Hot Potato

Its a funny thing about technology... the more you learn about it, the more you realize how little you know.

Case in point…Hot Potato. I never even heard of Hot Potato before and this morning’s big techie news is Facebook just bought it.

Heck, Hot Potato is only nine months old. How do I know? I had to look it up. Why? Because I never heard of Hot Potato until this morning, remember?

I’ll never be able to keep up with this technology stuff.

After reading the article I became curious...What is Hot Potato and why did Facebook want to buy it.

Actually, once I logged in I found Hot Potato very interesting. Hot Potato and Facebook are very similar.

Both social networking sites are all about meeting people and sharing what you are doing. Case in point (hey, that is the second time i used that expression...) Everyone who logs into Facebook is prompted by the same general phrase "What's on your mind?". After you tell the Facebook world "what's on your mind", people who are interested make comments.

Hot Potato is a little different and I think a little more fun. When you log into Hot Potato you see a square with seven tabs. Each tab gives you a "specific prompt" about a different topic...

"I'm watching..."
"I'm listening to..."
"I'm attending..."
"I'm reading..."
"I'm thinking about..."
"I'm playing..."
"I'm..." (this one is a catch all for anything you would like to write about)

So lets say I'm reading War and Peace by Tolstoy, I'd click the "I'm reading..." tab and write something like..."I'm reading the last chapter of War and Peace by Tolstoy. I hope his great grandson writes a sequel".

Writing something on a specific topic attracts other people interested in the same things, or in this case, reading War and Peace.

Truthfully, I like the Hot Potato idea...but the question is did Facebook buy it to squash the potential competition or did they buy it to incorporate some of its better features into its own successful application? I don't know either!, remember I'm overwhelmed by this techie stuff too.

The video below will help you/me understand Hot Potato.