The FarmVille Mania!

'Wife: John, you and I have been married for 12 years, and I've never seen you like this! I mean, I understand that Facebook and Twitter are fun, but I never thought you would take them so seriously! I mean, just the other day, we were about to have sex, but then you jumped off the bed and went, "OH MY GOD, my pumpkins are gonna die!" and ran to the computer.

Husband: Well, can you blame me, they were about to wither. I got to them at the last possible second, I swear.'

This fictional account by Allie Moore of a psycho-neurotic domestic crisis brought about by that enchantingly epidemic-demoniacally time devouring-voraciously viral application called Farmville is not far off the mark. After all, no oridinary calling can make me wake up at 8.30 a.m in on a Sunday morning! You can't have a bountiful harvest if you sleep on the job :)

What prompted me to allow the monster access to my life was Saloni's persistent perseverance to add me as a neighbour (little did i know that i was about to step into a cul-de-sac!). And here i am, frantically ploughing, harvesting and collecting coins and XPs (experience points- for the uninitiated it is the marker of your current social standing in this virtual farm world) in a never ending rat race against my own spouse :) And now i am set on an existential quest to understand the dynamics of a 'cultural phenomenon' that seems to be spreading faster than the H1N1 virus. With nearly 35 million monthly users, the game will soon surpass the 35,554,755 record achieved by the How Well Do You Know Me? application.

My inbox is overloaded with gifts and invites for Farm Town which many claim to be the inspiration behind FarmVille. I tried it... the general principles are pretty much the same but there are far lesser bugs on FarmVille and it has a much more improved interactive and enhanced graphical interface. The only apparent difference is the lack of a chat room and a marketplace or 'saloon' in FarmVille for users to socialize and trade.

The real historical inspiration behind both these applications seems to be Harvest Moon - a series of farm simulation/role-playing video games produced by Victor Interactive Software (acquired by Marvelous Entertainment in 2003) and was originally created by Yasuhiro Wada in 1996.

In my existential quest i do not wish to be dragged into a discussion on intellectual copyright issues and as a user/consumer i would simply prefer a more friendly and interactive gaming environment where FarmVille scores heavily over its nearest rivals FarmTown and Barn Buddy. The challenge is to decipher the motivations that drives a primarily urban, ipod wielding, cosmopoiltan netizen to engage, interact and be entertained by a predominantly rural occupation.

Perhaps it is the romantic idea of a idyllic, sheltered, life-giving lifestyle that holds the cue. The perpetual pressures, the ceaseless clamour associated with urban living will always fuel escapist advetures and instincts. My buddy and fellow blogger had an iteresting and insightful observation - our parents would return from their routine jobs and tend and nurture a small farm-like setting in the backyard or a garden upfront. Now all we have is a virtual piece of land to nurture and nourish such romantic idyll :(

What i like most about FarmVille is it's closed nature - it is based on interactions between friends and not strangers. There is also a huge demand from user's of Zynga's applications to integrate YoVille and FarmVille in one platform - the ultimate fantasy of working on a eco-frinedly farm in the day hours and managing and materializing their apartments in the evening!

My existential enquiry is not over (it is an easy excuse to convince my detractors while i earn some more dough on my farm!). My argument, as a social media marketer, is that a farm on FarmVille can reveal much more about a user/consumers real self than their proclaimed virtual social identities. It offers fascinating psychoanalytical insights - behavioural, cultural and social facets of an individual are on display:


I would reserve my commentary for a later date!

For beginners on FarmVille you could try reading the farm building tips and tricks on wwww.myfivebest.com or browse through the list of solutions already available on Yahoo Answers. I wont be supprised to see more dedicated communities, FAQ blogs and forums on FarmVille in the near future.

And here are some instructional and cheat videos!




Happy Farming!

Being Online

Last Friday was my last day at work. On one hand there was this immense sense of relief and a new found freedom from a gruelling monotonous routine – the clamour of client calls, half-baked accounts, and last minute iterations! But on the other, there was this sense of void, mutation, incompleteness – for I had to leave behind my laptop, my lifeline :(

The dated and defunct desktop has been ‘out of order’ for quite some time and my spouse is an equally addicted and voracious Internet consumer to share her laptop for long spells! To be offline is also to be ‘out of order’. Blame that killer application (yes it is literally killing my time!), nay killer phenomenon called FarmVille for adding to my woes… more on it later.

After much frantic research, reviews and recommendations, I finally got one from the HP Pavilion Entertainment Notebook family. I am back :)

The Internet has so ubiquitously permeated into our daily lives, into our very selves that we take it for granted … the virtual has created its own ecosystem with multiple cultures, voices and myriad users and consumers. The Internet is now forty years old (well sort of) and 2nd Sep was celebrated with a series of discourses, eulogies, parodies and so on. If we accept the ‘triumph of the nerds’ at University of California-Los Angeles lab when they passed meaningless test data to each other through Arpanet on Sept. 2, 1969 as the birth of the Internet, we surely have come a long way.

My first interaction with the Internet was with the mother of all killer applications – email – when we tentatively filled in the registration forms and figured our way through composing mails and attaching documents. During my years of research, Google (the colossal organizer of chaotic information!) became a verb, a noun, a way of life.
And now you have a oversaturation and overkill of communication and conversation channels – social networks, blogs, tweets, RSS feeds, virtual lives, applications and widgets – that it becomes virtually impossible to keep a firm hold on anything as given and socially embarrassing to acknowledge ignorance! Making friends and managing friendships, uploading pictures and watching movies, entertaining and being entertained, commenting and conversing, informing and getting informed, buying and selling – the growing reliance and dependence on the Internet will continue to grow.

Here’s an informative organized video that summarizes the processes and landmarks in the Internet’s course of journey so far:



Enjoy.