Yeah, see how well the gamification of HN worked out?
"Gamification" is the new "viral." It'll make a lot of people major consulting bank, but it's not going to create a lot of high quality content or revenue or whatever.
I write this a couple hours after returning from lunch, where, as I was checking in to Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market on Foursquare, I asked myself, "What the FUCK am I doing?! Who cares?!" I'm this close to removing Foursquare from my phone.
The recent article on ReadWriteWeb on the coming death of the check-in is spot on. I'm someone who lives in a dense urban area, who checks in because I'm hoping against hope that maybe someday, some's going to text me after seeing my check-in with a "Dude! You're at Bob and Barbara's drinking a special! I am so there!" But it hasn't happened in the two plus years I've been playing with Foursquare on and off.
The blog 'author' literally added nothing to it, which is probably why he botched all the links.
For what it's worth, I hope Gartner's wrong. Applications are already so saturated with gamification that I've found it to be more a turn off at this stage.
The idea of collaboration tools with points/voting/buzz indexes across large organizations could be a good idea, but please won't someone come up with a better buzzword for it?
Please, I beg someone to come up with a new word. My company is a platform provider in this space and we aren't a fan of the term.
I have to admit that it is nice to finally have a unique word which companies can search for... but its a pretty loaded term and is already used to mean different things by different companies.
This is the same Gartner that concluded that WP7 would have better smartphone marketshare than iOS in 2015 (by dubious interpolation)?
Their example of "America's Army" as gamification is a bit off; it's a virtualization and recruiting tool, and doesn't do much to say "earn your E4".
I think the "gamification" operates best when soliciting commentary/feedback and community building. An example could be barackobama.com where you got points for making calls and referring your friends/family, i.e., things you would normally do on the site.
7 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 31.3 ms ] thread"Gamification" is the new "viral." It'll make a lot of people major consulting bank, but it's not going to create a lot of high quality content or revenue or whatever.
I write this a couple hours after returning from lunch, where, as I was checking in to Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market on Foursquare, I asked myself, "What the FUCK am I doing?! Who cares?!" I'm this close to removing Foursquare from my phone.
The recent article on ReadWriteWeb on the coming death of the check-in is spot on. I'm someone who lives in a dense urban area, who checks in because I'm hoping against hope that maybe someday, some's going to text me after seeing my check-in with a "Dude! You're at Bob and Barbara's drinking a special! I am so there!" But it hasn't happened in the two plus years I've been playing with Foursquare on and off.
The blog 'author' literally added nothing to it, which is probably why he botched all the links.
For what it's worth, I hope Gartner's wrong. Applications are already so saturated with gamification that I've found it to be more a turn off at this stage.
Make your product compelling, not compulsive.
I have to admit that it is nice to finally have a unique word which companies can search for... but its a pretty loaded term and is already used to mean different things by different companies.
Their example of "America's Army" as gamification is a bit off; it's a virtualization and recruiting tool, and doesn't do much to say "earn your E4".
I think the "gamification" operates best when soliciting commentary/feedback and community building. An example could be barackobama.com where you got points for making calls and referring your friends/family, i.e., things you would normally do on the site.