CNN recently announced that they fired a swath of employees. Now the global news organization has rolled out new features for their citizen journalist platform, iReport in order to make up for the loss in coverage. The features include the first of many badges that aim to encourage users to contribute pictures and footage of news…
Since the dawn of the blockbuster gamification industry, I’ve been compiling, distilling and summarizing design patterns and systems. The objective has always been to help people across diverse industries such as marketing, healthcare, education, consumer tech, CPG and others find common entry points to this exciting new design approach. Over the course of the last…
I’ve done a lot of traveling. Although I am often a picture-taking tourist hopping from one site to the next in rapid succession, one of my favorite things to do is hear the stories and learn about the local rhythms of wherever I am. There is no substitute for immersion, but it usually takes more than the one…
With a new gamification offering, Spigit, a company specializing in using social technology and the power of crowds, looks use a game to engage their customers while at the same time generating new ideas. Unlike being forced to sit through Nicholas Cage’s film of the same name, Spigit’s FaceOff offers consumers the chance to be brand consultants and…
In my lectures and workshops on Gamification, one of the topics that folks find most interesting is Choice Mechanics. In a nutshell, there are a wide range of possible frameworks for designing user choices within a system, but conventions (and research such as the awesome Tyranny of Choice) have revealed a few key patterns that…
Like many of you, I’m a huge fan of the Ted conferences and am in awe of the success they’ve had in spreading awesome ideas. So when earlier this year I was invited to give a talk at TedX Kids in Brussels, I rearranged my hectic schedule and set to work on a new talk….
Late last week, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA, it’s like DARPA for spies) announced a new contract of $10.5 million to develop “serious games” that include training for US intelligence officers. Along side projects designing the future of silicon chips and predicting the future by analyzing public information, the new program, dubbed the…
In the past, I have been surprised to come across a number of people working on gamification that have never designed games and don’t play them regularly. Luckily, there are also people like Tony Ventrice who works at Badgeville and is a veteran game designer. In the past, he has made games with Playdom and…
The recognition of gamification is growing, and growing quickly. The question is, is it growing too fast? According to Gartner, the movement is somewhere near the top of the hype cycle, which means that there still needs to be some disillusionment before gamification enters its productive phase. MIT’s Technology Review today released an interview with Yahoo researcher,…
This past week has seen the release of a flurry of articles around the web that highlight the business side of gamification. Following an updated announcement by Gartner that 70% of the Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified app by 2014, authors have raced to demonstrate how it has already taken hold in many different…
The two-day boutique Future of Web Design conference concluded yesterday in New York’s Midtown, with speakers focusing heavily on innovation in engagement science. The conference is hosted annually by UK based Carsonified, a design company with a refreshing set of core values.
Part II: Technology’s Role in a Gamified Classroom. This is the second part of an ongoing series on the role of gamification in modern education by Andrew Proto. For the first part, visit “Part I: the Unique Obstacles Teachers Face“ In every classroom across the country, the technology that we are teaching our students with…
Last week, Samsung was among the first to announce integration of Badgeville’s new behavior platform in Samsung Nation. Samsung has put their weight behind the rollout. Rather than gamify one marketing campaign or a single product site, the company brought gamification into the forefront and integrated the new features throughout the US corporate site. Leaderboards, badges,…
GSummit San Francisco and New York City were huge hits, selling out and bringing together folks from around the world and from every corner of the gamification and engagement industries. Clearly however, not everyone can come to GSummit – and for many of those who attended, the two intense days of lectures, panels and workshops…
Social validation may sound like a lonely high-schooler’s dream, but in terms of gamification, it is a powerful social mechanic that can expand the user base and keep users honest. Social image is important in the People’s Republic, where “keeping face” is a traditional value, and Kwestr, a new startup out of China, hopes to expand…
