Beyond Ambient Awareness: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr Updates as Game Engines?

Will have to wait a few weeks longer to try PhotoGrab.  The new Facebook game challenges players to match small snippets of photos with the full pictures or build their own photo puzzle games.  WordStream, another game in development from start-up Shufflebrain, will use players' Facebook and Twitter status updates (and test if friends really pay attention and remember what each other are up to).

Akin to how tools like Blogger enabled a legion of less html-savy web readers to also be web writers, there has been a recent burst of tools that may encourage less code-savy game players to become game builders.  (Some especially interesting projects are trying to use game design for fun education -- see Alice, Scratch, Gamestar Mechanic, Popfly, Playcrafter, Little Big Planet; for some theory see Papert, Gee).

Shufflebrain's new games will let people create their own games out of social content.  As quoted in CNET, "They're really a cross between games and Web 2.0."  For those seeking something beyond ambient awareness, there may soon be more opportunities to get creative about making personal content even more social.