Cheongy

I woke up this morning to find a glorious $2.50 worth of Facebook credits on my Facebook account.  Sweeeeet….

With an active user base of 235 million global monthly users - Social Gaming is forecasted to earn $400 Million in 2010. The  purchase of virtual currency (c. 1.6 billion sold in 2010) as  the revenue stream for these companies. (ref)

As Facebook becomes further engrained in our lifes, there have been talks that it should be come regulated (mmmm very serious stuff) – However with the presence of my $2.50 – I feel the dynamics of my relationship changing with Facebook.  Changing from a social network, to a … gaming platform?  Let me explain. continue reading…

Quite an eventful week this week.

• Thursday – Media Awards
  Stellar effort by James Green and Josiah Amartey bringing home the ‘Best use of Affilliate Marketing’ for their work on HMV
• Friday – BBC Track Day
  Spent the with Top Gear crew and Stig, putting a Lotus Exige, and a Elise around the Dunsfield Aerodrome track – Videos to follow of my horrendous driving effort.
• Saturday – Serpentine in Hyde Park
  continue reading…

This digital/internet fascination started with my first modem – a 14400 silicon beast that would sit on top my parents revolutionary 386 machine… I wasn’t born of the internet age – I was born of the BBS (Bulletin Board Service) era – where micro networks would exist on Locally hosted computers, and you would need to dial in via modem in order to access them… As an 8 year old child, my experimentation with nick names would go as far as to remove an ‘x’ from my name – hence on these local bulletin board services I would be known as Ale ‘Sobre in the Making’ (In hindsight… did I need a slogan… possibly not, do I feel slightly embarrassed that I had one…. yes, and was I fat? yes…). Anyway I’m moving off topic…my point is… it was fairly easy to get a nick name and own an identity in my childhood, Especially when I was only dealing with a micro % of the population (uber nerds) who would convene on one BBS system – which normally averaged round a user base of 200… Now… I have a different problem…

There are (as of todays blog post) – 145 Alex Cheongs who have are connected via facebook… and as I have grown out of using nick names (wokboy, mywok69, Ale) it would appear that I’m in a constant struggle/race to beat my other Alex Cheong dopplegangers from securing my name on the latest greatest service…(Gmail, Facespace, Foursquare, etc). Generally I’m losing… Not to mention – there is one Alex Cheong out there who is far more savy… and has SEO’d my name… Time to get back in the game I think (Shameless Insertion of a Keyword – Alex Cheong).

It was announced this year that Facebook had grown larger in terms of usage than Google – this would suggest to me that the Internet is becoming less about data and more about connections, and identity. Is there space for 145 Alex Cheongs in this new digital world of connectivity? Will I eventually push back against the masses (of Me’s) and migrate back to my roots – smaller, niche communities where I can be myself again, and not one of a 145 Alex Cheongs?

I’ll finish this blog post with a quote from Highlander…

‘There can be only one….’

Currently watching Whiteout, its the opening scene, and Kate is currently in the shower. Probably one of the most unnecessary, but necessary scenes in any great Hollywood movie… I can see today is going to be a productive day…. any who its week one of my new year resolutions, and as usual I’ve managed to remember the exact same list of resolutions I’ve had since the 90′s – so lets recap…

• Get Fit
• Drink Less
• Change something in my life

Glorious – its going to be a great year! Its all going quite well, if I don’t say so myself – January being the month of detox I managed to not drink a drop of alcohol this week (even during my birthday). Given that December was probably the booziest month in my life -this is quite an achievement.

I suppose its all going quite well – I’ve started a blog, I’ve planned some trips, and I”ll be jumping out of the sky in less then 3 weeks (fingers crossed) – so its all onwards an upwards.

Fantastic !