These are the Gowalla Rules I play by, my official Gowalla guidelines. Gowalla is like Lego used to be—it’s a tool without any rules. The Gowalla site doesn’t really explain HOW or WHY you use it, or even WHAT it’s for. They just tell you to get an account and start playing. But I like a little more guidance.
If you follow my Twitter feed or you’ve gone anywhere with me recently, you know I’m kind of taken by this iPhone app called Gowalla. It’s a game that encourages you to explore the real world, and I think it’s an example of a brand new category of games that link your actual location to some sort of a game world.
My sister just called and left me a voicemail telling me we pretty much made her Christmas. We’re heading home to Calgary for the holidays, where my Mom, and 66% of my sisters, will be hanging out, drinking egg nog and talking about cats.
“I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and my mother was instrumental in keeping me from being so. ... She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us. What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain—it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.”
After over a decade of user testing, it is clear that the way we search the web is similar to the way we would search our home for valuables as it was burning to the ground. Frantically.
“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value ... The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)