the purveyor of whys
Yesterday was a great launch day for ChumpDump. We sparked off a ton of twitter chatter and game play on ChumpDump. We really had no idea when the Apple app store was going to approve ChumpDump, the Android store is much easier to just get an app out. So when everything came together at the right moment as we started the PR dance for the droid version we were super excited to see the iPhone one out as well.
As a developer, inventor, idea guy.. its always a rush to see people use your creation and have a real experience with it. It makes all those days staring at the idea and thinking "ummm i'm nuts" worth it.
The more team kitty worked on this project the more it took us on a roller coaster ride. When rockson and I first came up with the idea at StartupWeekend Columbus 2010, it was half joke, half utility. It was borderline stupid, yet the deeper ya go into the concept, there's a real product there, and most of all a REAL reason why it should be done.
ChumpDump helps answer the biggest unanswered question in the whole frickin twitter and social networking universe. Why do you follow that person? This is a question not enough people really ask or really talk cold hard turkey on.
Friends are the most influential currency of the 21st century.
We buy/sell friends every day. We gamble on influence every day. We constantly look for better "virtual" friends. We want to be connected, and we want the most authetic source of potential goodness, always. We've been swimming in social media concepts both big and small on the web since the great tech bubble of 1999/2000. The internet basically started over in some ways, embracing the new viral currency of sharing with friends online, in nearly everything we do, share, share, share- and you see it just about every site out there. Everyone wants to share, or more so, every network, biz, media group, app, advertiser REALLY REALLY wants you to be social for your own social good. You are influence. You and your friends, your network, its the currency in every social network.
When I graduated high school in 1988, I had about 15 close friends, actually make that 10 with 5 decent acquaintances. The close friends weren't quite "best" friends but they were good to call for help in a pinch. Today the average high school graduate has about 180 friends, most if not all are representative in some online fashion. If they're popular, or to any degree "savvy" they probably have 1000 or more friends in various online spaces. They are the connected youth that will in time run this country and dictate the currency of tomorrow.
As I've grown up with social networks I've seen, as much I'm sure you've seen the race for friends. We're collecting them. You see those folks on twitter, facebook, myspace, linkedin etc.. they have 10,000 friends.. holy cow they are connected! Or are they just fragmented as all get out. I bet a person following 10,000 friends has a high chump ratio in that mix.
Which leads us to ChumpDump. We're in desperate need of a way to figure out, who is REALLY a friend and who is the chump. ChumpDump is the purveyor of whys, we tell you WHY, that alone makes the app worth while if you ask me. Just knowing to the slightest degree why this person or that person is in your daily twitter feed is huge to me. And actually, I get the most fun out of ChumpDump just scanning the statistics of the app, looking at all the whys behind people being dumped or saved. Its hugely entertaining!!
So really, please, check it out sometime, if you've been into social media for awhile or just got into it, you'll understand the critical reason why a game like this was thought up, and why you too should play it.
