Chaotic Neutrality

As much as I enjoy the iPhone App Store and the applications available there, I also find the need to explore alternate applications that do not fit into the App Store or its restrictions. To this end, I have turned to jailbreaking my iPhone (still the 2G version) and installing 3rd party applications via both Cydia and Installer.

Aside from my desire to customize the theme of my phone via Winterboard, I also enjoy the innovation that takes place outside the controlling hands of Apple. One such innovation is the application Qik, which enables you to stream video (with audio) from your iPhone to the web through the iPhone’s shitty 2 megapixel camera.

I have used Qik over WiFi on my 2G iPhone and it works great. Here is an example - the video files are saved on the Qik site after streaming.

Less effective on the 2G iPhone is streaming via EDGE (without WiFi). If your signal strength is good, it is passable, but if your signal strength weakens, the video will freeze or get extremely choppy.

Overall, still a pretty cool application that lets you shoot video (or do live streams) via your iPhone and automatically save to the web.

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A few weeks ago, the Spore creature creation software and sharing platform (by Electronic Arts) became all the rage. It allowed anyone to download the application, customize their monster, and upload and share the creation with the world.

Creative users came up with lots of funky little Pixar-esque creatures. Some were cute. Some were scary. And then… some were obscene.

The following two blog / article posts details some of the humorous side of the dirty Spore creatures:

1. NSFW: A Beginners Guide To Sporn at Rock, Paper, Shotgun
2. NSFW: Horny Gamers Upload ‘Sporn’ To YouTube at Wired

While incredibly amusing, things like this are definitely a concern when you release a campaign or program of this nature into the wild. User generated content can create some spectacular discussions and collections of knowledge, but it can also go places that were never anticipated.

As user generated content initiatives continue to grow, it will be interesting to see how much moderation and policing needs to continue to happen in order to foster the creator’s intended atmosphere… and what this type of UGC censorship leaves in its wake (whether it makes these UGC worlds better or stifles them).

Whatever happens… Spore porn is pretty funny.

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