Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Does the world need YET ANOTHER SOCIAL MEDIA SPACE?

Let's seeeee...is there a food app yet?  Like, at the minimum it should let users send the question: have you eaten, you don chop, etc etc in the applicable dialect, and then it should let users send their answer.

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.




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.
For example,
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...
And new social media don't have to be words alone, or pictures alone, or emoji, memes and videos, right?  I don't know, maybe use some VR, AI, audio, video, AR, modern thing.  Right?

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.


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.   

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.
That maybe it's not about creating the next facebook or Meetup or Yo or hi5, but about creating your own social media "application" on top of existing social media and apps.
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.
Let's say you want to be the class social prefect for the term/semester.  Or you want to be the street resident association chairperson with your team or your husband/wife or contest individually.  Or you are ready for a job promotion this year.  Or you want to start a club to do weekly beach cleanups or raise funds for helping someone else or something.  Or you want support and sponsorship to travel for a singing competition.  Or you and your friends are pretty and rich and employed and good and want to get married :D  Or you want to manage an Itsekiri-in-diaspora cultural event.  Or you want votes for your business to get an award...

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?
It's one of those face-match things - you take a picture and it matches your face to one of the existing faces in their museum art database.

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.
Birds are prettily-coloured, and some pictures are just begging for this treatment anyway.
Really a lot of cool things can develop from letting AI match photos to similar photos.
Photos of things around you into photos of things far away, and imaginary non-realities and movies and experiences created out of that.  Videos too.  All forms.
One great thing about the birdie app is it's not about your face, your weight, your race, your skin, or anything like that - it's about fun, fashion, colours, poses, and... birds?
(Then I asked an expert and she said I have it wrong in that in fact people are vain and just want to see their own selves not some birds no matter how pretty or: "fashion is about narcissism" )
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.
While the art-minded try it out for their fascinating bird-match -
hahaha, what bird do I look like if I wear this and pose like this -
the more clothes-minded might model clothes that match with a given pic, like a bird pic, iconic fashion pic, something like that
Actually, not just pics, there could be like gait, walking, acting, involved
...like,
everybody does the penguin challenge one day and submits media in which they mimic the penguin,
 or the kissing flamingos challenge with lots of pink, 
"I've gotta kiss myself - I'm so pretty...I'm too hot!" 
or the Madonna dress-alike World Championships that is like a whole show with many levels, maybe this is level five: 
  
So it's not actually the birdie app anymore, it's the Dress Like (A Bird) Challenge.  A.I. might be nice for matching to one of many bird photos, but it might not be so good for matching the other way.  Worth testing, but it could be annoying if it seems not to understand things and then scores people badly for silly reasons.  Ok.
I know that Nigerian women are ready to slay in any fashion-related contest.  Let's not tell anybody yet though.  I pity the fool who tries to compete :D  :D  :D
In fact, just Naija men alone will finish the competition.  Hehehehe. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

#Collabo with #oyinbo :: check out all these movers and shakers at twitter










Just like Jack, I'll be back! 

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Friday, November 01, 2019

Nna, no dey chop alone


If I chop
then you chop
yeah, that's what's up
- Bon Apetit by Shakez


 Man Dey Hustle
by Ahkan (Ruff N Smooth) ft. DJ Vyrusky & Sheddy
Shout out to the guy who dey help him padi...they no dey think before giving money ;-) 


Wizboyy's 'Chop I Chop'


The old 'Chop I Chop' from NTA days was by Etiene T. Boy.
I can't find the video online, yet.

My sister, my brother, you don chop?  Show the evidence.

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Previously on UpNaira

 

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