DEV Community: Dominic O Norton

Loneliness Economy Booms: Exploring the Innovative Businesses Tackling Isolation

Dominic O Norton — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 06:09:51 +0000

In an increasingly interconnected world, paradoxically, loneliness has emerged as a pervasive social issue affecting millions of individuals across the globe. The modern era, with its technological advancements and hyper-connectivity, has inadvertently fostered feelings of isolation and disconnection among people. As a result, a unique and innovative sector has emerged to address this epidemic of loneliness — the Loneliness Economy.

The data from Morning Consult reveals a concerning reality where almost 60% of U.S. adults experience loneliness, indicating a prevalent and widespread issue in society. Furthermore, the research highlights the disproportionate impact on underrepresented racial groups and individuals with lower incomes, reflecting the urgent need for targeted interventions to address and alleviate the burden of loneliness within these vulnerable communities.

The high prevalence of loneliness presents a significant business opportunity for entrepreneurs and companies in the Loneliness Economy. By tailoring innovative solutions and services that specifically focus on innovative ways to create connection, businesses can tap into a vast and underserved market, while making a meaningful social impact by fostering connections and alleviating loneliness in these communities.

Rent a girlfriend

Rent-a-girlfriend services have gained significant popularity in Japanese cities, where the fast-paced and demanding urban lifestyle has contributed to a growing sense of social isolation. In response to this trend, these services have flourished as a means for individuals to find temporary companionship and alleviate feelings of loneliness in the bustling metropolises of Japan. However, their popularity has also raised questions about the societal factors that contribute to loneliness and the potential consequences of commodifying personal relationships.

Social robot pets

The emergence of cybernetic dogs like Lovot has had a remarkable impact on children, fostering a sense of responsibility and empathy as they learn to care for these AI-based companions and treat each other with kindness. Particularly beneficial for kids with dog allergies, interactive robot dogs have been found to elicit similar positive influences on children as live dogs, making them a valuable and accessible option for nurturing social and emotional development.

Social virtual reality

Social VR platforms like VRChat have revolutionized the way people interact and socialize in virtual spaces, providing users with immersive and customizable avatars and environments to forge unique and engaging virtual experiences. By blurring the lines between the physical and digital realms, VRChat fosters a sense of presence and connectedness, enabling individuals from all corners of the world to come together, engage in shared activities, and form meaningful relationships in a virtual landscape that transcends traditional boundaries.

While the Loneliness Economy has seen the emergence of various businesses and applications attempting to tackle the epidemic of loneliness, it is essential to recognize that many of these endeavors may address the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem. While services like rent-a-girlfriend, social robot pets, and social virtual reality platforms offer temporary companionship and connection, they may not fully address the complex societal factors that contribute to widespread loneliness.

Loneliness often arises from a multitude of interconnected issues, including social disconnection, mental health challenges, lack of community support, and the fast-paced nature of modern life. While the Loneliness Economy’s innovative approaches can provide momentary relief and meaningful experiences, they may not offer comprehensive solutions to the underlying causes of loneliness.

How To Make a Progressive Web App without Coding

Dominic O Norton — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 08:34:55 +0000

No Code tools make it easy to quickly validate your idea and get a product into the hands of the end-user in hours.

This is going to be a short and to-the-point tutorial. We're going to build an education app for startups.

Requirements

What you'll need
Google Account
Glide Account
Educational YouTube Videos

Let's Build

Create a new Google spreadsheet and add the header columns: title, description, cover image, URL, and category. Name the tab "videos" and the spreadsheet whatever you want to name the project.
Find 3 videos on YouTube. Copy the title, description, and URL into the respective columns on the spreadsheet. Add a category for example "startups".

Take a screenshot of the cover image and save it to your Google Drive. Get the link for the image and make sure anyone on the internet with the link can view it. Copy and paste the link to the respective video.

Visit Glide and log in/ create an account. Select "create app", "Google sheets" then select the sheet you just created.
In the properties panel to the right, change the style to "cards". Change the icon to an icon from "video"

Select "inline list" under "screen" on the panel to the left. Under data in the panel on the right, remove the header option.

Click on one of the cards. Under "screen data" on the left. Remove the two links and the action text. Select the plus button and add "video". In the panel on the right, Change the data source from cover image to URL.

Click on the settings tab at the top of the workspace, select app info. Change the icon to your project icon.

In the top right-hand corner click publish, then click publish app. You can change the domain to your project name.

You can now visit your completed app at the URL you've just created.

This was a really quick introduction but hopefully, you can see how easy it is to create progressive web applications without coding.

Project Files

Google Spreadsheet
Clonable App

More Information

You can find a more in-depth tutorial on my YouTube channel. Just comment below if you have any questions.

Happy Hacking!

What is a blockchain metaverse?

Dominic O Norton — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:59:54 +0000

Something that I'm particularly excited about that is making its way into the conversations of the general population. These are blockchain metaverses.

Blockchain metaverses are Universes of world's that are all interconnected. If you're a book and movie lover, this resembles Ready Player One or Snowcrash. By enabling users to buy and transfer assets between the digital world's, in addition to selling digital assets and cashing out. A blockchain metaverse enables a marketplace where one company doesn't have dominance.

By using blockchain and platform-specific cryptocurrency tokens, a transparent as secure ledger allows objects to be uniquely identified to users. Currently for users to get paid for digital assets, they would have to use PayPal or Venmo which is difficult for international communities of users.

GMTK Game Jam Q&A with Mark Brown

Dominic O Norton — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 11:30:01 +0000

The Game Maker’s Toolkit (GMTK) is a video game analysis series created and presented by Mark Brown, a British video game journalist. The pandemic didn’t stop game makers across the world in GMTK’s 2020 Game Jam. We managed to catch up with Mark to learn more about Game Jam’s and how the event went.

Hackathon Entertainment: How did you develop an interest for game design & development?

Mark: I’ve been a fan of video games for most of my life, but I had never given much consideration to how they were designed or developed until I played the games that Valve released in 2007, including Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. These games all featured a developers’ commentary mode, where those who made the game explained the thought process behind the work. The way they spoke about using psychology, architecture, and composition to lead the player, train the player, and create interesting scenarios was just fascinating to me. From that point on, I started to learn more and more about the process of designing games.

Hackathon Entertainment: What is the story behind Game Maker’s Toolkit?

Mark: Prior to starting Game Maker’s Toolkit, I was working in more traditional video game journalism by writing for websites and magazines like Pocket Gamer and Wired. By the early 2010s it was becoming obvious that fewer people were reading video game-related content, and more people were watching it on sites like YouTube. If I wanted to still have a job in a few years, it seemed sensible to at least give video a go!

For a while I was unsure how to approach this, as I didn’t really want to emulate the content I was seeing (mostly dudes pointing a camera at their face and having exaggerated reactions to horror games). But when I stumbled upon video essays from the world of movies (specifically Every Frame a Painting), I realised I could combine my interest in game design, my background in journalism, and this style of video-making to create something new. That ended up being Game Maker’s Toolkit. Fortunately for me, the first videos were quite popular and I was eventually able to turn to make videos into a full-time job.

Hackathon Entertainment: What is a Game Jam?

Mark: I describe a game jam as a “game making marathon”. The idea is that a whole bunch of people make a whole bunch of games, in a very short period of time and usually in accordance with a theme. So for the GMTK Game Jam for 2020, people had just 48 hours to make a game, and it had to fit the theme “Out of Control”.

Making a game in such a short period of time might sound extremely hard, and a little nuts, but it’s a good way to stretch your creative muscles, test yourself, and maybe come up with a hasty prototype that could, one day, be turned into a full game.

In fact, some wonderful indie games started life as game jam games, such as Superhot, Snake Pass, Don’t Starve, Hollow Knight, and Titan Souls.

Hackathon Entertainment: What challenges were there in hosting the game jam and how did you overcome it?

Mark: One of the biggest challenges I face with the game jam is making sure that the games are rated in a fair manner. After the games are finished, there’s seven days for people to play the games and give them a rating. In all of the GMTK Game Jams (2020 was the fourth), I’ve allowed everyone — those who made games, and those who did not — to rate the games. This has caused issues in the past where people have used fake accounts and whatnot to cheat their way to a good rating.

The obvious answer to this problem would be to limit voting to only those who made a game. But that didn’t sit right with me: I don’t want the jam experience to be limited to an exclusive few who have the skills and time to make a game. It should be open to everyone who has an interest in games.
So for 2020 I found a compromise. Working with the staff of itch.io (an indie game website where you can host game jams), we made a system where public voters can only rate games given to them at random, until they’ve proven that they are rating in good faith. This still keeps them involved, but heavily discourages cheating in the rating process.
As with most problems, there’s usually a compromise to be made that can fix the biggest issues while staying true to the original meaning of the jam.

Hackathon Entertainment: What were you most happy with in hosting the game jam?

Mark: Well, 2020’s jam is, at the time of writing, the biggest online-only game jam to ever be held. We had 18,000 people sign-up, and they created over 5,400 games. It was incredible to have so many passionate, talented, and hard-working people all get together and make something.
And the games were great! I played loads of them on streams, and I played the top 100 games in order to pick my 20 favourites, and I was blown away by the inventiveness and creativity on shown.

Hackathon Entertainment: What advice do you have for people that want to get into gaming/ game design/ game development?

Mark: Start small. It’s a common problem for those who get the game-making bug to think their first game is going to be as big and as complicated as Grand Theft Auto V! That’s probably not going to happen, so start small and make something you can actually finish. Then make something else. And something else. Every project you finish is a stepping stone towards greatness.

Also, it’s never been easier to make a game. There are so many tools out there that are free (or cheap) and user-friendly. And there are huge communities and loads of tutorials to use. Check out Unity, Game Maker, and Godot.

Hackathon Entertainment: What future events can game enthusiasts look for from GMTK?

Mark: The GMTK Game Jam will return in 2021! Keep an eye on the YouTube channel for the announcement of the date!

This post was originally posted on Medium Aug 14th 2020