Some people wonder whether anyone will read their dissertation or Master’s thesis or if they will just be filed away on some library shelf. I remember reading Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and thinking how cool it was that his dissertation was turned into a book.
Since dodgeball is not yet available in Canada, I haven’t been able to play it. However I am intrigued that it was a master’s project as it motivates me to think that I could also create something this is useful for connecting people serendipitously.
Today I learnt about !Cellphedia, another Master’s project by Limor Garcia out of the same New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program that Alex and Dennis developed dodgeball at. It combines wikipedia and dodgeball. I have read about it in Smart Mobs which provided links to E-Commerce News and Roland’s post from May 21st.
Both of these project extensively use SMS. I remember the first time I used my mobile phone to receive information via SMS. I was spending the summer in England in 1999 and I received free SMS on Wimbledon scores specific to the players I desired to track. It was useful because I am a huge tennis fan and I was wondering how the William sisters were doing.
I am feeling more confident about the changes I made to my thesis. Social software and tagging are really interesting & hot areas right now and my thesis will be fun to work on while creating a cool concept.