

Fame Game Hopes To Make You Internet Famous for a Day - dclaysmith
http://play-fame.com/

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Karunamon
Really nifty idea. What I'd like to see is an option to not automatically
unfollow the person after the day that you can set on this site - maybe the
person who won that day is really interesting!

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michael_fine
isn't it kind of self sorting though? If you were really interesting, you
probably already would have a lot of followers, and therefore would have no
need to join this sight to get more.

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ceejayoz
Lots of followers more often indicates "good at self-promotion". Most of the
interesting folks I follow have a couple hundred at the most.

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kitsune_
This is the stupidest shit I've ever heard of. Combining humanity's
idiosyncratic desire for fame with a lottery system.

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k0mplex
i love ideas that are polarizing

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sheraz
can you expand on why you do?

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untog
Because it often means that you're onto something. Polarized opinions are, by
definition, extreme, and people that are _really, really_ passionate about
your project are often worth the cost of having the same number of people hate
it.

Obviously there are limits to that idea- if people hate it because they find
it offensive then you might be in trouble. But if they hate it because they
think it's stupid (as here), they'll likely just dismiss it and ignore it.

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sheraz
I'll reply to this by answering my own question:

Because there is no such thing as bad PR. People on the edges of the spectrum
are vocal, and that translates to eyeballs either for the cool factor of the
WTF factor. Either way you win. :-)

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Skywing
Nice. I made this exact same concept almost a year ago, too. It was fun to
code and watch to see who randomly won. These guys definitely have a little
bit better Photoshop skills than I do, though. :) I called mine Crowdwoo.

Here is my post about mine: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2576392> and
my source code for it, <https://github.com/ryancole/crowdwoo.com>

and with a time machine snapshot to see what it looked like:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110708205146/http://crowdwoo.co...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110708205146/http://crowdwoo.com/)

and finally a link to the original idea source, compliments of Dave Winer:
[http://scripting.com/stories/2011/05/15/socialMediaBubblePop...](http://scripting.com/stories/2011/05/15/socialMediaBubblePop.html)

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CrazedGeek
This is pretty awesome! Simple silly question -- if you're already following
the winner before they win, they won't be unfollowed when their day's up,
right?

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geekforbrains
Right, only followers as the result of winning unfollow automatically the next
day.

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ceejayoz
I'd suggest a button on the site along the lines of "I like today's winner,
don't make me unfollow them tomorrow".

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bhartzer
Great idea. Putting a new twist (i.e., twitter) on an old, OLD concept (like
iWannaBeFamous.com started over 10 years ago) is a good thing.

I'd like to see this up to 100,000 or more followers to really give the
featured person some real fame.

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k0mplex
totally. the fun is watching what the winner does

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bhartzer
Next step is to get some media attention for this. Hopefully with media
attention you can get some real celebrities on board, who will tweet about it.

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orta
I think this is a great idea, it adds a little hint of surprise to your
twitter stream.

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__abc
I signed up just to see who gets picked and, if I like what they have to say,
etc.

I know who I know. Finding people who I don't know, that might be interesting,
is becoming difficult.

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kirubakaran
I like the idea. But why unfollow the next day? At least this should be
optional with default set to "don't unfollow".

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ceejayoz
> But why unfollow the next day?

That's the main thing that stops this from being just another of the "sign up
and maybe get lots of followers" scam sites.

You discover a new person each day, but that person's going to have to be
pretty interesting that day to make you remember to follow them tomorrow.

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lifeformed
Cool, idea, but I think it'd work better with longer time periods, like one
drawing per week. Once it loses it's novelty, nobody is going to be gunning to
get the title of "295th play-fame.com winner".

Plus, accumulating a weeks worth of followers seems to be (more than linearly)
a better prize.

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eurleif
>Once it loses it's novelty, nobody is going to be gunning to get the title of
"295th play-fame.com winner".

Novelty or not, the site will keep adding users over those 259 rounds, and all
those followers will have value, even if it's just for a day.

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mhp
This sounds like it's ripe for spammers, and given the recent article on the
Pinterest spammer, and the current winner tweeting about her "lipob fat loss
shots", I don't think it will get any traction. (Or at least it won't be
abused).

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k0mplex
abusers are instantly removed/banned.

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koopajah
Do you need to have a minimum of followers before "trying out" ? To avoid
people submitting a lot of empty profile just to maximize their chance of
being picked up?

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TylerE
Would that really help? If you're going that far couldn't you just make all of
your sockpuppets follow each other?

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koopajah
Hmmm that would not prevent every attemps (someone really motivated could
always game the system) but at least prevent someone losing 30minutes to
creates dummy accounts and easily obtain one of the first fames (when going
with 100 000 users it will be harder). And making fake accounts all following
each other can be detected easily, especially if they all join the lottery

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OzzyB
I have a big soft spot for concepts like this -- bravo!

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spullara
You should really just have everyone follow the @fame account and then retweet
the winners tweets for the day.

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xymostech
... But then they wouldn't have a lot of followers. Then, only @fame would
have a lot of followers.

Note the goal of "YOU'RE NOW PLAYING TO WIN 1,652 FOLLOWERS" not "YOU'RE NOW
PLAYING TO SEND TWEETS TO 1,652 PEOPLE".

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spullara
I'm just telling you that trying to do this with the follow/unfollow API is
likely going to end in tears and that the retweet style will have the same
effect.

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duxup
Silly but it isn't as if mass attention is logically or productively focused.
Why not just go randomly? ;)

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rduchnik
I think it's genius way to get people to follow you, they will rack up
followers with this over time.

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tibbon
That's... cute.

But wouldn't that get a lot of people's accounts banned? If I remember right
(from some time ago) you couldn't follow/unfollow too many people all the
time, or you'd get banned.

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k0mplex
you only follow 1 person/day, and then unfollow 1 person/day. no technical
issues w/API.

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tibbon
Oh, right. For some reason I was conceptualizing it as following and
unfollowing much more than that. You're completely right. Duh :)

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loceng
I like this. Has potential. Good luck. :)

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jonbro
you have to email them to remove yourself? Really? It seems like you could
have some type of removal thing.

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chaz
Sounds like MVP. I would check again in a few days.

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wiradikusuma
How to make sure everyone plays fairly? E.g. I can cut the ties once I'm
famous.

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k0mplex
I think the actual fun in the game will be watching people freak out when they
win. I don't really care if I win, but I will enjoy watching random people do
unusual things with their fame

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dfriedmn
genius strikes again!

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paraschopra
Why, god, I ask Why?

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k0mplex
that reaction is why

