Fog of World • Hacker News Board

Re: Fog of World

#41

Post by andrewflnr » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:27 PM UTC

igorgue wrote: post #34

Dramatize wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I might be able to justify the price, but 99% of the people I know will not. That means this is not a product I would be able to get most of my social group to use.

You mean people who travel around the world can't spend 5 bucks on an iPhone app, makes sense :-)

What he means is that most people, including those in his social circle, are irrational about paying for apps, and so won't use it.

Re: Fog of World

#42

Post by Androsynth » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:30 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #40

Androsynth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well obviously. But I want others to see gamification for what it really is. The decision to use gamification in your products is similar to the decision to add fiberglass to cigarettes in the mid 20th century. Executives at tobacco companies didnt think it was bad, they just knew it would increase profits. Obviously this app does not have the same scope as cigarettes. But slowly more and more products/games are movi…

I don't see this as gamification. This is just an automatic way of putting pins on a map.

It fills up your progress bar as you perform their actions. That is the definition of gamification.

Re: Fog of World

#43

Post by bobbles » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:34 PM UTC

Sweet, just purchased.

I travel internationally quite a bit, actually feeling a bit bummed this didn't exist a couple of years ago :(

Hopefully doesn't eat so much battery that my phone dies before the day is over.

Re: Fog of World

#44

Post by lambada » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:35 PM UTC

Couple of questions if anyone has bought it and can answer: 1) Extending the fog of war metaphor, do places gradually 'fade' or 'grey-out' or similar the longer you are away from the area? Or is it a case of once-seen always seen? 2) This seems great for the devices that have GPS, but I'm sceptical of it's value on say, my iPod Touch, which IIRC relies entirely on Wi-Fi triangulation.

Re: Fog of World

#45

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:35 PM UTC

Holy fucking grey-on-grey. Even if it fits the fog meme, STOP IT.

http://contrastrebellion.com/

Re: Fog of World

#46

Post by lancefisher » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:36 PM UTC

Cool! I can't wait to load the last two years of my running tracks!

Re: Fog of World

#47

Post by bla2 » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:44 PM UTC

FaceKicker wrote: post #21

This is neat, I wish Google Latitude had it. For that matter, I wish Google Latitude had any useful visual representation of the 2+ years' worth of location data I've been feeding it. =|

If you've enabled location history, you can look at this data in the web interface at http://google.com/latitude

Re: Fog of World

#48

Post by scott_s » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

Androsynth wrote: post #42

scott_s wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this as gamification. This is just an automatic way of putting pins on a map.

It fills up your progress bar as you perform their actions. That is the definition of gamification.

Perhaps it fits yours, but not mine. I consider gamification as adding mechanisms to some other activity (such as participating in a community) to turn it into a game. While the idea was inspired by a game, I don't see any more "gamification" here than I do in keeping track of, say, how many friends one has on Facebook. There's no reward system, no leader boards. It's just a record of travel.

Re: Fog of World

#49

Post by kevinh » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

kinkora wrote: post #25

Dramatize wrote: post #12

I would love to pay $.99 for this, but at $5.49 it's too expensive for me recommend to all my friends.

I am always curious why when people say that $x.xx (or any app that is not $.99) is too expensive for an app. A meal (burger, fries and a drink) in McDonalds will cost you at least $5~$9 depending on the size of the meal you get. Would you say that is expensive? Yet, when an app is anywhere from $2~$10, people will deem it as "expensive". It astounds me when people don't give a thought about spending $10 on food but…

There's a difference between buying food, a necessity, and an app, a luxury. And when you use your McDonald's example, you're assuming that the person you're conversing with is willing to pay $5-$9 for a meal at McDonald's. Many people who won't pay more than a buck for an app won't be spending more than a couple bucks on a meal at McDonald's anyway.

Re: Fog of World

#50

Post by iamdave » Sat, Sep 29, 2012, 10:48 PM UTC

vhf wrote: post #14

drawkbox wrote: post #7

This is truly one of those simple great ideas that we all should have come up with.

In fact, I did came up with this idea one year ago. My idea was to cover the whole world with fog of war, and to make people team up to discover the world. There would be challenges, where you would pay like 0.50$ to participate, and then big reward for the first team achieving the challenge. My idea was a free app with paying challenges. Uncovering 25% of the world ? $1 challenge, 20k$ reward. It's a really easy win…

25% of the world is a lot of travelling and expenses for a $1 payoff.