RocketOn: what fresh hell is this?
What could be more fun than browsing your favorite sites? Why, browsing your favorite sites while directing a funky-looking avatar to parade around and do your bidding, of course. Unlike PMOG, where your experience is backgrounded until you stumble upon mines or loot (but requires a Firefox extension to work), RocketOn figures it'll be a lot more fun to disrupt your browsing with some crudely animated avatars overlaid on top of whatever page you're on. They do this in much the same way Gabbly works, by intercepting the page and overlaying the content on top. Essentially, you're seeing a browser in a browser.We weren't particularly impressed with RocketOn, however. While the tech works well enough, is there really a desire to put an avatar on pages? It completely interrupts the experience and adds practically nothing that you can't get from a service like Gabbly, save the rather lame avatars. The avatars themselves aren't very customizable out of the box, although apparently you're supposed to hang out on the bare pages of RocketOn to "earn" more stuff. Pets, clothes, the usual crap you get thrown at you on Facebook. Ultimately this looks like a nice tech demo that is just a complete waste of time. Or maybe we're missing the point.
[via TechCrunch]
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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rocketboy said 11:23AM on 6-26-2008
Darn, it's in closed alpha already...
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Ryan said 7:00PM on 6-26-2008
It would be pretty good if they could use this technology for IM'ing - no more Alt-Tabbing to Digsby, or Ctrl+Tabbing to Gmail.com when someone says something - it just comes up in their avatars speech bubble. The avatars would presumably move at a point away from your cursor in case you want to keep your attention on the current page though.
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Jan Reed said 3:00PM on 6-27-2008
Victor, you just don't get it. But you're a guy. Us women love to chat online. We're the ones using Habbo and Gaia and all that fun stuff.
This looks really amazing! I'd love to take my avatar all over the web and chat with my friends. That's so cool!
But whatever... I just think you're a tech guy and don't understand the fun of this sort of thing.
That said, you're a smart guy... so may it's just a gal thing.
JR
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bubbagump00 said 4:36PM on 6-27-2008
What the world needs are innovators and disruptors, not conformers.
I’ve been away from home and my dad told me about rocketon. I got into the alpha, chatted with my dad and we went around the internet together, looked at some family photos and a new tractor that he's drooling over on some site. I haven’t seen my dad in a while and it was fun to go on this trip with him. Then my mom got on and she showed me what she was going to buy my dad on amazon for his b-day. I thought it was really powerful to be able to do that.
I’ve got millions of social network friends, yet I don’t really know any of them. For some reason, they are compelled to update me on everything in their lives, as if this is meaningful or useful. I don’t care. My “real” friends don’t do that so why do my virtual ones do it? And then there’s twitterfication – my gf tells me everything she is doing. I don’t care BUT I have to waste time by reading and replying.
I found it empowering to invite others to visit my facebook page, then have them show up right on top of my profile. It wasn’t fun when they started mocking me but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that I was able to bring users to my page and interact with them over my content. That is revolutionary. And, unlike all of the sites that tout user generated content, for rocketon the user-generated content can be whats already on the web.
There is a place for social networks, virtual worlds, twitters – and rocketon too. At least rocketon is fun.
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gta_wizzard said 3:31AM on 7-16-2008
"...is there really a desire to put an avatar on pages? It completely interrupts the experience..."
30% of the visual space on this page is covered with absolute crap that 99% of visitors never click on. Hence, your site is ~30% is passively disruptive.
Do we need to accept that this is the way of the world or can we think differently? Maybe an evolution will be pioneered by rocketon, maybe it won't. But I respect and applaud their totally unique approach.
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Jason said 7:35PM on 7-16-2008
There seems to be a lot of negative and positive opinions about the concept of virtual worlds. Yet, after watching the growth of Second Life, it seems that these worlds have tons of potential. To be honest, I don't know if I would personally would be interested in getting involved in this virtual reality, but I guess there are many people out there who love it. Although this company may not add "practical" use to browsing, it seems like it is adding something very different and fun, which you can control on your own accord. The ability to turn the application on and off may really motivate more people to try this out. Creative idea.
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