Some notes about possibilities for this app:
Say I'm a school-feeding program or a donor organization, I want to check to see that the population has actually been fed.
Say I'm an NGO providing such services, I want to partly automate my monitoring-and-evaluation using an app.
Say I'm a grandparent, I want to do something nice with my phone/tech like send a message to the family every time I think about them, and to get a message back.
my abuela is like a damn food detective. it's not just "Have you eaten?" It's, "What time did you eat?" "What did you eat?" "I didn't see you eat?" "There's no dishes in the sink?" "Your story isn't lining up."— madampanhandler (@madampanhandler) December 22, 2017
what part of my constant “have you eaten” do u not get??? i am in love with youuu— I like you that’s why i (@Mayowathefirst) November 26, 2019
Software is so easily abused, like we have seen with existing social media that becomes toxic in many ways, but hopefully the next generation of electronic chat-chat-chat things will apply the learnings from the existing ones.
some people don't even really want to chat. But they can reply with photos of their mealtime.
And some people don't really want to be bothered to take photos. But they can send cartoon pictures of the things they've eaten.
Yum. I really like food.
It's hard to find clip-art-quality food pictures online - would you believe?
It's mostly burger, hotdog, dough-nut, foreign food.
That's a job, or many jobs, a mini-industry, creating locally relevant pictures, vids, gifs and cartoon-drawings, of locally relevant foods...
Do you ever wonder why people in Silicon Valley (USA) keep coming up with app ideas for tindr, grindr, and so on, and when you say ok it has to be a food app, they come up with restaurant table pre-booking apps and maybe delivery? And it's like they're never going to think of an app for bread, beans, mango, because that stuff is like not what they're thinking about, at all.
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Well, food alone takes up over 50% of household incomes in some parts of the world ;) ;)
...while others can't spend more than 5% before they run into problems.
Like doctor, doctor, help me - problems.
Then the doctor tells you to cut down the carbs, or the fat, or red meat, or you start to eat natural healthy, vegan, pescatarian and all that stuff. And start to starve yourself or drink cleanses or run marathons.
Today The Food Friends are running the Amsterdam Marathon. Tomorrow our very last funnyfooddrawing! What Food would you like to see? Any requests? #365funnyfoodfestival #food #marathon #dailydrawing #illustration #studiolimon #amsterdam #haarlem #denbosc… https://t.co/YnFW5s0fox pic.twitter.com/ejlxqTBcyJ— Francis Kousemaker (@francisliem) October 21, 2018
It really has to be said that food is so important.
And that just because some people and countries have food to eat and all that doesn't mean that people in other places aren't hustling JUST TO EAT. and pay school fees. Lol. Food and school fees. And then you're old.
Are we even on the same planet? #iwonder.
So,
where were we?
A food app, simple and sweet like the yo app, maybe for the phone and I can even envision an audio-based service (especially as in many places we just eat the same two things or five things over and over lol), some standard ways of asking and responding and some more over-the-top and creative ways of using the same app, and maybe all kinds of people want to use it as well, including students and restaurants and celebrities and presidents.
That's another thing about social media,
maybe like the food app should not be about individuals. Because in real life most people's food and eating happens in groups. The school-lunch in your class. The breakfast table before school. The hospital cafeteria. Your work crew that likes to eat together at break-time. You and your boo that love eating out. You feeding your infant (but you can't differentiate between you and baby because love got you feeling crazy and so as long as baby has eaten, you have won.)
So, while individuals "maybe" exist, I think social media can be more social if it recognizes that some things happen in rather fixed groups and sometimes we want to let other people speak for us while we reserve the option of speaking for ourselves and for others.
It's hard to start because one starts to think of all the problems:
Gangs and nefarious activity have really been issues on social media and now you're solidifying the idea of groups.
On the other hand, one-on-one bullying and harassment would be less a problem if it's just your class social captain or class teacher managing the social, and so users are not personalizing things.
Also how does this app not inadvertently become, uh, shall we say, sex education?
Also, how does one even start to create an app - the technical, the social considerations and all that?
Does it have to be a separate social media platform or just a layer on top of more bedrock apps - for example just adding food emojis and food-related questions on WhatsApp?
Good point.
And the existing apps like facebook would facilitate that by ... well, I checked the news, and they're on it. And facilitate that by...making it easier for people to create things that make their own thing more relevant. Also, making it easier to make apps - like give out a template for some types of apps just like blogger and wordpress give templates for blogs.
---- o ----
This blog post is like a whole book, y'all, drink some water.
Ok, Part Two:
Here's another cool social media layer or social media space or social media idea. It's a little bit about popularity, but not entirely so. It's a little bit about self-expression, but talk is cheap. So, it's also a little bit about civic engagement and social responsibility. Code-named "Why me?" it lets you campaign for things.
In this app you can freely and safely express:
- what you want to do or get done and when or why or how...
- why you, why you, why you, show off, list your accomplishments or qualifications, tell your own story, create your own biography, collect testimonials...
- be socially social - include a team and do things as teams, commit to doing something very important for others which is the main point, select all the relevant people and groups to join in your mission, ask them to vote or assign them other tasks or request their help if you need it...
- run a campaign, run an election (election runner app), count votes, get winners,
- share progress, stay in touch...
- have fun.
- get used to elections, so that you can more easily see yourself becoming a senator, a diplomat, a manager, and a CEO.
And here is
Part Three:
Did you like the art-selfie thing?
The same technology can do more things, and I'm proposing a birdie app looool, it takes in fashion photos and matches them to some spectacularly vivid photographs of birds.
which is a shame I guess :-)
and which leads me to an even better product, one that matches one way, from fashion to bird, or the other way, from bird to fashion.
hahaha, what bird do I look like if I wear this and pose like this -
...like,
everybody does the penguin challenge one day and submits media in which they mimic the penguin,
 |
| "I've gotta kiss myself - I'm so pretty...I'm too hot!" |
In fact, just Naija men alone will finish the competition. Hehehehe.
