On Slashdot today, it was referenced that Wal-mart is trying to create a hip, cool alternative to MySpace targeted at kids wanting to social network online with (you know this is why they are doing it) money in their pockets. In the Slashdot post, there is a funny point made:
Oh, and it calls users “hubsters” — a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.
Advertising Age – Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously
So my question is, can you engineer cool? This goes back to my previous post about whether or not we can successfully engineer social learning networks, using principles from popular social networks like MySpace. Can we distill what makes these things “work” and “cool” and then engineer them for educational purposes?
technorati tags:AECT2006, AECT, BlogTracks, MySpace, social, network
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