How to use Collectivus

Collectivus is made up of three things: People, Places, and Thingies. The interactions between these items are called Encounters.

The goal is to help Thingies move about the world so that they can encounter as many people and places as possible, and have each person that encounters them add part of the story of their adventures.

The basics of an Encounter:

• Which Thingie had the Encounter
• What are you doing with the Thingie (dropping it, picking it up, giving it to someone?)
• Where did the Encounter with the Thingie happen
• Your story about the Encounter

Tips on Using Collectivus

People

Your friends list is dynamically generated by Friends on any of your connected services (Facebook, foursquare, Gowalla, and/or Twitter), who are also on Collectivus. If you're not seeing any, connect your accounts, then tell your friends to sign-up too.

Places

• Connect Collectivus to your Facebook, foursquare, Gowalla, and/or Twitter accounts. Your check-in activity on these services helps the system to pick out Places to drop-off Thingies to find.
• You can use Collectivus to check-in on foursquare and Facebook, create a story on Gowalla, or post geotagged tweets to Twitter.
• You can also help others find Thingie hotspots by leaving a tip at a venue on foursquare when you create an Encounter at a Place.

Thingies

Thingies like to hang-out, but then want to move along. Hoarding Thingies in your Inventory will have negative effects on both the Thingie and how many Thingies you can hold in Inventory. On the flip-side, creating many encounters with Thingies is good for them and earns you more capacity in your Inventory.

Thingiepedia

The Thingiepedia contains three things:

Inventory

The Thingies in your possession.

Library

A record of the types of Thingies you've previously encountered.

Dispensary

If you or your organization have custom Thingies with Collectivus, this is where you can access and start Encounters with them.

Encounters

You're able to do different actions with different Thingies. The basic actions are:

Drop / Place

Take a Thingie from your Inventory and leave it at a Place for others to encounter.

Pick-up / Take

Take a Thingie from a Place and put it in your Inventory.

Give

Take a Thingie from your Inventory and offer it to another person. The receiving person can accept or reject the Thingie. If rejected, the item is returned to your Inventory. If accepted, the Thingie is moved to the recipient's Inventory.

Show / See

You can show your Thingies to others and add stories about them without leaving them at a Place or giving them to someone else. In the case of Analog Thingies, you can record if you've seen them, but left them where you found them.

Connected Services

You can also optionally connect your Collectivus account to services like Facebook, foursquare, Gowalla, and Twitter. This serves three purposes:

• When you create a new Encounter, you can choose to also post information about your Encounter to any or all of the other services you've connected. This helps spread the word about your Thingie adventures and helps others find out about Collectivus.
• When you check-in using foursquare or Facebook, start a story using Gowalla or add a geotagged tweet using a Twitter application, and that service us connect to your Collectivus account, Collectivus will periodically look to see if any Thingies are nearby your posted location and send you a note letting you know.
• Your friends list is dynamically created based on People on Collectivus who are also connections you have on other services.

Collectivus helps enhance and add another element of interaction to these services. If they are Looney Tunes cartoons, we want to be the Acme Supply Company.

Other Questions?

Check out our FAQ page for additional information.