avad

file under: Facebook/Apps and Games for Good
Doesn't cost you a thing...but by choosing and participating in some of the more socially conscious apps your Facebook click-energy can actually help in a big way. 'Lil Green Patch' is the current star in this new and needed arena of Facebook Apps.



"The ('Lil'Green Patch) application is one of the top ten most installed applications on Facebook. According to Developer Analytics it has 5,217,180 installations with 521,718 or 10% active users. But what makes it stand out from other popular applications - such as Friends for Sale - is that it combines group dynamics with social activism. And it goes beyond just putting a cute little green vegetable plant on your profile -- the applications is making (sizable) donations to green causes...."
read more on Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

To date, Lil Green Patch has been able to donate $33,600 to the Nature Conservancy Cause from the accumulated clicks of Facebook members.

Can you envision new and similarly engaging games/Apps for your favorite nonprofit or cause?
What type of App would you imagine for Doctors without Borders?

Facebookers could send/adopt/care for animals for Farm Sanctuary or the World Wildlife Fund,
virtually-collaborate in teams for building houses for Habitat for Humanity....
what else?

the arena is so fertile for development, I can't wait to see what grows next

others to watch:
H2Opia for WaterAid

iRipple

Endangered Hugs

do you know of others? please post links in comments, thanks!

YAY. It's happening.....:)
Immersive Archeology - Aura Lily breathes life into into the architecture and culture of Ancient Egypt:)!

If anyone would like to help keep tabs of stuff like this and bookmark it to the Cloudpad Emerging Architectures on SecondLife wiki page, that would be so great!!?

"Games and simulations allow us to experience hypothetical situations in fun and intuitive ways. From the designers' perspective we need to architect these "possibility landscapes" which players will later explore. Will discusses some of the informal methods, concepts and tools that he uses to approach this design task....":
Presentation by Will Wright for Accelerating Change IT Conversations.

see also: Game Master in the New Yorker (4 pages)

Now, May the Force Be ... Us
VIDEOGAMES: Will Wright's Spore lets players simulate the creation itself, starting from a single cell. What kind of deity would you be?
"..For most of us, "Powers of Ten" was a welcome respite from our droning high-school science teachers. To Wright's wonderfully unhinged mind, the film turned out to be the foundation on which he could build a new computer game. Spore starts you off as a single cell inside a tide pool, consuming harmless cells and avoiding hostile ones, accumulating points all the while. Eventually you'll be able to develop your single cell into a stronger multicelled organism, then a complex reptile or mammal—which can mate, create offspring and evolve into an intelligent tribe that must compete and cooperate with other tribes developing independently on other parts of the planet. (Sound familiar?) Once your tribe develops the technology, you can travel to other planets, solar systems and galaxies, colonizing your way through the universe as benevolently or maliciously as you see fit."
Article in Newsweek

"The important thing to take away from this is not "Will Wright is making a cool game," but the way that he is making the game. He's sidestepped the whole idea of massive teams of content creators in favor of a system of building games based on player-content and emergence. The results are stunning."
Article: Gamespy: Will Wright Presents Spore... and a New Way to Think About Games

Official Site: spore.ea.com

Wired Article: Why are IQ test scores rising around the globe?

excerpt:"Next to global warming and Moore's law, the so-called Flynn effect may be the most revealing line on the increasingly crowded chart of modern life - and it's an especially hopeful one. We still have plenty of problems to solve, but at least there's one consolation: Our brains are getting better at problem-solving.".....
"The best example of brain-boosting media may be videogames. Mastering visual puzzles is the whole point of the exercise - whether it's the spatial geometry of Tetris, the engineering riddles of Myst, or the urban mapping of Grand Theft Auto. "

From BBC NEWS Article

A video game which aims to teach children about global hunger has been released by the United Nations.

Food Force is the brainchild of the World Food Programme (WFP), which last year fed more than 100 million people.

The UN body seeks to capitalise on the popularity of video games to educate youngsters about hunger and the work of the aid agency.
Written for the PC and Mac, the free game is aimed at eight to 13-year-olds for download at www.food-force.com
Neil Gallagher, WFP's director of communications, said: "Children in the developed world don't know what it's like go to bed threatened by starvation."

Ok, now we're getting somewhere, methinks.

Regarding the thinktank project I'm involved in...and potentials for educational activities on a virtual 'Better World Island', came across something hopeful today. Don't know how many of you are familiar with The Sims ? It's like SecondLife in ways but much more 'game oriented'...you're developing/influencing the artificial life of a character you create by making specific decisions. Very popular game/pasttime given that it is touted as the 'best-selling PC game of all time'.I was looking into this before finding SL, trying to envision how the technology could be used for purposes beyond entertainment.
Personally I like the more open-ended 'game-less' format of SL much better...but when thinking of how to engage minds (especially of the younger generations), 'games' have much of a historical allure.

Now take a look at this incredible educational tool I that takes the basic concept of the Sims to awareness/consciousness raising levels!:

"Real Lives - by Educational Simulations

Experience life as a:

-Peasant farmer in Bangladesh
-Factory worker in Brazil
-Policeman in Nigeria
-Lawyer in the United States
-Computer operator in Poland
or any of thousands more ...

Real Lives is a unique, interactive life sim that enables you to live one of billions of lives in any country in the world. Through statistically accurate events, Real Lives brings to life different cultures, political systems, economic opportunities, personal decisions, health issues, family issues, schooling, jobs, religions, geography, war, peace, and more!"

I think this can be an Amazing tool for schools and interactive learning, don't you?
I wonder about how we might be able to integrate content of this sort into SecondLife.

The wormhole activity is strange. It must have somehow reached backwards through time to my dream 6 years ago (read my last entry if confused), everything between then and now reassembled and I walked out of it here, ready to collaborate on the next step.:


( click here to come through with me )