What Makes This Appealing?

So; what makes SCVNGR so appealing? We’re all pretty bombarded with applications for our smart phone(s) — especially with the hottest trend being the geolocation market. The biggest difference that I see between SCVNGR and the two current trend setters (Foursquare and Gowalla) is (1) the user interface and (2) how long it keeps me looking at the app. The interface is very clean and I find it much faster than Foursquare. Granted one can argue that the current speed is due to its lack of users, thus not a heavily burdened network.

As is the default – It integrates with Facebook and Twitter and makes it easy to see what you’re Facebook friends have checked into under the “Friends Feed” section. I’ve been using it for a number of weeks and I’m very happy with it. It’s using Google Places to pull the venues. That’s a plus for me, I’m still not comfortable with Facebook hosting that kind of data.

What’s Wrong with It?

I did notice, while cruising the Places screen for more friends, that I was able to view the activities of total strangers. It looks like sharing is totally open out-of-the-box. If you go into the Settings menu, you can change it to only share with your friends. Besides THAT the only thing wrong with SCVNGR is that my friends don’t know about it. It’s hard enough for me to get my immediate circle of friends into geolocation, but to have them switch to another app after finally getting them into Foursquare is going to be challenging.

Features

Once you load the application there are a couple of features accessible from the home screen: Friend’s Feed, Profile, Friends, Badges, Places, Rewards, Treks, and Social Map. There’s also a notification bar at the very bottom of the home screen.

Friend’s Feed

SCVNGR interface displaying the Friend Feed's screen.

The Friend’s Feed is pretty self explanatory, it displays a list of your friend’s check-ins. It has two tabs: Recent and Popular. To be honest I’m not sure what the criteria is for a check-in to be “popular.” The neat thing about the Recent tab is it mixes both your SCVNGR and Facebook friends. You can’t interact with the FB feed, but it’s at least nice to see where your closest buddies are.

Profile

This section really doesn’t have anything special compared to other geolocation application. It’s more or less a dashboard of how many points you have, challenges you’ve done, places you’ve visited, how many badges you’ve acquired, and how many friends you have. Your avatar is pretty big so if you really like looking at yourself, they built a function to satisfy that craving.

Friends

The Friends screen has three tabs: Find, All friends, and Leaderboard. The Friends feature is where you can expand your friend’s list by finding people in your Facebook circle that have linked their accounts to SCVNGR. You can also do a simple search for a user or invite friends by allowing the app to post a message through other social media applications you may have installed on your phone. The Leaderboard screen is where the competitive nature of a person comes out to play. Once you have a couple of friends to play with you can then compare how many points/challenges you’ve acquired. It doesn’t reset every week like Foursquare, it’s simply an overall score. So; you can be at a slight disadvantage if you friend someone that has been heavily using SCVNGR.

Badges

If you’re familiar with social media apps, badges is an aspect that these companies/apps use to exploit our loyal and competitive nature. These badges are acquired after reaching a certain status or completing a number of challenges. These badges are drawn nice so they are easy-on-the-eyes. This screen will list all the badges you’ve acquired in a four-column fashion. You can click on individual badges to get a little more detail as to what the badge is about and when you received it. My only issue with this feature is the irony that the app supports a good amount of text in order to explain what the badge is about, but the actual explanation of the badge is vague and confusing. There are many badges that I’m still unclear WHY I’ve acquired them.

Places

This is the meat and potatoes of the application. This screen will initially load all venues within your intimidate area. If a venue doesn’t show up you can do a search to add it.

Make sure you use propercase before submitting a search. If the system doesn’t find that venue it will use your submission as the entry name.

When you choose a venue to check-in to that screen has three tabs: Challenges, Activity, and Info. The default challenges with every venue is: check-in, social check-in, say something, and snap a picture. Each challenge has a certain amount of points associated with it. The social check-in is a pretty cool challenge. You and another SCVNGR user can bump phones to get twice as many points for that check-in. The more challenges you do, the more points you acquire. Once you’ve gained a certain amount of points you can then add your own challenges. I’m not sure why, but I have yet to create a challenge for the available venues. My creativity on creating challenges has proven to be limited. :-/

Rewards

The Rewards screen has two tabs: My Rewards and Nearby. This feature incorporates the growing Groupon-inspired trend of offering discounts from vendors. I haven’t tried this feature, so I can only theorize how it actually works.

Treks

This feature I believe was inspired from Gowalla’s Trips. For example the “Best of Atlanta” trek lists 8 challenges for you to complete. Once you visit one of the venues in the list, such as Georgia Aquarium, the trek challenge is to click on “Fish Face”. This particular challenge is to impersonate a fish and take a picture of your ugly mug doing it. Stuff like that is pretty cool and will certainly keep you motivated to explore.

Social Map

I was very excited when I saw this feature. It reminded me of a third-party web site a friend took me to in order to see a visual history of his Foursquare check-ins. The Social Map screen displays a map, most likely powered by Google Maps with pins of avatars showing recent activities, maximum of up to 24 hours. I can see that it shows both mine and friends’ activities. It’s got a bug or two once you start sliding that time line around and zooming in and out of the map, but it’s got a lot of potential.

Other Reviews

Initially I didn’t plan to write a detailed review of this app. I had a real hard time finding a significant Android post so I filled the gap. Below are other blog posts I found that might give you another aspect of this very intriguing app. You can find my SCVNGR profile at the following link — www.scvngr.com/fergatron — let’s stalk each other, it’ll be fun.

• SCVNGR Review – Could This Be the Foursquare of Real Estate [Tech Savvy Agent] – Video, focuses on iPhone
• SCVNGR: A check-in app with a fun twist [Android and Me]
• SCVNGR Launches Sophisticated Rewards Program [Mashable]

I’ve been meaning to get this analogy off my chest. That feeling has become more apparent when I try to explain this concept to my friends. My very first experience of the Internet was through American Online. I must have been 15 years old, living in my parents house, and not having very much money. My brother and I would spend hours on AOL surfing the web and playing mechwarrior within the safe restraints of the AOL application. “You Got Mail” would ring ever-so-often and we’d chat it up with our other cellmates in various child-predator-rooms chatrooms. It wasn’t until a coworker at Walgreens started referring to AOL as “the Play-play Internet” that I realized that I may have been in a Matrix and didn’t know it.

After some weeks of getting hackled about being on AOL, I started to ask him questions on what his internet experience was like. He told me that he connected to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP), opened Internet Explorer and went to town. I thought to myself, “That’s it!?” I tackled with the concept of using an email client, instant messengers, IRC chatrooms, and other things that didn’t come in some sort of bundled package. Well; I had enough knowledge to realize that AOL was NOT the route for me and convinced my dad to switch to Bellsouth. Till this day I’m not sure how I was able to convince him. Some little teenager whining about the restrictions of AOL verses the freedom of a real ISP.

How Does This Relate to Facebook

I’m glad you asked that question… I started out my social media adventure through Twitter, Identica, MySpace, etc. When Facebook finally opened up to the rest of the world I joined in, but didn’t really do anything with it. When Facebook picked up more interest from the world I noticed an increase in friend requests from my old high school friends. I began to chat with them and fell into the cycle of having one or two intense conversation and then the rest of the time just glancing at their latest status update and gaming spam.

Later on as my activity in Facebook diminished, I noticed that my news feed became more of a sermon from Sunday Chapel as more of my friends that found religion felt it to be their civic responsibility to encourage their followers with words of encouragement using the Word of God. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an active or lazy (agnostic) atheist, but after a while I got real burned out with skipping those posts.

Seriously! How Does This Relate to Facebook!?

The more I’d start cross-posting from the various social media platforms I’m apart of (Ping, Seesmic, etc) I noticed that the replies I got from my Facebook friends could be categorized as social media noobs. Then I started seeing people putting hash tags in their posts and other twitter-related things. I found it cute.

I then noticed that if I wanted to get a comment or response on something I posted, I’d have better luck posting it on Facebook since most of the people in my friend’s list actually know me, compared to Twitter which consists of more Internet Friends. From those experiences I drew the conclusion that Facebook is a box, a social media Matrix of sorts. It’s safe and simple enough for grandma to join the social media revolution and it gives the user the impression that they are up-to-snuff on what’s hip and trendy in the vast, ever-changing world of social media (wow! that was a run-on sentence).

In the end; I don’t think I’m a social media expert by any means. Obviously; if I was truly THAT important then I’d have no problems getting my followers on Twitter or other micro-blogging platforms to interact with me on every single post I submit. Facebook is good for what it does. This is primarily my conclusion to an observation. My interest in Facebook fluctuates every quarter; that’s because I’m a fickle man.

This morning, while getting ready for work, I received a notification on my phone that there was a system update! I almost blew my wad! Yes; that’s a bit graphic, but for some odd reason I’m a BIG fan of system updates. Having the latest and greatest that’s been tested and tweaked to work on my device does something to me (internally). Maybe that’s another reason why I’m such a fan of Linux.

I was presented with three buttons (install, not install, and more info…). One would think that I’d read the “more info…” just to see what’s actually being installed. I blew right by that idea and clicked “install”. After clicking the button I did think, “Darn it, I really should have read what the update was… oh well.”

Initial Reaction

This is not a screenshot of my own phone. I just want to show you the new buttons and dots!

You can probably guess what my initial reaction was to the update. “Woot, oh yah, Froyo 2.2 here we go!” Once my Motorola Droid rebooted, I noticed that on the bottom of the screen were new shortcut buttons. Three to be exact with two small dots on both sides. The three buttons were: Phone, Menu, and Browser. That took care of some of the icons on my home screen. I learned that the dots on either side of those shortcut buttons represented desktops. Yup, I went from, stock, three desktops to five! Booyah!

Now; I’ve played with other desktop apps before, such as Home++ beta. There was one more, but I forget the name. I actually like it better than Home++. The problem I experienced with these desktop replacement apps was performance. At first it was great, but later on it took longer to get back to the home screen. As I flipped through Google Listen, Seesmic, LastFM and other data-intensive apps I soon realized that these cool home apps aren’t worth the lag. So; I went back to using the vanilla home screen. One of the benefits from my early experimentation with home screen apps was the ability to increase my desktop count. Because of the CPU/Memory limitation I could only go up to 4 desktops without significantly slowing down the OS.

I wish I had more desktops, but not at the sacrifice of performance. Well with Android 2.2, I’m up to five desktops and I’ve loaded it with widgets just to test the long-term effects. So far so good!

Application Management

Again; this is not a screenshot of my own phone. I just want to show you the four new tabs.

Since I’m a big tinkerer-of-things, I try out lots of apps at any given time. So; I was happy to see that the application management is a little easier. The biggest plus to me is I can update multiple apps at the same time through Android Market. No more clicking 15 x 3 times in order to update apps. Also; “Settings > Applications > Manage Applications” window has four tabs.

I noticed that “Task Manager” and “Twitter” apps came with the update. I had “Advanced Task Killer“, but I removed it just to give this “recommended” app a try. If I didn’t install the TweetDeck beta app yesterday I’d probably use the Twitter app. I did notice that I couldn’t remove the Twitter app. Looks like Verizon baked it right in! :-/

Wrap It Up Already

In the end; I’m very excited about this update and my phone seems to run smoother than before. I know there’s a lot more things this version of Android is supposed to do, but I haven’t explored them yet. This is just a first-hand experience with a Verizon customer finally getting a “system update” on his Android phone.

If you are looking for a more robust review, I think Smarterware has a good article.

As I grow into my adult clothes, I some times find it a little embarrassing to introduce myself as the all mighty and feared “FergatROn” hailing from the great planet of Cybertron. Well, it really depends on what circle I’m doing it with. Since the dawn of my online adventures, I’ve always had a cool user handle. Don’t get me wrong, I love my /nick, but I’m doing more and more online business nowadays and telling a possible business partner that my Twitter or Identica account is “@FergatROn” is starting to get a little awkward.

In the Beginning

I’ll drag out this post by sharing with you my user handles from my earliest memory. I’ll have to say that America Online (AOL) was my first platform to create a sharable username. I was still in high school so you can imagine the crazy names I came up with. I do recall one – “DutiDred”. I’m Jamaican, but not a dred, DutiDred was also the name of a character I used to draw. I had countless others, but since they were all juvenile crap, I don’t remember any of them.

I believe my next major handle was in the Yahoo realm. It was my first year of college and Yahoo Games was a pretty decent platform. I believe I was working for Sears at the time thus I came up with the name “Paperboy_507″. If you can tell the name was a combination of the video game “Paperboy” and “Levi 507 Jeans”. Yup, that’s just how creative I was back-in-the-days.

The Mighty Hunter

The next evolution in my handle was related to my first major massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Starsiege. I was a proud member of the 69th Penetration Assault Wing, aka 69 PAW. We had a web site and everything, I believe it was http://paw.cbj.net [nonworking link]. I think our fearless leader went by “Cybrid Lee [69 PAW]“.

I found that information with some intuitive Google searches. There’s no way I would have remembered that from my worn-out memory cells.

For some reason, though, I’ll never forget the person that recruited me. It’s funny because he’ll probably never remember me. I wasn’t anything special. Just another mech warrior trying to make his way around the galactic system. The person that recruited me was named “Mouse” and my glorious name was “NiMrOd”.

I think this was the first time I actually put some thought into my handle and wanted it to really mean something. I don’t know how I looked it up, but “Nimrod” was an Old Testiment hunter. Me, being the warrior that I am, thought this would be a great fit. Ironically; it wasn’t until much later that I realized that people don’t think of the “hunter”, but the other meaning of “nimrod”. Boy did I feel like a nimrod!

Linux

Handles are a major part of the open source community. Most folks (unless I’m in the dark) don’t go by their real name. Look on the IRC channels and the forums and you’ll see an array of interesting handles.

Funny; on my desktop I really don’t use a fancy handle for my login. I guess it’s because there’s no one else on my computer. Don’t worry, I’ve got a ace up my sleeve. My network id is “fergatron.deceptacons”. Yah; so even though I’m not using a cool handle to log into my computer… my computer has a handle and he’s also a kickass Deceptacon! Oh and if you’re wondering.. my wireless SSID, is “Cybertron”, with more than WEP as its encryption! I just blew your mind… didn’t I!?

Evolution

Because I think this post is going too long, I’ll wrap it up. So; over time my handles have evoled as I have as a person. My Star Wars handle is “Marfe Jokin”, I’ve created many names in World of Warcarft and other MMOs, but the name that trumps them all is “FergatROn”. It’s a mix between my last name, “Ferguson”, Transformers’ renowned Megatron/Galvatron, and an MMO I used to play alot – Ragnarok Online.

The cool thing I like about “FergatROn”, is I’ve been able to kind of trademark it through online services. Meaning, I’ve signed up for so many web sites (Twitter, Identica, MySpace, etc) using FergatROn that if you Google it, most- if not, all the results are belong to me! (No that wasn’t horrible grammer… it’s a play on “All your base are belong to us.”)

So; since I’ve opened up a part of my soul with you strangers… I’d love to see what your handles used to be or what you’re currently using. Come on- I’d be fun!

I pretty much enjoyed the day and I was rewarded with our DSL package coming in the mail earlier that day – so we have Internet at our new house! Sweet!

There are a lot of things happening in my life, but it’s not time to broadcast them yet. The kids are fine (all 3 of them) and me and the wife are happy. My full-time job at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is becoming more stable since I made a very hard decision about my freelance work with Digital · Alias. One can surely guess what I mean based on that sentence, but since everything isn’t final – I’ll keep it vague.

In the world of Linux, I’m getting very tired of Firefox not working out the way I’d like it to. It’s always ran very slow on my desktop (Fedora x86_64). I’ve switched to Epiphany (a GNOME project) and boy does that web browser need some work. Good thing is, it’s fast, bad thing is it’s very immature and I miss ALL the convenient features Firefox has. I’ll stick with it because I need speed more than convenience.

Social Life

I’m on Facebook a lot more now-a-days, but playing their casual games, such as: Mafia Wars, YoVille, and Metropolis. Funny; I realize that these games are a complete waste of time and they are ONLY fun in the beginning when you are trying to balance out everything.  I also see that everyone needs something to fun to do, even if it doesn’t progress your life in any manner.  When you play Xbox or PS3 – those games really don’t add to your life.  The same can be said about these casual online games.

Google Calendar

I’m using Google Calendar a lot more these days.  I’ve got everything from birthdays, tv shows, podcasts and FLOSS events.  Web 2.0 Expo is taking place.  I can see that it’s in San Francisco, but I surely can’t go.  I have a Weekly Joomla conference call with a local group titled, The Atlanta Joomla Open Source Meetup.  And so much more…

Micro-blogging

I have been micro-blogging like mad lately.  Unfortunately; I’ve been interacting on Twitter more than the Laconica instances.  I’ve noticed that there are a lot more mobile and desktop apps for Twitter.  As soon as I pickup on Python, I’m going to make more apps for Laconica.  That’s the social media I’d like to use the most, it’s FLOSS at its best – it’s just under marketed.

Pet Projects

As soon as I can free up so time, I plan on finally taking up some opensource projects.  I am going to start out by learning Python and doing some offline applications.  When I’m comfortable enough, I might then join a GNOME project or be more active with the Fedora Websites group.

I don’t know how I ended up wasting time out of my day with this Michael Ian Black fella, but it’s all Levar Burton’s fault.  It all started with a Twitter post he did and I started following link after link after link and found this YouTube video on Michael’s children book titled, Chicken Cheeks.  I’d like to buy it… see what my kids think of it.

Through Twitter, I was introduced to an amazing project called “gPodder“.  It’s a podcast receiver/catcher written in Python utilizing PyGTK (for its GUI).  It supports Linux and FreeBSD.  The amazing thing about it is, I was looking for a podcast catcher just a few days earlier and I was totally lost.  My keywords were just all over the place and I ended up with results that were totally left field.  I think the keyword would be “catcher” or “receiver”.  I’ve used Amarok and Banshee, but I could never figure out how to sync with my Blackberry.

Well a friend of mine tweeted someone on Twitter about Banshee so I started following the other person.  And luckily for me about a day later that guy tweeted about gPodder.  I jumped on it and I’ve been happy ever since.  Thank you Web 2.0 – you really work!

Today, Katina and I plan on taking Alex on a train (MARTA). Every time Katina picks me up from the airport he carries on about the train. So; we thought today would be good to finally get him on the train. He’s taking a nap now and we’ll see how it goes when he gets up. I’ll try and Twitter the events while I’m out.