Minimum Tempo

The Web 2.0 phenomenon affects millions of users as much of the movement is centered around social aspects of the Internet. Whether this be social networking, social bookmarking, or another form of Web 2.0 content, many services try to bring a friendly feel and encourage user interaction because the latter is drives the site’s popularity and success. You probably are in a social network, even if you don’t know it; Facebook, MySpace, last.fm, Twitter, and MyAnimeList all have elements of social networking involved. Many of these sites center around specific topics: Facebook formerly only covered college students, last.fm is centered around music, and BlackPlanet focuses on African Americans. An interest that has not been well covered by a Web 2.0 service, however, is gaming; there are a few minor services that try to incorporate gaming into their primary interest and subject, but they do little to actually integrate gaming into the social network.

Enter doof. doof is a service that blends casual gaming and social networking. doof calls it “social gaming.” It’s not the gaming you expect; doof is not centered around PC games, handhelds, or the three major consoles. doof is all about casual gaming and specifically revolves around its own games. But not only does it offer fun, Flash-based online games, doof provides the full functionality of services such as Facebook or MySpace. You can make friends, send messages, and play games together. The website offers a great amount of simple games such as Cascade and Jumpin Ride, but the variety is incredible and as with most casual games, they will be drain the player’s time. The community options seem expansive, although somewhat limited; there is a “Wall of Fame,” a doof “Pulse” (similar to Facebook status messages), doofSpaces, Global Chat, and more; none of which are perfectly executed, but doof does a decent job at each of them.

doof supports lots of windows… but don’t expect it to run smoothly this way.

Each of the games offers individual player rankings and takes record of the user’s play count, best score, average score, global standing, and improvements in regards to score. Along with those individual records are the scoreboard and results of every user that has played the game. There are three medals (bronze, silver, and gold) that users can win, so it adds the sense of achievements from other services such as Xbox Live or Valve’s latest Steam offerings. Players can also challenge their friends and enter tournaments by putting their doof Credits, doof’s currency, on the line. These components really help to solidify the social networking element by encouraging user interaction and competition.

Speaking of doof Credits… doof Credits can be earned through tournaments and by, what seems to be doof’s current business model, purchasing them through PayPal, credit or debit card, or through SMS (only in the United Kingdom). These doof Credits can then be used to enter tournaments (to earn more doof Credits) or buy little gifts to send to friends. These gifts, however, do not serve a purpose but to show off in a section of a user profile. Other features that use the Credits couldn’t be found, but it’s presumed that the doof team will make better use of these in the future.

doof offers a surprising amount of user interaction and customization. The typical comments/wall, private messaging, and gift centre are there, but the service also has an expanded “Poke” feature in which the user performs an action on another user. There are also photo albums, instant messaging, and the “doof Pulse” feature which is an aggregator of user status messages. doof even has a video widget that is integrated with YouTube. People’s profiles and interfaces (a person’s doofSpace) can be customized with different colors, backgrounds, and layouts. Users have the option of displaying their doofSpaces to other users, and it’s interesting to see what other users have created.

This game, Secret Agent, painfully alerts me that my reaction time is now pitifully slow.

What makes these features surprising is that doof’s interface is entirely done in Flash (using Adobe’s Flex technology). Note that I have not tried the majority of Web 2.0 services out there, so this is entirely new to me. With the exception of the front page and the doof blog, the site is completely Flash-based, which means loading and more loading. Unfortunately, this is also what makes navigating the website a tad sluggish. The games take several seconds to load, and not all friends changes are immediate. There is a noticeable lag with each option you make. These flaws, however, do not harm the overall enjoyment of doof.

Although I’m not a fan of the interface, doof provides a rich user experience that successfully gives the user a fun way to interact with others by presenting more than variations of social networking defaults. doof has enormous potential to become more popular, and it’s definitely something to add to your radar. With an increasing library of games and amount of new features, doof could easily compete next to the big names of the Web 2.0 space. So please, sign up, add me to your friends, and allow me to destroy you in any of the games.

This post is tagged doof, Games, Gaming, Internet, Social Networking, Technology

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