
Ze Frank’s Star.me Is Like Being In Kindergarten All Over Again - revorad
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/04/star-me/
======
endtime
I hate to be so negative about something so positive, but the only word that
comes to mind is ghastly. I was actually thrown off a bit by the dissonance
between the positive tone of the article and the product being described.

>themed Stars with messages like “UR CRAZY,”"UR CUTE,”
“BFF,”"Frenemy”"Bromance,” and (!) “Mom Jeans.”

I don't think you're going to find too many adults who are really all that
interested in embracing their inner 12-year-old girl.

>Both the actions of giving and receiving Stars cause new and more diverse
stars to be unlocked

The reason games like WoW work, IMO, is because there's enough shininess to
distract you from the TINO (time in, numbers out) nature of the game. If you
distill that down to its core I don't know if people will like what they see.
Kind of like how I'll enjoy broccoli smothered in butter or mixed into a
cheese dip, because it doesn't really taste like broccoli, but eaten plain
it's a chore.

Hey, I'd love to be wrong. I generally want people to succeed, and I'm sure
everyone involved here is a nice person...but I'm not sold.

~~~
njharman
> I don't think you're going to find too many adults who are really all that
> interested in embracing their inner 12-year-old girl

If you look at Ze Frank's many past efforts you will see that is exactly what
he's adept at finding.

------
gyardley
Remember, people - just because it doesn't appeal to the typical reader of
Hacker News, it's not doomed to failure.

There are many, many people out there with preferences different from your
own. I suspect several of my family members would love this.

------
scalyweb
This is the product from someone with a doctorate in neuroscience? So much for
moving the human collective forward. Now I don't feel so bad about the kids
coming out with undergraduate CS degrees feeling like they don't know how to
program.

I don't use Facebook but I do use Twitter. I do love games. What is it in
regards to social networks, games and the idea of positive reinforcement am I
missing with this project?

~~~
revorad
_What.... am I missing with this project?_

Umm, the fact that you haven't seen it yet?

~~~
scalyweb
Is star.me not accessible/visible to you?

~~~
revorad
It is, but I don't have an account yet. Do you?

------
joshu
hooray! i'm glad to see this finally launch. (i'm an investor)

~~~
revorad
Why did you invest?

~~~
joshu
I thought it would be fun to join Ze for the ride.

------
seigenblues
Did any of the haters on this thread watch his TED talks? There's the one
linked to in the article (from 2004), and another one Ze gave last year
(<http://www.zefrank.com/ted/2010.html>).

Having watched "the show" back in the olden days before youtube, i'm convinced
ze is a genius. He's incomprehensible to HN because he really doesn't care
_how_ it works, he only cares about how it's being applied.

It's all about the application of technology to make a human connection for
him. His _only_ metric is the quality of that human connection -- which is
weird to people who care about clean design, or scalability, or neat
javascript "fade" effects.

------
pclark
I wish people on Hacker News would be (much) nicer about peoples startups.

~~~
georgemcbay
I would send you a UR NICE star for this comment but since HN doesn't have
that you'll have to settle for an upvote.

------
gfodor
And so we continue to amuse ourselves to death.

