Back in 2007, we put out two April Fools' Day posts chronicling fake and absurd start-ups. One was a Google Maps mashup for rodent sightings in New York restaurants. The other was a prenatal version of Twitter where unborn children could post status updates. A few readers took the bait in the comment sections, but it appears our ideas weren't so far off, as both have come to fruition just a year and a half later.
The first is, true-to-form, a maps mashup where New York City residents can see where local eateries have had rat-related health code violations. The site was launched in late October by New York City health officials as a way for users to help police local businesses and feed data for scientific research.
The Rat Information Portal's map lets you browse by borough to see where there have been high inspection and infestation rates of rats. Yum.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The maps portion of the site isn't as easy to use as a Google Map, but it does a fine job at letting you filter the data to show all sorts of juicy tidbits, like which places had the most follow-up inspections and how far gone infestations were in each part of town. The data goes all the way back to 2006. Consider it yet another thing to check about your new neighborhood before taking the plunge on that new apartment.
Our other fake start-up, called UltraSoundd, was based around the idea of taking sound from unborn babies and converting it into status updates. In our implementation, this involved sticking a telephone to your stomach and using dial-up Internet. Designer Corey Menscher has come up with a far more ingenious plan however, by creating a sensor belt that will automatically convert any baby movements into Twitter status updates such as this one:
Your baby kicks--you get a Tweet. All courtesy of Corey Menscher's Kickbee belt.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Menscher calls it the "Kickbee," and in its current implementation it looks like a weight belt with a bunch of wires hanging off it. Within its folds is an array of sensors, a microcontroller and Bluetooth transmitter to send everything off to a nearby laptop. So far it has been tracking kicks and sending them to Twitter since early this month. You can find the entire project page for it, along with Menscher's other works here.
A game on Facebook's platform called "PackRat" has been causing some issues for the site, according to a thread in the game's discussion forum.
The aim of PackRat appears to involve amassing graphical "cards" to chalk up points--sort of like the original Pokemon game, some cards are easy and common while others are rare. One of the ways to get new cards is by "stealing" them from friends, so having a huge network of friends who are also playing the game gives PackRat players a big advantage. Reading on in the forum, it looks like one PackRat strategy involves "friending" and "defriending" people frequently so that players can allow and block access to one another's cards. Others appear to have set up accounts strictly to play PackRat. This has apparently sent Facebook into damage control mode.
Several PackRat players say they have received account deletion notifications, and one was posted to the PackRat forum. "Please note that Facebook accounts are meant for authentic usage only," the e-mail read. "This means that we expect accounts to reflect mainly 'real-world' contacts (i.e. your family, schoolmates, co-workers, etc.), rather than mainly 'Internet-only' contacts."
Facebook could've smelled a rat (pun completely intended) if an account had an unusual level of activity when it came to adding and removing friends, as well as little else going on besides the PackRat application. It's also possible that individual PackRat members have set up multiple accounts for more effective gameplay.
The e-mail continued: "As stated on our home page, Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you, not a 'social networking site.' It is meant to help reinforce pre-existing social connections, not build large groups of new ones."
In other words: Facebook considers a game that encourages friend-list manipulation as strategy to be perverting the idea of the "social graph," a concept that CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds dear. Facebook doesn't want to be rival MySpace, which not only encourages the formation of new connections but which birthed a legitimate C-list celebrity in Tila Tequila--who became famous for having more MySpace friends than any other member and wound up with a dating show on MTV."
This revelation is not news, despite what a recent flurry of activity on Techmeme might have you think. Facebook has always banned "fake" profiles and has reportedly also taken action against "serial adders" (site members who simply try to fill huge friends lists, typically by adding attractive people) if other users report their accounts. Executives also are very careful not to call the site a "social network" when speaking publicly, as though it comes with negative connotations.
The e-mail ended: "If this is in direct contrast to what you expected as legitimate Facebook usage, I apologize for any confusion. This is simply the intention behind the site."
But it's an awkward move for Facebook to make, because there simply isn't a way to prove that everyone with an account on the site is "real-life friends" with everyone on their friends lists. I'm pretty sure Robert Scoble hasn't met all of the 5,000 people he famously has on his Facebook contacts roster, for example.
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