Even though I have never played Scrabble on Facebook, it is one of my favorite board games. Last week, it suddenly disappeared from everyone’s favorite social networking site, Facebook. The game was created by Facebook, entitled Scarbulous and obviously an interpretation of the sixty year old board game. This brings about the blur of ownership rights on the internet. When is it okay to steal, copy, or reproduce in face to face communication? Are those guidelines the same on the internet? What was interesting to me is that the game can still be played on a Scrabulous website but not on Facebook. I know that Facebook did use the application and therefore was sued but why is it allowed to produce revenue for the Scrabulous creator on another website? Is it because it is not bringing in as much money on its’ own? The rules, laws, and even norms are just so gray online sometimes. Facebook has another Scrabble application that was created by Hasbro, the owners of the game but users do not find it as fun.
It is so weird to even think that Facebook began as a regular, basic social network. With an application, bumper sticker, and game for just about every person out there, Facebook has become a huge phenomenon that has exploded in the last few years. The article I read said that a half of a million people logged on to this Scrabulous game every single day. How do people have so much time to play games on a social networking site? Are half of that half million people at work while they log on to play imitation Scrabble? It is so ironic that all of these games and applications are fun and addictive but still aim to communicate with other people in the network. Facebook creators and designers are smart.
5 comments:
I agree Kristen, these people who are running Facebook are very smart. They know exactly what to do in order to ensure that people continue to log in each day. They make all these cool applications that suck people right in such as the "Flair" application. I know that I have sat before looking for the perfect piece of flair to send a friend and even while I'm doing it, I sometimes think to myself, "Wait why am I sitting here wasting my time like this?" Then I usually shut down the application and force myself to log out of Facebook. So I myself have fallen as a victim to their mind games!
I also agree that Facebook creators did a great job with the site. However, I feel all of these applications create a form of addiction that we were beginning to talk about. They provide their users with applications that continue to attract attention and desire from users. They play off of things that interest from common age group of users. I also wonder what they will be putting into the applications section next.
So I know that I myself I played the Scrabulous game on Facebook. However, I havn't played it in months, but its so easy to imagine all the people out there wasting time on playing this game.
You're right, people are probably playing this game at work, or somewhere else when they are not supposed to be playing games on the computer. It is almost an addiction, because they keep coming back to it.
And it does suck people in. I can spend hours looking at Bumper Stickers, whenever it is actually working. Whoever works for Facebook makes it very hard not to become addicted to something on the website.
What a way to attract a bigger social networking audience. It's interesting how a game like scrabble has done that. But of course we must think about the various groups that make applications their primary reason for even going on facebook. I personally am not the application type, but at the same I can understand why people are so fascinated with them.
Social networking has really started to play a prevelant role in people's lives and I agree that the designers of facebook are pretty smart people. Facebook is a widening and profitable market, due to people's dependency on it. I, myself, have never played Scrabulous, but it must of become a routine part of people's lives if half a million people use it daily.
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