This is one of the new messages you’ll see when you visit a friend’s restaurant. There are a variety of calls for help as well.

Here’s the leak.

So there you go, you’ve got a leak to fix. It’s a no brainer though as you simply click on any of the leak spouts in the restaurant.  A click activates a small timer over the top of the leak or other issue. Once the countdown is done, away it goes.

You’ll receive a message box like the one above.  Your friend rewards you with either 5 or 10 coins. This doesn’t replace clean up coins you earn for picking up pizza slices and discarded soda cans. It’s an additional way to get some coins.

The nicest thing about this feature? It’s redeemable in all of your friends’ restaurants.  I was able to claim over 100 coins today in this feature alone. Not a windfall but it pays for those cups of water.

My personal favorite is the penguins.

Yeah, cute little guy. Apparently he’s equally annoying to leaks, a sleeping bear, giant mushrooms, and skunks. Honestly PlayFish, picking on penguins.

This is a fun feature addition to a pleasing casual game.  PlayFish continues to add nice little features.  Upcoming are new themes as well.

You can find Restaurant City on Facebook.

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Seesmic sent the insiders and email today announcing the addition of Twitter Lists to the Seesmic client. The image above is an example of how the lists would be selected.  There are a few other screen shots and some explanations on the Seesmic Help Desk.

Seesmic is the first to add Lists to their client. Loic and his team continue to shine both in making a solid Twitter client but in keeping it cutting edge.

This might have me pitting Tweetdeck against Seesmic once again.

What’s your client? Are you using Lists? Will this be a game changer?

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Twitter gives us a new toy today, the List Widget. Shown above is the first widget I’ve put together. If you scroll down on the blog you’ll see it in action.

List widgets let you select the user first, then you can select from the user’s public lists. Customize the list widget appearance by choosing colors, size and even title and caption. The widget size can be auto-adjusting or a set size. Color choices allow you to select the hex code or eyeball it using your mouse.

A National Novel Writing Month widget is my example. I built a list, still growing of course, of Twitter users doing nanowrimo. The list is by no means near 500 yet, but it’s enough that there should be a fair amount of tweets coming in. I chose to have it poll, and display only 30 tweets. Those settings are adjustable as well.

Twitter included the option to copy and paste the HTML as well as a Blogger specific option.  No Facebook or MySpace option was available; you can however use the HTML for MySpace.

I agree with TechCrunch, these will be your chance to curate your lists.

What will you do with the Lists Widget?

Seth Godin rocks the blog again with Opt in and opt out. He’s talking of course about how opt in or out should trend in favor of the consumer, be it their safety, well being or finances.  Seth is focused of course on examples like your 401 K, opt in. Why right? Or business choices that are often opt out, but would be better as opt ins.

Let’s look at an Internet example along Twitter lists is going to be a fun feature, but right now it’s not opt anything. If you’re added to a list, or add someone to a list, that’s just the way it is. This will be a problem.

Lists exploded onto the scene and people are frantically working to make their own. I’m already on 53 lists and it’s growing fast. There is no management screen. Listees not only can’t remove themselves, they can’t see at a glance which lists they are on.

No opt-in, no opt-out and no way to easily manage; Lists are going to experience back lash if these options don’t show soon.

Where do you stand? Should lists be opt-in, opt-out, and perhaps even opt-in/out at the list level?

Please take time to click through and read Seth Godin’s inspiring post.

My friend Liz wrote a great post on Twitter Lists 101 Etiquette.

Mafia Wars: Halloween Loot Event! Starting Friday at midnight (PT), all jobs and fights have a chance to give you special Halloween-themed items. Act fast because the event ends Monday, November 2 at midnight (PT). Sneak a peek into a few of the items!

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Flickr Galleries Goes Live

There’s a long list of features that we’ve wanted to develop for our members. Giving our members a way to celebrate the creativity of their fellow members has always been high on that list. Today, we’re thrilled to launch our newest feature: galleries.

Flickr galleries is a way to show off your favorite works.  The key is those works are not yours.  Your task is to be the presenter and curator of what you’ve found on Flickr.

Curator – a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection.

That’s right, a collection you select, control and share. Videos and photos can be included, but the limit is 18, so choose wisely.

Gallery Frequently Asked Questions

Flickr provides a slew of helpful information in frequently asked questions format.

Two of the most important and I’m sure immediately asked:

Only 18?

We’ve specifically limited the number of photos or video that can be added to each gallery to18. While it might seem like an arbitrary number, we want to give our members an opportunity to engage in activity that is similar to what a curator of a gallery or museum might undertake. And 18? It seems like a fine place to start.

Even a sprawling retrospective of a genre or specific artist wouldn’t included every single piece of work available. A curator takes the time to choose a selection of artwork that together becomes something in itself.

Can I add my own photos and videos to a gallery?

In a word, no.

We’ve created galleries for members to celebrate the creativity of their fellow members. You can feature your own content in “sets”.

Pepsi on Brick – my first gallery

Moscow is the next Mafia Wars city. Zynga is kicking it off with some cool new loot.

Mafia Wars: Moscow Preview! To celebrate the upcoming release of the Mafia Wars: Moscow, all jobs and fights can drop Russian Mafia items. Collect them all for a chance to unlock an exclusive item. Hurry before time runs out.

If you’ve not played yet today, you can expect to see this box pop up.

Here’s one of the fine Moscow loot drops:

There are eight pieces of Russian goodness and they are dropping randomly on all missions. Get out and get your Moscow preview loot.

Cheers,
Don Jordan
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Mafia Wars, a Zynga favorite, has added some new toys – Boosts! Never got one yet? Well they’re not hard to come by.

Here’s what the game shows about boosts:

These one-shot items can help you fight or defend better, and even give you discounts on energy required for jobs. Once consumed they are gone, so plan your actions wisely. You can only buy up to 20 of each boost each day.

Some examples:

The boosts are initially collected by re-vaulting collections.  Each collection has a specific bonus it gives.  Each bonus boost is a one shot item.

Making life easier with these though is the ability to buy a bunch up each day. They don’t stack, meaning only one boost of a type gets used at a time.  In addition, they get used automatically when you are the victim of an attack if you’ve used a defense boost.

The boosts awarded for each collection are given off to the side of each collection.  No need to hunt them down for research.

I’m looking forward to trying these out to see just how effective they are. Hoping you do the same and can share your experiences.

Find me on Facebook.

Add me to your mafia.

Mafia Wars on Facebook just got easier. They’ve incorporated a window on the Home page that shows up in the same place as the Improve Your Character box.

The new box cycles through helping with missions, sending gifts, and even adding mob members.  It not only prompts you, it takes care of business right in the window. You’re then presented with the next offer to help someone. No new window is spawned, and there’s no redraw of the screen. Very efficient.

What’s the biggest value though? The quick turn around on mission support. I was able to request assistance for multiple missions very quickly.  Likewise I was able to help on several missions in very short order. Heck, I was even able to send folks energy boosts.  This is going to greatly reduce the wait time for mission assists to pay out.

Cheers to Zynga for a useful and easy to use improvement.

Tonight Zynga releases Mafia Wars Lottery on Facebook. You can follow the discussion on the Zynga Mafia Wars official forums.

You can see it now in action though it’s disabled; check it out here. (may be live by the time you check this out)

The lottery spawns a whole new collection as well. I’ll keep you posted here.

Sometimes you get lucky and spot stuff.

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