Think about the last food you ate for a moment. Can you fully describe where it came from before the supermarket, vending machine or plastic package? How was it grown or raised there? Chances are it’s quite the challenge for most of us. It’s no secret that in our modern existence, urban dwellers have grown…
I recently sat down with Veer Gidwaney, founder and CEO of DailyFeats, to discuss some of the ways that the company is helping to “get people to achieve their maximum potential every single day” using gamification, points, and badges (or in this case “feats”). We introduced DailyFeats earlier in our blog, but some of the most…
Gamify is slowly coming out of its shell with a recent announcement of a partnership with setiQuest and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. setiQuest is an effort towards community involvement that will lead to a significant improvement in the ability to search for other intelligent civilizations in the cosmos. Gamify is supporting this effort with the Gamify…
“There an estimated one billion homeless people in the world”, states the opening of the film Kicking It, a 2008 documentary by Susan Koch and Jeff Werner. The film documents the 4th Annual Homeless World Cup, massive football (soccer) event that takes place in Cape Town, South Africa. Teams from all over the globe are…
It’s long been said that the best way to develop the future is to learn from the past. Jane McGonigal’s new collaboration with the New York Public Library, Playmatics and Natron Baxter Applied Gaming does just that by challenging players to complete quests to become one of 500 finalists who will stay overnight in the…
You can make a positive impact one step at a time. DailyFeats is a new site with the idea of getting people to do good through small actions. These actions can be for your own benefit, for your community or even the world. The point being: one person can make a significant difference in their…
Kevin Richardson is the Senior Producer in Nickelodeon’s Kids and Family game unit in San Francisco. He’s spent an equal number of years in the animated film/advertising business, and in games. Last year he won Volkswagen’s Fun Theory Award for his idea ‘The Speed Camera Lottery’. The basic question was “Can we get drivers to…
Why waste time waiting for the bus when you can be scoring points for your ‘hood instead? January 28th marked the end of Yahoo! Bus Stop Derby in San Francisco. 20 Muni bus stop shelters were outfitted giant, 72 inch touch-screens where travelers-in-waiting can play one of 4 games. All the games were less than…
Heavy snowfall in New York is to be expected this time of year. We have really humid weather, our summers and winters are equally brutal and our proximity to the ocean often makes forecasts difficult more than just a few days in advance. But the recent East Coast blizzard seems to have taken New York…
In yesterday’s New York Times, writer John Tierney covers the topic of games that change behavior. It’s a great piece featuring some of the Gamification Summit’s top speakers, including keynoter Jane McGonigal and veteran designer Nicole Lazzaro. One of the topics that Gamification is broadly subsuming is games for change and “serious games”*. They are…
Kiva President Premal Shah is worried about the drastic change that internet has taken since 2005, the year the site first launched. In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Shah noted that with game mechanics increasingly the norm and social games reaching an unprecedented audience, companies like Zynga are a stronger competitor to the micro-lending site…
