Ze Frank’s Star.me Is Like Being In Kindergarten All Over Again
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
>themed Stars with messages like “UR CRAZY,”"UR CUTE,” “BFF,”"Frenemy”"Bromance,” and (!) “Mom Jeans.”
I don't think you're going to find too many adults who are really all that interested in embracing their inner 12-year-old girl.
>Both the actions of giving and receiving Stars cause new and more diverse stars to be unlocked
The reason games like WoW work, IMO, is because there's enough shininess to distract you from the TINO (time in, numbers out) nature of the game. If you distill that down to its core I don't know if people will like what they see. Kind of like how I'll enjoy broccoli smothered in butter or mixed into a cheese dip, because it doesn't really taste like broccoli, but eaten plain it's a chore.
Hey, I'd love to be wrong. I generally want people to succeed, and I'm sure everyone involved here is a nice person...but I'm not sold.
It'd be awfully dull if everything had to be optimized for maximum utility, the better to mechanize us.
If you look at Ze Frank's many past efforts you will see that is exactly what he's adept at finding.
There are many, many people out there with preferences different from your own. I suspect several of my family members would love this.
I don't use Facebook but I do use Twitter. I do love games. What is it in regards to social networks, games and the idea of positive reinforcement am I missing with this project?
Umm, the fact that you haven't seen it yet?
I wonder if it will be 'gameable' - elementary school kids giving one another stars to pump their stats.
I (like yourself) don't see myself having any interest in this startup--but I'm not the market. I see you are new here (if your account isn't a throw away), but amidst all the down voting you are getting, let me welcome you to HN and say don't build any animosity over getting down voted by the community. It's only because you didn't write a valid argument and instead slapped "dumb" on someone. I believe you have a good argument in you and are probably quite intelligent. I look forward to seeing you contribute on HN in your more capable capacity.
Btw I am Joshua, not Josh.
Next time you are in Philadelphia or NYC I'll buy you a drink. Come to think of it, you are one of a few intellectuals I haven't had the pleasure of bs'ing with anyway. Cheers.
Having watched "the show" back in the olden days before youtube, i'm convinced ze is a genius. He's incomprehensible to HN because he really doesn't care how it works, he only cares about how it's being applied.
It's all about the application of technology to make a human connection for him. His only metric is the quality of that human connection -- which is weird to people who care about clean design, or scalability, or neat javascript "fade" effects.