Information Technology & Social Media News

Great gamification primer. 

Great gamification primer. 

Great gamification primer. 

A valuable advise: Turn the tiniest moments of everyday life into a game.

A classic points-and-reward system is perhaps the most common implementation of gamification into everyday life

Google's Android could be a powerful ally in the continuing move from phone to game console. What is clear about "mobile marketing" is no good comes from thinking of a smart phone as anything other than a really small iPad :).  

I like this "framework" to create gamification particularly Chou's 8 Core Drives:

1) Epic Meaning and Calling

2) Development and Accomplishment

3) Expression of Creativity and Feedback

4) Ownership and Possession

5) Social Pressure and Envy

6) Scarcity and Impatience

7) Curiosity and Unpredictability

8) Loss and Avoidance

GREAT post on the HOW TOs of #gamification.  

Cool and helpful work from one of gamification's pioneers 

These dives/motivations can be used to improve engagaement in any interaction.

Great deck on gamification basics.

Startups Use Contests & Games To Create PR
Great post about how startup app creators are using cool tools to set up games and contests to create cheap PR for their new products and services. 

Are games and gamification the new PR? Maybe.  

Great post about how colleges and universiteis are using gamificaiton for egagement with an audience used to gaming as they've grown up on video games.

Badges We Don't Need No Stinkin Badges
Had someone get pretty upset with me last night. She perceived that I was making light of gamification and tossing around the term like a neo maxi zoom dweebie.

I am an INTERNET MARKETER. This means I know and use terms like gamification with the proper amount of circumspection. I also had the "Father of Gamification" take me to the hoop the other day on Cure Cancer Starter pretty hard.

To the Gamification police I say CHILL.

Gamification has its own built in Darwinian thing. It is NOT easy and will not treat those who are looking for a quick fix well. Like any Internet marketing gamification takes testing, tweaking and listening more than you talk. These points are made in the article if a tad on the preachy side (for my taste).

I've experienced this feeling before. It is as if the lucky few inside the club now want to shut the doors because they see their reputations and livelihoods at risk by the legions of neo maxi zoom dweebies flooding the market.

All markets change and the first settlers desire to fend off the latest wave, filled though it may be with zoom dweebies, is arrogance and hubris. Better to LEARN and LISTEN (at least in my 13 years of IM and 30 years of marketing experience).

Let me judge THIS article less harshly. This post is more balanced than the comment from yesterday or my beat down from the "Father of Gamification". I'm still here working on CureCancerStarter.org so those things didn't KILL me but made me stronger and more determined.

Don't think gamification is the EASY thing to do inside of otherwise complicated Internet marketing. It is NOT and there are all kinds of "gamification" so study up, test and don't be pushed away from the door because those inside are saying the gamification green room is full.

3 Most Important Words In Internet Marketing: Games, Gamification, Gamify

Why MUST Internet marketers understand games and gaming? Because the wall between THEM (game developers) and US (Internet marketers) is coming down FAST, very fast. There are three reasons for this soon to be tsunami trend:

* Web 3.0.
* How Online Environments Work.
* Human nature.

Web 3.0
We are creating CureCancerStarter.org right now and there are many new rules about web development that reflect where we are going already such as:
* The site is highly responsive (looks good no matter what kind of devices is looking at it).

* This new site uses a Content Delivery Network and the cloud to cache and shuffle information in so fast old rules about image size and speed (bigger = slow) almost don't apply.
* The site is "appified" or designed in a series of Lego-like modules some canned, some written by us from scratch.

Web development is going someplace very different and where we are going is where many video developers already live with extensive branding algorithms to determine what gest shown in what situations.  Soon your "website" will be a series of rules, text and images capable of being combined on the fly in an almost infinite variety of highly converting webpages.

Online Environments
Online environments are very video game like from the jump. Online starts COLD and HARSH and we web designers and developers PLAN how to warm them up. We create a series of linked "journeys" through our information.

If "a series of linked journeys" sounds like Joseph Campbell and Hero With A Thousand Faces you win a cookie. Ideally our environments are heroic and they transfer elements of courage, joy and love to our visitors. Sounds like video games again.

Human Nature
We like to compete, compare and contrast. We seek affinity groups and develop our sense of self, at least partially; from the feedback loops provided by our "like me" groups.

The social web is a "peer group" compare, compete and contrast engine. The more we compare, contrast and compete the more fun we have. Sounds like video games again.

I'm going to read Adam's book and report back once I am in reading mode again (after launching CureCancerStarter, cowdfunding cancer research, and CureCancerStore.org, shop to cure cancer, next week. Phase II development for both of those very new ideas is games, gamification and to gamify.

Noticing how the Google trends line was moving like Mt. Everest on "gamification" and knowing that engagement was one of the secret implications of Google's Panda algorithm changes AND loving games and gamification as a way to increase engagement I wrote Gamification: Winning Hearts, Minds and Loyalty Online a year ago. 

Love it when a bet comes in. It would hard to be hotter than gamification is right now. This paper helps explain how to gamify anything. 

Great deck on gamification basics.

Love Venture Capitalist Tim Chang's deep underlying truth - "You can't gamify anything you don't mesaure".

Will be curating more content from the Game Summit, but this is a great post from Bill Hennessy (@bill_hennessy). 

Death Of Gamification Greatly Exaggerated

These "death of gamification" articles are becoming popular. The irony of that in the scope of the content game we play can't be overlooked, but let's put that discussion on hold. Instead lets discuss the fact that gamification is NOT monolithic. 

Gamification, the use of game theory in marketing or other non-game enterprise functions, takes many forms such as:

* Active - earning points for social rewards.

* Passive - forming an ecosystem with algorithms reinforces play.

* Real Tie - we will play in real time when predictive analytics and big data become more common.

I got criticism speaking of "badges" at a Meetup recently. The person made it sound like I was equating all gamification with badges. Not so, I am keenly aware of the many different variations of gamification. 

A website's taxonomy (its navigation) is a form of gamification. Website designers are developing paths and rewards or "passive" gamification. When I reward your behavior with an instant redeem coupon we've moved into real time gamification and when I keep track of your "points" we've moved to active gamification. 

Great gamification happens without you ever knowing it. What is a red light but a convention, a game, we all agree to and play by daily. Our rewards are not having car crashes and being a good citizen. Make no mistake, red lights and green lights are games and we "win" by arriving home in time for dinner safely. 

NO gamification is not now nor will it ever be "played out".  

Post Panda & Penguin Engagement Is Queen
If CONTENT is truly and finally KING post Google's Panda and Penguin updates then engagement, those things that visitors coming back to your website and viewing it for longer periods of time are queen.

In the land of engagement GAMIFICATION is a prince because here are just a few things gamification does:

* Increase time on site.
* Increase social shares.
* Increase commenting and User Generated Content (UGC).

I could go on but why. If those three don't convince you nothing will. The stat that I love from this post is the almost 30% engagement lift. Don't think of this magic as "engagement" think of it as MONEY. 30% engagement lift could translate into MILLIONS for many websites as great customers come back more often, share move often and BUY MORE OFTEN.

Couple of interesting support posts include

Gamification Backlash (on Scoopit)

http://sco.lt/7rqCIr

Storytelling is the New SEO (on Slideshare)
http://www.slideshare.net/martinmartysmith/storytelling-new-seo

Winning Hearts Minds and Loyalty Online (white paper)

http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/gamification-white-paper-atlanticbt/

You HAVE to love an article about gamificaton that opens quoting The Who. Games ROCK. Gamify me!