November 11, 2026
Headlines

Consumer

One Player’s Journey of Gaming Memecube at GSummit SF 2013

Taavi Lindmaa015 mins

Maybe you noticed my Twitter feed blowing up over 2 days in the middle of April. I didn’t count but I’m told there were well over 100 tweets in that brief period of time. While my followers should be used to booms when I hit a conference, this was definitely another level.

The reason for my tweet-binge was Memecube. Memecube is an interesting twist on the usual session hashtags; a conference exclusive Twitter tool. Only attendees were told the URL needed to access the system; in it was the conference schedule. After checking in to a session, you only see tweets from others who are also using Memecube and have checked in and new tweets auto-populated with the speakers’ Twitter handle & the GSummit hashtag. This meant, despite GSummit becoming the #1 trending hashtag on twitter during the conference, we did not see the usual assault of the bimbots. Additionally we didn’t have to try to separate our session from all the others to tweet or retweet something relevant, and the overall system was just easier to use. I cannot think of something the DreamForce Conference needed more.

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Soccket: The Soccer Ball That Generates Electricity

Alex Landa14 mins

If you’re able to read this, then you have ample electricity for everyday means. However, there are places in the world that have little-to-no available electricity for simple purposes like lightning their homes at night. Some folks have made a soccer ball that’s able to produce electricity by simply being kicked around in order to provide assistance to those who need it.

Over at Uncharted Play, the creators have invented an energy generating soccer ball called Soccket. The ball produces electricity from the kinetic energy made when kicked around and it only takes 30-minutes of play to power an LED light for 3 hours

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Are Brain Waves the Next Step for The Quantified Self?

Ivan Kuo55 mins

Activity trackers have become very popular among fitness enthusiasts, quantified-selfers, and gadget fans but are they making any sort of difference? I had mixed feelings about the Nike Fuelband when I reviewed it a year ago and Wired thinks it isn’t making you any healthier either. But maybe these glorified bluetooth accelerometers are missing a crucial feature: brainwave monitoring

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What the Xbox One Means for Gamification

Ivan Kuo14 mins

The successor to the Xbox 360 was just announced about an hour ago and we finally have a name for Microsoft’s next generation console: Xbox One

Many features about the Xbox One looked really impressive, especially the new high-fidelity Xbox Kinect sensor and voice commands but the most significant take-away for gamifiers is the presence of a TV tuner and a nifty little feature called “snap-mode.”

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PromiseUP, the Gamification App to Help Keep Promises

Heong Weng Mak25 mins

Remember the promise you made to your mom that you would call every so often? What about the other time you promised your boss that would not be late for work again? Or that promise you made to yourself that you will quit smoking?

Many individuals are capable of keeping to their promises, but there are also many others who are unable to do so. The fallacy of making promises is that there is no one else besides the person who is being made the promise to that will hold the individual accountable for his or her actions. As there is a lack of an immediate feedback loop, it leaves the individual complacent in accomplishing their tasks and making good on their end of the promise. A new IOS app, PromiseUP aims to change that by helping people to fulfill their promises.

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My Gamification Birthday Wish

Gabe Zichermann44 mins

Today is my 39th birthday.

When we started on this crazy gamification journey in 2010, I could not have predicted how large an impact our community would have in just 3 short years. What began as a shot in the dark (“I think there are some people out there who think that game concepts can improve business and the world”), has mushroomed into a real movement. Collectively, you have worked to design change in marketing, human resources, product development, strategy and business process. You’ve brought the best ideas from games, loyalty programs and behavioral economics to health, finance, education, government, loyalty and travel…just to name a few industries.

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3 Ways to Make TV More Engaging Without the Second Screen

Ivan Kuo015 mins

For people who still watch regular broadcast television, it has become very common to actually watch TV while simultaneously using your laptop, phone, or tablet. Savvy networks like USA/NBC have picked up on this and created gamified mobile companion applications to engage with users as they both watch TV and browse on the net. There are compelling case-studies that outline the efficacy of this concept, coined the second screen, but I have not really seen any other kinds of engagement tactics for viewers. However, I found inspiration for new possible ways from the gamer community, and more specifically, the Dota 2 community.

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New Seeds Startup Brings Gamification to Venture Capital and Microlending

Kevin Shane04 mins

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act is on the verge of altering the investment landscape, finally enabling startups to procure capital from investments that follow the model of crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The crucial difference is that the funds are given out as true risk/reward-bearing propositions.

The world of investment, at all levels, typically carries the nomenclature and ethic of gamification even though it is engaged in the serious business of real money. This means that it is a natural fit for gamification startups. Some are bringing unorthodox approaches to crowd investing that borrow ideas from an extremely fun and popular source – casual online games.

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Social Roulette and Assigning Values to Our Social Networks

Ivan Kuo26 mins

Social Roulette has a 1/6 chance of deleting your Facebook Existence. Well at least it used to until Facebook took down the app, according to an article posted by TechCrunch yesterday.

Social Roulette is a version of Russian Roulette: a game in which you place a single bullet in a revolver pistol, spin the barrel, and pull the trigger at yourself. If you’re unlucky, the single bullet will be in that chamber and subsequently send you into oblivion. Social Roulette is a play on this concept but instead of losing your life, you would only lose your all of your Facebook posts, pictures, and friends.

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The Oculus Rift’s Potential in Virtual Reality and Gamification

Alex Landa06 mins

For decades, science-fiction films, television shows, and literature have all featured the concept of virtual reality. Virtual reality (VR) has been a topic of modern lore and a goal unattainable in our lifetimes. Now in 2013, the technological dream of VR will soon be a reality with the Oculus Rift.

Following a successful KickStarter campaign, the Oculus Rift (OR) virtual reality headset has been making waves on tech sites around the world. It goes without saying that for video games, this means a leap into the future and a sense of immersion yet to be seen.

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Online Gamification Certification Course Now Available on Udemy

Ivan Kuo123 mins

Demand for gamification certification has been steadily increasing throughout the years and it has gotten to the point where we’re unable to keep up with demand for certification at our live events. In order to meet this demand, we decided to create an online course that would help meet the needs of all those looking to be certified from the comfort of their own home, time, and pace.

You’ve asked for it and now we’ve delivered: an online gamification certification course is now available exclusively through Udemy as a part of TechCrunch’s new CrunchU collection of education courses.

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Turning Big Data into Smart Data: Nike+ Drives Valuable Insight

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan04 mins

It was 2006 when Nike turned the most simple of sports into a key driver for adopting a healthier lifestyle. 7 years later, Nike+ now has about 7 million users. Socially rich data is key for any quantified self project, and running is no exception. The success of Nike+ is an example of how measuring performance is useful to gaining key insight. For users, they get to understand their running patterns better. For Nike, servers worth of Nike+ data can be turned into strategic business decisions to improve company performance.

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Introducing ReadSocial App: A Revolutionary Way to Read

Taavi Lindmaa24 mins

In conjunction with the release of Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder’s newest book, The Gamification Revolution, also comes the release of ReadSocial App: the world’s first gamified social reading application by Dopa Labs

ReadSocial App creates social communities around books, allowing readers to connect directly with authors, discuss hot topics from the book, and deepen their understanding about the book’s ideas.

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Bitcoin: The First Universal Loyalty Program Currency

Gabe Zichermann68 mins

Bitcoin — the buzzy virtual currency that’s focused on privacy — continues to gain major traction. For some time you’ve been able to pay for games (or a hitman), invest your earnings and speculate on Bitcoins. In recent days, it’s become possible to use the world’s first Bitcoin ATM and pay your employees in Bitcoins. In short, Bitcoin is angling to be the first broadly accepted virtual currency not issued by a nation-state.

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