Girl Talk: TV show-promoting HUD gives gossip a database

Pilot Anatine comes in range of the Miss Thing detector

Depending on your point of view, this could be a fun satire of real world cliques and cattiness-- or just architect all that tear-stained melodrama into a virtual world experience already redolent with it.  To promote the popular TV show "Gossip Girl" in SL, New Worlds Notes partner Millions of Us is introducing a PDA-shaped heads-up display.  This creates a kind of social game experience on top of Second Life, because when you wear it, it detects other avatars in your vicinity, and displays them on the HUD screen-- where you can rate them. 

The HUD actually works, so you can text in gossip about the person, which goes to a central server where everyone can read it.  And from there, you have to assume, the real drama and backbiting begins. 

The project caught my eye not because it comes from MOU, but because it reminded me of Supafly, an innovative cellphone-based game from a few years back which enjoyed enormous popularity among European and Asian mobile owners. 

Using location-based technology, players near each other would flirt/diss/hookup with nearby Supafly subscribers, leading to all kinds of emergent play, since the person who generated the most scandalized gossip won.  It'll be interesting to see if a similar dynamic kicks in, when it's done through avatars hanging out in an SL-based New York made to resemble the show.  Anyway, read more about it at Millions of Us' blog.

Comments

[Reuben]

Hey Hamlet,
I've been spreading all kinds of rumors about you through the HUD. The truth (or at least some version of it) is out. Deal with it. ;-)
R

[Ann]

Hi, can somebody tell me , where can i buy this game? please write to my e-mail