Changes to missions on Empire Avenue

A couple of days ago there were some changes to the way missions work in Empire Avenue. I cannot speak to this from the perspective of giving missions, since I am not able to do so yet. However, from the perspective of someone taking on missions the changes have shown to be interesting.

Before the changes, I was only notified of missions given by people who I have invested in, i.e. I am a shareholder of them. Especially for new participants, it is very difficult to know who give missions. Maybe there are some tips in the discussion boards, however, I never had the time to really look for that.

Now, I am notificed of all missions. If I am not a shareholder, I have to first buy at least one share, before I can accept a mission. The result is, that it is a lot easier for a new participant to add to the daily income from the investments. I believe this has the potential to make the playing field a little more even between long time participants and new participants.

However, I have also noticed another effect. Due to the fact that I invest in people that provide missions, I find good people to invest in, when I look later at their profiles. Not only this, often they invest in me, the fact that I participate in a mission allows me to find new investors.

So while the game has become more frenzic and more demanding, it has certainly won some appeal with this change.

Pinterest

A new social media site has popped up called Pinterest. The concept is to be able to pin photos (images) or videos on different pin boards. With a bookmarked javascript function, it is possible to just pin anything that is found while serving on one’s own board.

The social component is provided by being able to follow friends and the ability to “re-pin” someone’s pined object on its own board. The attribution from where it was re-pinned from is automatically added.

The interface still seem to need some work, some minor things seem to not work properly, or maybe could be better. However, I guess this is to be expected from a new site.

Tablets, #Cloud Computing and #SemanticWeb Will Change How Organizations Do Business

Tablets, #Cloud Computing and #SemanticWeb Will Change How Organizations Do Business.

What is the new facebook cover for?

Ok I have create and added a facebook cover now:

And it looks quite nice. However, what the heck is it for?

It takes up a lot of real estate in the browser view with a big screen laptop. Even worse with a netbook or a mobile device. However, I have not found any way to introduce interactivity for the user with my cover. Without it, it is useless.

Furthermore, how many times does someone look at this page of another user? I do most of my facebook interaction from the facebook homepage using my newsfeed and the ticker.

Does anybody have any suggestion how the cover and the timeline make sense?

Added cover to my facebook profile

After enabling the new timeline feature in facebook, I had to create a new cover to make it look nice. I have played a little around with it, and hopefully it does not look too bad. However, it would be really useful if it would be possible to place objects on the image such that there is some user activity. Otherwise it seems just like a bit of a wasted space.