Tuesday Two.Oh! Tools that help me tell you where I am…currently.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’re going to take a little adventure over to a just-for-the-hell-of-it tool that updates your friends to your location- and even introduces you to things that might be happening in your area. Let’s take a look at Bright Kite.

From the site: “Brightkite is the simple way to keep up with friends and places. It lets you see where all your friends are, so you can spend more time with them. You can also discover places in your neighborhood and meet other locals along the way.”

I’ve tried a lot of these tools lately- the most popular of them is Four Square. I like Four Square, but there’s something about Bright Kite that Four Square just doesn’t have: interactive location and friend updates. Bright Kite might be one of the most manipulatable microblogs I’ve ever seen- not that Twitter hasn’t done a decent job of trying to localize their tweeps… it’s just easier when using Bright Kite. However, in a huge nod to both Four Square and Twitter it’s very apparent that Bright Kite borrows heavily from both in order to provide their users with the Bright Kite interface.

Now the trick to it is just remembering to use it!

The first thing I did when I clicked over to Bright Kite was link it up with my Facebook- which has its drawbacks when you try to log in via your mobile. We’ll get to that later. When you’ve logged in (either via Facebook or by setting up an account with a valid email address..recommended!) you’ll see something very familiar… a Twitter-like stream populated with tons of updates from people you don’t know!

This is interesting, if only for the fact that the posts aren’t filtered in a Twitter-like fashion. You just see everyone. The point of Bright Kite isn’t to create “followers” but to cultivate “fans.” These fans like what they read on that world-wide feed and they favorite your post. Then, if they choose, they can become your friend. I think. I’m not 100% clear on that yet, but it seems interesting. There’s definitely an obvious desire to get away from Twitequette and all that jazz, but it borrows so heavily that a frequent Twitter user might be turned off by the inability to control who they read on their stream.

An interesting part of Bright Kite is the ability to narrow that stream by manipulating the geographic area you’re looking at. Unfortunately Oklahoma City doesn’t have many members as yet, so some of the streams are a little, ahem, dry. But, you’ll be able to take a look at who’s near you without necessarily having to follow them or be their friend.

Once you’ve taken a look around you, you can update your own space. This is where Bright Kite starts to feel like Four Square.

Once you’ve updated your location, you can zoom in on others in your area using the geographic locaters.

As with most social media, you have a profile page on Bright Kite. This will display your personal updates and location check-ins.

But my FAVORITE part of my profile is that is came with its very own QR Code! How cool is this!

Remember, a friend introduced me to these over the summer and we talked about them on a previous Tuesday Two.Oh! Very cool technology. Though, i couldn’t get my iphone to read it, so I’m a little lost as to the significance of it’s presence on the page. I may need to update my tag reader, though.

As I mentioned earlier, I had trouble with the mobile site of Bright Kite. I went to log in using the username that signing in with Facebook provided me- and it didn’t work. It didn’t work with their supplied username, nor anything associated with Facebook. So, I deleted that account and just started a new one using my gmail account. Which I recommend if you decide to give this site a whirl. The app is decent and very clean and attractive.

All in all, I liked Bright Kite. I think that the ability to manage your stream geographically is an interesting twist to the traditional Twitter feed. That said, I like to be choosy about who I read sometimes, and it seems awfully hard to keep up with a stream that’s global. Sometimes I find these tools and I’m just really not all that sure just what to do with them. I hope Bright Kite doesn’t end up in my closet of unused by inspired 2.0 tools that I’ve signed up for but really never gone back to (hello, Twine!).

Do you use Bright Kite? What do you think?

Tuesday Two.Oh! 2.0 Suicide, tools for those of us who have had enough.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! I’d like to welcome you guys back with a dose of reality. Sometimes people have just had it with the social networks (what!?!?!) and would like to live a simple, un-pokeable life. Today we’re going to talk about a site that will help you do that without having to go through any lengthy de-registration process. Today we’ll be talking about The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.

From the site: “Liberate your newbie friends with a Web2.0 suicide! This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego. The machine is just a metaphor for the website which moddr_ is hosting; the belly of the beast where the web2.0 suicide scripts are maintained. Our service currently runs with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn! Commit NOW!”

While I like the idea of committing web 2.0 suicide, I’m just not ready to do that yet. So, I decided to create some dummy accounts. Here we have 123FakeTweet (My humble homage to The Simpsons), and Zee Zee Jacobs (I’m going to go with Flamenco Dancer on this one).

So, to kill my fake Twitter and Facebook accounts I need to select which social network is going to drink the kool-aid.

Then, the logo of your hated social network will appear in the circle in the middle of the screen.

Then all you have to do is “Commit” and enter your user name to start the process.

And here is where I started running into problems. At first I could not get the 2.0 Suicide Machine to even take my account information (you can’t hit enter more than once), and I would get a message saying that their suicide booths (here “machines”) were currently busy and to try again later.

So, I tried again later with Zee Zee’s account. And….SOMETHING HAPPENED! It actually accepted Zee Zee’s account.

Be Forewarned, if you want to watch your social network life die, you need Flash Player 10.

Zee Zee went from the famous no-face on her Facebook account to this:

I am imagining that if I check back later it’s possible that the profile will have been deleted. I did not upload the pink noose picture, which leads me to believe that the 2.0 Suicide Machine was successful in accessing my account- at least on some level.

I have not been so lucky with 123FakeTweet. Maybe it’s an omen, and I’ll keep it. It wasn’t meant to die. We shall see.

Overall, I thought the site had a fun, albeit slightly kafkaesque feel to it, it had it’s fair share of problems. The more often you try to kill your online alter-ego, the less the 2.0 Suicide Machine seems to work. If you do decide to take that plunge, please let me know if it was worth it.

*Poke!*

Holiday Break!

I’ll be back in January, Folks!

Merry Holidays!

Tuesday Two.Oh! My absolute FAVORITE Collection of Web Games.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today I’m going to introduce you to one of my all time favorite game sites on the web. Now, before we get in too deep, I want to tell you these aren’t your normal collection of flash games- they’re more like layered brainteasers. You must solve the game in exactly the right steps, or you can’t win. And the deceptively difficult trick is that there are often few options to choose from- it’s just that these options have many “levels.” You must max out each level to win- but each step, no matter if it’s the wrong order, will produce a different result. So, on this rainy, cold, miserable day, let’s take a look at Eyemaze.

There’s really not much for me to walk you through, but I honestly can’t recommend these games enough. I will link to some of the major games, but if you poke around there are mini games galore. The interesting thing about this site is that the games are labor intensive to create- so the site doesn’t have new games all the time. BUT, if you enjoy them as much as I do I recommend bookmarking them and checking back every once and awhile to see if new games have arrived.

And, I have to brag, I’ve solved them all. But I won’t help you- what would be the fun in that? At the bottom of this post I’ll post some screen caps of what it’s like to win a Grow Eyemaze game.

The first Grow Eyemaze I’d like to show you is called Grow Cube- this is the game that brought me to this site. It’s fun, maddening, and just addictive. Click here or on the picture to play.

The game that started it all is called, hilariously enough, “Original Flash Game.” Click here or on the picture to play.

One of the most interesting and inventive is “Grow Version 3.” Click here or on the picture to play.

Remember earlier, when I said that these games could be deceptive? Well, “Grow Version 2″ is an example of just how deceptive these games can be. Click here or on the picture to play.

The next game is completely whimsical. There is a solution to this puzzle, but getting there via any series of clicks in totally fun. “Grow Version 1″ is definitely one of the less maddening, but equally satisfying games on the site. Click here or on the picture to play.

And now, one of my all time favorites: “Grow Island.” Click here or on the picture to play. Believe me, you’ll like this one.

And last, but not least, I’ll show you “Grow Tower,” as it is when you start and when you solve. Grow Tower is one of the newer games on the site, but I really enjoyed it.

Here is Grow Tower, fresh and unsolved. Click here or on the picture to play.

Now, keep in mind the solution is LONG. So, I can’t really do it justice with screen caps. I did my best, though. This of it as a representation of what the solution actually looks like.

Now, that’s not perfect and I know it. But it’s dynamic, the solution moves, so it’s hard to capture.

This site and series of games has been around for awhile. In fact, for several years. So it’s possible that some of you have run into this series before- but if you haven’t, I hope I’ve been able to introduce you to a site that is really rewarding and fun. Not only does it test your patience, it will test your reason. Good luck, and let me know what you think!

Tuesday Two.Oh! Tools for the Social You (and me).

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’ll be taking a look a tool that puts you out there: you can represent your pictures, your music, your tweets! Anything, really, provided you belong to the included social networks. And, as a bright spot, this Tuesday Two.Oh! goes out by request for a lovely friend of mine. Hopefully it’ll be the tour you’ve always wanted! And to the rest of you, enjoy enjoy enjoy! Let’s take a look at Flavors.me.

I could not find them on Twitter.

They don’t have an “about us” page, per se, but you can learn a bit about what they’re all about by looking at the homepage.

There isn’t a lot of initial “depth” to the site- but it is what you make it. Essentially, from what I could see, Flavors.me is all about what you want to display to the world. If you’d like a great tour, check out their video posted on Vimeo.

The first thing you need to do is sign up for an account. If you need a hint, look here. Signing up could not be easier.

Once you’ve gotten an account, you need to set up your identity.

Once you’ve accounted for your basic information, you choose which social networks you would like to represent on Flavors.me.3

One interesting thing, you can’t “flavor” your tweets unless you have them unlocked. So when I entered my twitter handle, I got:

No big deal! I protect them for a reason, so threading them on Flavors.me wasn’t exactly high priority. I do wonder how google might search the content on your Flavors.me, though. If you protect your facebook under layers of blockage, will connecting them here lead to pictures or other information being shared in a fashion you might not want it to? At any rate, as with anything, protect yourself on the web.

I did go back to see what Facebook information was linked, and there appear to be holes in what’s displayed on Flavors.me. So, if you protect your Facebook, it appears that only things you don’t protect will show up.

Once you’ve chosen to connect to the various networks (I chose Last.fm and Facebook) you’ll be given your blank Flavors.me page.

From here, you can sort of take it anywhere. You can upload an image, play with the font, change themes. Though, I thought changing themes was a little more annoying than it had to be- but overall, it was still very easy. You can change the orientation of your information, the placement of your picture, and basically create anything you want within the confines of the page.

Your information will appear once you or the user clicks on the (+) button. My last.fm appears like so:

My facebook like so:

It seems like only pictures from facebook are linked. The music that shows on my last.fm feed are probably correct- it’s been awhile since I synced.

Overall, I found it to be an interesting and fun site to use, but I’m not all that convinced of it’s usefulness. That said, I’m willing to be convinved. I suppose you could send a link to this site to your internet-wary parents who may just want to be checking up on you in one place as opposed to on several different networks.

Have you used Flavors.me? What do you think? Comments and thoughts are welcome!