ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA GAME
An online game is provided in which game participants select videos to play to other game participants. The game presents a virtual social venue including a virtual video screen positioned in front of a virtual audience. The virtual audience is populated with representations of game participants visible to all, creating the ambience of a live event. Mechanisms are provided to incentivize the selection of entertaining and captivating videos. Game participants register their approval or disapproval of the video content through a social feedback tool. The game interface monitors the collective feedback of game participants and simulates a crowd response consistent with the participants' feedback.
1 . A method of playing a game comprising:
a plurality of game participants selecting videos to play to the plurality of game participants;
the plurality of game participants providing positive or negative feedback on the videos; and
simulating crowd responses to the videos based upon the feedback the game participants give to the videos.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the game is online.
3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the game includes a game environment that comprises a representation of a virtual audience, populated with representations of the game participants, positioned in front of a virtual video screen for playing the videos to game participants.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the game environment also includes a representation of a tool for registering positive or negative feedback to a video being played.
5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the crowd response is simulated with sounds of a crowd of people clapping, cheering, whistling, and/or jeering.
6 . The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
placing the selected videos in a queue; and
playing the videos in the queue to the plurality of game participants.
7 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
for each playing video, monitoring the collective feedback of the game participants to the video;
terminating the video if the collective feedback is negative and exceeds a threshold; and
upon termination of a video, playing the next video in the queue.
8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
ranking the videos based upon the collective feedback of the game participants.
9 . An online game comprising:
a virtual video screen for playing a video to game participants;
a virtual audience, populated with representations of the game participants, positioned in front of the virtual video screen;
a video queue that advances pointers to videos to be played to game participants; and
an interface enabling game participants to select videos to place in the video queue.
10 . The online game of claim 9 , further comprising:
an interface enabling game participants to search for videos to play on the virtual video screen.
11 . The online game of claim 10 , further comprising:
an interface enabling game participants to register positive or negative feedback to the videos being played.
12 . The online game of claim 11 , wherein the online game simulates a crowd response to the videos based upon the feedback the game participants give to a playing video.
13 . The online game of claim 9 , further comprising:
an interface enabling game participants to invite friends from a social network to join the game.
14 . An interface for a game in which game participants select videos to play to other game participants and express their reactions to the videos, the interface comprising:
a selection pane for selecting videos to play to the game participants;
a virtual video screen for playing the selected videos to the game participants;
a virtual audience, populated with representations of the game participants, positioned in front of the virtual video screen; and
a tool for expressing reactions to the videos.
15 . The interface of claim 14 , further comprising:
a video queue that advances pointers to videos to be played to game participants;
wherein videos are added the video queue in response to their selection in the selection pane.
16 . The interface of claim 14 , wherein the selection pane enables searching for videos to play to the game participants.
17 . The interface of claim 14 , further comprising:
a module enabling game participants to invite friends from a social network to join the game.
18 . The interface of claim 14 , wherein the interface simulates crowd responses to the videos based upon the feedback the game participants give to the videos.
19 . The interface of claim 18 , wherein the interface monitors the collective feedback of the game participants to each video and terminates a video if the collective feedback is negative and exceeds a threshold.
20 . The interface of claim 14 , wherein the game is online.