Caleb Booker

I tripped across this IMVU-type service via Alice’s DEL.ICIO.US links. It’s called mEgo, and it’s a fancy-dancy avatar you can put wherever.

An avatar you can’t walk around, interact with, or otherwise do anything with… sounds like… a picture.

IMVU is doing great, and mEgo looks nice and flashy and will undoubtedly do even better as you can implant all sorts of crazy extra personal details in it. I kind of think the whole thing is stupid, but that’s exactly why I went ahead and made one. Eric Rice gave some advice once that really had an impact on me: if you don’t get a Web 2.0 application, use it. Use the hell out of it. Become a fanatical guru in that application.

At first I didn’t get it. Why the hell would I do that?

This was around the time everybody was going on about Twitter as the Next Big Thing, and I was looking at it and thinking “god this is stupid. Why waste my time?” So I took his advice. Now I can’t imagine NOT having Twitter.

So that’s the first cliché: you never know until you try it.

I was also thinking of this advice back when I was trying out vSide. Don’t get me wrong, I never thought vSide was lame. It was the option of having that stupid little photo of your av with the distracting animation on your blog. Guys, the animated gif went out with the dinosaurs and we’re all happy about it!

Still, in the spirit of trying new things, I put the little avatar with the rotating ads on my blog. It’s driven me crazy ever since. I’ve pulled it off.

That brings me to cliché number two: if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

So I’m going to take this mEgo thingamajig and stick it on my “About” page. I’m going to fill it out over time, and sooner or later I’m going to figure out what the hell the attraction is.

Of course, now that I think about it, I’m not sure I could define what the attraction is behind Twitter. I’m screwed, aren’t I?

Posted on September 19th, 2007 under art, hype. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.