BLOG

kwippy pages are open now for your viewing pleasure. Check it out, if you like it add your email for an invite. And do get in touch if you have any suggestions/criticisms, etc.

i m here: http://www.kwippy.com/kaa/

What is kwippy? - a micro/nanoblogging webapp + IM status logger + social network

Why another microblogging app when there are already plenty out there? - There is twitter, pownce, jaiku, and 10 other similar ones. Though all of these promote small posts, each has a different kind of social network.

On twitter you mostly meet strangers. By strangers I mean people you don’t know in the real world. It’s like barcamp, or a conference where you go partly to network. You meet fellow bloggers, marketeers, and people from your field. Yes friendships may grow among them, but mostly there are subtle motives behind the tweets. From promoting your blog, selling your product, showing your expertise, etc.

Pownce is geared more towards file sharing, sharing media (youtube, mp3s) etc. And it has an AIR instant messenger kind of software which makes it a little closer to an Instant Messeger.

In kwippy, the whole focus is on the Instant Messenger. The friends list on the instant messenger is the most intimate friends list you can find, of all social networks. It gives the people in the list immediate access to your attention. People share their joys (i got a raise), sorrows (i flunked my english papers), their favorite links, and thousand other things through their status messages. And all these people also have a list of their closest friends on their list. And like in the real world when a real friend introduces you to another person, the chances that you hit it off are greater. There’s this trust thing which is automatic.

So there - kwippy has a social network which gets real friends, friends you could meet. And it stores all your status messages, which become your emotional timeline.

We have been working on it since some time, and now it is in testing. If you would like to check it out, and give your invaluable suggestions for improvement, either go to kwippy.com, or comment here.

It can be plugged into a laptop, and can render a digital illustration on a wall. It is definitely lo-fi as the paint drips and the can wobbles. But that is the charm :). Here is one of its creations. More about it here.

A paper I had written was selected for publication by USID 2007, HCI Hyderabad.
Without much ado, here is the file:
Digital Identity