed to allow end users to track their scores and progress, as well as a sort of social media hub for avid gamers.

The project would take data from as many reputable sources of gamers' personal progress as it possibly can. These sources include such preexisting entities as Microsoft's XBox Gamerscore, Steam's Steamworks achievements, and the PlayStation Network's Trophy System, as well as other lesser known repositories and any future databases of such information. Once this data has been compiled, OmniEXP would use a homebrew algorithm to generate an aggregated score, presented in the format of an experience bar, and present this detailed data to the end user via their profile on the website.

The second aspect of OmniEXP specifically pertains to the lecture given the week before on social media. The website would serve as a niche platform for interaction and networking between avid gamers that share similar interests. The website would take its compiled data and utilize some sort of mechanism for matching people with those that have similar taste in games, as well as allowing for the option of becoming friends or perhaps teammates with friends that you already know, allowing you to compare your similarity rating.

Although I haven't worked out the specifics as of yet, my hopes would be that a sort of gaming component could be integrated into the experience tracking system, to provide the end user with more of a reason for browsing the site than just when they want to track their progress as gamers. In some format or another, it would ultimately be feasible to compete, against friends or strangers with similar tastes, or even perhaps alongside them in groups against other friends or strangers. I still haven't quite worked out specifically what this competition might entail, or how it could be implemented, or even what level of persistent engagement it would demand from the end user.

Regardless, the website would allow for end users to communicate with one another, either via micro blog format or a comment system, keeping others up to date on the specifics of their progress with whatever game they're playing, as well as to provide ratings of certain games, and even perhaps the level of enjoy-ability pursuing achievements or trophies in specific games and to provide recommendations to their friends.

The revenue stream would likely be advertisement based, likely in the format of small, out of the way advertisements that don't diminish the experience, a la Facebook. At launch it would likely be an entirely free system, but pay options such as a token system or even subscription based would be an option to be considered for the future, depending upon the popularity of the site and whether or not premium content would be feasible and arguably worth the price.

I would like for the design format to be very evocative of a video game itself, perhaps in the form of a heads up display, or some other hallmark visual system of video games. Perhaps collecting played games into a sort of "inventory", or other nuanced touches that make the end user feel as if they are still gaming even on the website.

Thats all I've got for now. More in a week!