Add an eventSessions at SXSW Interactive 2011 with audio on Saturday 12th March
-
Beyond Check-Ins: Location Based Game Design
by John-Paul Walton and Zach Saul
This dual presentation will explore common play elements in location-based games. We’ll analyze the popular "Check-In" mechanic (used by products like FourSquare and GoWalla), and take a look at the business and social forces that have influenced its emergence as the popular geo game model.
The presentation will compare current location-based products, charting their strengths and weaknesses to identify where we believe large areas of opportunity exist in the market.
We'll evaluate the challenges and untapped opportunities of Geo Games from the technological and design perspectives of the two presenters. We’ll outline how the limitations in location technology can be an elegant part of the game design itself, and how new innovations will help to create richer and more immersive parallel worlds.
We’ll describe why we think its time to move beyond "social" Check-In systems, to “true games” that engage, challenge, and stimulate players.
LEVEL: Intermediate
-
How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live
by Evan Jones
Once upon a time slow connections begat the Progress Bar - bloated sites would taunt us with '15% loaded' screens. High-speed promised to kill the beast and free us from their tyranny but yet it lives! Progress bars are being used MORE lately to direct user actions. Look to Farmville and LinkedIn which push their users to collect 100% of their personal information. Incomplete progress bars are an itch that needs to be scratched. They carry the implicit language that declares 'You are here' but more importantly 'The end is in sight'. Game design motivates us through incremental, measurable progress towards a tangible goal but is this the way real life works? Is the progress bar's ubiquity in technology starting to affect the way we measure progress in meatspace? This panel will reach far across time and space to look at the story of progress bars, why they hypnotize us and what we need to do - slay the beast once and for all, or throw ourselves into its partially-complete embrace...
LEVEL: Beginner
-
Dear Miss Manners: WTF with the Social Web?
The social web is now a teenager –awkward, arrogant, snarky, fearless, experimental and open. She is shaking things up and having a major impact on our culture, social dynamics and etiquette. What are the new social dynamics and cultural impacts of all these tools and technologies?
This session will explore the emerging etiquette issues of our participatory hyper-connected world. What are the new rules? How are our relationships, culture and business assumptions changing? Do we understand the impact of this new relationship persistance?
- Do I have to ask before I post a photo of a friend online? Who has editorial approval?
- Am I required to respond to every inbound communication I receive or is “ignoring” an accepted response?
- Where is the line between encouraging participation and being just plain annoying?
- What are you doing mucking up my activity stream?
- What the heck is a “friend” anyway?
How do we design, build and manage these new spaces? What are the new rules of the online commons and the associated appropriate etiquette? This participatory session will ask attendees to contribute their own real world examples and will lay out a new framework for a new social contract. It’s our job to decide what we want our web teenager to be when she is all grown-up.
LEVEL: Intermediate
Schedule incomplete?
Filter by Day
Filter by Session type
Filter by coverage
Filter by Topic
Filter by Venue
- ACC 1
- Hilton Downtown 2