An inside look at Amit Fulay: Product Manager at Google
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You can read more of Amit’s thoughts by following him on Twitter: @amitfulay
And don’t miss hearing him speak at the Gamification Summit in January!
I will be presenting an hour-long webinar for O’Reilly on January 7th called “Gamification Patterns and Pitfalls” at 10am Pacific Time (1800 GMT). I’ll be discussing examples of successful gamification as well as some less-successful ones to give a well-rounded overview of how you can make your business more engaging. I will also be previewing some content from the Gamification Summit.
The webcast is completely free, so please join us. You can register here.
And don’t forget to register for the Gamification Summit, January 20-21st in San Francisco – the workshop is already sold out, but a limited number of seats still remain for Summit Day 1. Speakers from Playboy, Zynga, NBC, Microsoft, Google and ng:moco are on the slate, so don’t miss out.
I wrote an article for Mashable that came out today enumerating some of my top predictions for Gamification in 2011. I discuss the effect gamification will have on healthcare, education, the environment, loyalty programs and big brands. Obviously, I’m bullish on the power of gamification to change the world and engage consumers, but as I reflected on 2010 and looked forward to 2011, I’m even more excited than ever! Be sure to join us at GSummit to kick off what will be known as “The Year of Gamification”. Tickets are selling out rapidly, and it will be truly awesome.
I also promise to write a wrap-up post for 2010 at some point soon!
An inside look at Blake Scholl: co-founder of Kima Labs
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You can read more of Blake’s thoughts by following him on Twitter: @bscholl
And don’t miss hearing him speak at the Gamification Summit in January!
The Gamification Summit is a little over a month away (January 20th – 21st, San Francisco) and things are getting even more exciting. Here are some of our big updates:
So be sure to register for the summit right now to avoid disappointment. We’re looking forward to seeing you in SF in January.
If you’ve already registered, stay tuned for an exciting update from us to you!
Thesixtyone; a self-proclaimed music adventure, is a site dedicated to helping you discover music in a whole new way. According to co-founder James Miao “thesixtyone was born out of our (myself and my co-founder, Sam Hsiung) frustration with music sites. Mainstream music sites had hairy licensing restrictions that translated to poor user experiences. Independent content networks felt amateurish and uninspired – there was no motivation…to explore.” The site allows you to discover indie musicians you might not have otherwise heard and get rewarded for doing so. Listen to individual tracks or entire albums, leave comments and give hearts to ones you like. As the song plays, thesixtyone automatically runs a slideshow of photos, fun facts and even tweets by the artist. Once you’ve given a heart to a song, as it moves up the charts and becomes more popular on the site, you earn a better reputation as a music expert.
You have a limited number of hearts to start with – but the more you listen, the more you get. You can also increase your ranking and hearts by completing quests – like listening to songs in 4 different “mood” categories, completing your “daily quest” or by inviting at least 5 Facebook friends to join. Unlock achievements to earn reputation points and badges.
Create playlists to share with your followers and listen to the site’s suggestions that accumulate the longer you explore. You can also buy music directly from the artists, who earn up to $7 per album. Some artists featured on site have gone on to sign with record labels and have been featured on MTV, HBO and a plethora of other opportunities. Notable alumni include Meiko, I Fight Dragons, Owl City and Fitz and the Tantrums.
Thesixtyone is a deep labyrinth of sights and sounds where you could potentially spend eternity just experiencing the content. Like photos and video, music lends itself well to broad sorting/ranking gamified experiences. If the music alone isn’t enough to keep you interested, the integration of quests, a reputation system and status creates a different level of engagement with and dedication to artists. You want their songs to do well and become popular because your rep is on the line!
This site is a lot of fun and has already introduced me to some new artists I might not have otherwise encountered. While it’s a great concept and a really enjoyable experience, there were a few issues I initially took with the site. It’s not an exaggeration to call it a labyrinth. Once you go in, it’s impossible to find your way back to start. The design of the site is smooth and elegant – it does keep you moving around, but you’re not able to easily orient yourself or even find help if you need it. And if you’re getting songs to top charts, where are the charts? Looking at the popular songs category only starts playing them at random. There’s no literal chart to see at a glance which songs are the most popular or a leaderboard to show which users got them there. It begs the question: what’s the point of a reputation if no one sees it?
This incarnation of the site is still relatively new (the original was launched in 2008 and has changed a lot since being relaunched last January) and many of its components are still in beta. A front page leaderboard used to be there and has since been removed. I asked James Miao why they choose to rework the site in this way. “The leaderboard was great early on, but ultimately sent the wrong message that thesixtyone emphasized competition,” he said. “Enjoying music should be the primary activity, and aspects like points/levels/achievements should be byproducts of that activity, not the other way around. The front page change was a gut decision: having a highly browsable list of songs/artists didn’t make much sense if the average user couldn’t recognize names.” The decision may have been the right one, as James describes user engagement as “abnormally high”. He added that the average registered user spends almost 2 hrs per day on the site while the average, non-registered visitor is 30 minutes. Thesixtyone is an example of a gamified system where the focus is the journey, not the destination. And when the scenic route is so enjoyable, why would anyone be in a rush for it to end?
Want to learn more about gamification & help write the definitive books, guides and research on the subject?
We’re looking for someone with strong research and writing skills that can commit to 10-20 hrs a week (varying) between now and March to help investigate and curate the tremendous amount of knowledge being generated in gamification. The internship is unpaid, but you’ll be compensated with a small stipend and academic credit (for students), as well as research/writing credit for any projects with which you assist. This job can also be done remotely with a flexible schedule. If you’re interested please fill out this form and we will respond soon.
Thanks! We look forward to working with you!
Gamification is the integration of game dynamics into any medium such as website, community and school etc in order to drive a positive response, participation and engagement from a target audience. Without a doubt, gamification will be popular in education and educational technology in 2011.
Already we’re seeing many interesting developments within education and the influence of gamification. Fraser Spiers, a tech savvy educator at Cedars School of Excellence, manages iPad4Edu.com, a Q&A site focussing on iPads and education. Professor Lee Sheldon assigns XP instead of traditional “letter grades” in his undergraduate Telecommunications course at Indiana University, and Channel 4 in the UK has commissioned a number of UK indie games studios to develop educational games and smartphone apps.
Recently, the iTunes store launched a new apps section entitled “Special Education” with categories like Sign Language, Communication, Accessible Readers, Diagnostics & Reference, Emotional Development, Seeing & Hearing, Language Development, Literacy & Learning, Organization, and Life Skills. As Director of Marketing for Wrinkled Pants, I am always investigating new educational apps for the iPad and iPhone to learn what is best of breed. I am also curious to explore what elements, if any, of gamification are being used including achievements, rewards, leaderboards, etc. A few of these in particular caught my attention:
Miss Spell’s Class is a useful spelling app from the creators of Dictionary.com. The player is able to hold spelling bees and have students challenge their parents, siblings or peers as they cycle through the database of words to decide if they are spelled correctly or not. Points are awarded for speed and accuracy.
I like it, but where are the positive reinforcements, achievements, and a healthy opportunity for self expression? It’s a little too much like school and not enough like playing to really hold a child’s interest for very long.
The Elements: A Visual Exploration is a veritable veteran to the iPad platform and is one that Apple likes to use to showcase the iPad’s capabilities.
The Elements is an interactive periodic table and at $13.99 it’s one of the more expensive apps of its kind. Touch objects to zoom in on them, watch videos, read about their properties and marvel at the detail and clarity you get from one of the best educational iPad apps that money can buy. Gorgeous?-Yes. Interactive? -Absolutely. But where is the gameplay? More could have been done to elicit student engagement and achievement as they learn by “tapping.” There’s very little here to garner a sense of accomplishment or encourage further use.
Lastly, Number Sense HD, is a mathematical app aimed at Kindergarten kids, but has great education merit for preschoolers and 1st graders.
It is made up of 5 mini-games. Each one can be adjusted for difficulty in the settings, and will test a different facet of math such as counting, sequencing, comparisons, greater than and less than, as well as simple addition and subtraction. The games are fun and engaging and with it brings great rewards, badges and achievements, respect and ultimately, a stronger engagement for players.
There’s a very delicate balance that needs to be struck when it comes to educational games. Kids can smell the “educational” part from a mile away, parents and teachers want to be assured that the game is purposeful. These games have to be well-designed, fun, education and, above all else, engaging. As gamification becomes more popular and its positive effects more respected we can expect to keep seeing a rise in high quality educational games. For educational games and apps, let’s keep working toward positive reinforcement. Only then will we achieve our individual and collective gold stars!
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John Horodyski is the Director of Marketing & Business Development for Wrinkled Pants; an educational software studio focused on the development of apps to improve the literacy skills of underachieving elementary and secondary school students. John is also VP, Learning, Professional Development, & Client Services at GISTICS Inc, a consulting firm specializing in marketing operations management and digital asset management. John teaches a graduate course at San José State University, School of Library & Information Science in Digital Asset Management. He has published professional articles and presented at numerous conferences on digital media, metadata in video games and taxonomy design. He holds a Masters Archival Studies and Masters Library and Information Science from the University of British Columbia and is the Managing Editor to the Journal of Digital Asset Management.
I have an Op-Ed on VentureBeat today entitled “VCs level up with ‘gamification‘”. It focuses on the increased amount of seed and early stage capital that has been going into gamification within the last year and what that means for development and the future. Effectively, investment enters the gamification channel either as pure-play (gamification-only) or to fund gamification-centric activity (e.g. a finance company gamifying). Additionally, funding can be, broadly, early-stage or expansion capital. What do you think the market holds for gamification of VC investment?
You can hear me, Tim Chang, Rajat Paharia and many more talk about the future of gamification at the Gamification Summit.
An inside look at Michael Fergusson: CEO and founder of Ayogo Games Inc.
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You can read more of Michael’s thoughts by following him on Twitter: @fergusson
And don’t miss the chance to network at the Gamification Summit in January!
No matter how advanced technology becomes, there will always be some things that human beings just do better, such as recognizing distinctions in colors and patterns and prioritizing complex decisions. In the fields of human biology and DNA analysis, these skills are key to understanding genetic structure. Being able to recognize similarities and make distinctions within strands of genetic sequence can help scientists better understand human development and help to cure disease. But deciphering DNA strands is complicated, tedious and a lot of work, to say the least. In order to help get assistance, a research team at McGill University in Montreal have created a way to get the general public involved through gaming.
It’s called Phylo, the name taken from the prefix meaning “race”, “tribe”, or “kind”. The focus of the game is on “multiple sequence alignment”. It takes an abstracted representation of strands of DNA, RNA or proteins so that those of humans can be compared those of other species to find common evolutionary traits and instances of mutation. These lines, which are represented by colored blocks, are laid out on a grid. The goal of the player is to move the blocks horizontally to match similar colors and trying to close existing gaps as much as possible-though removing them completely often isn’t possible. Points are deducted for mismatched colors and deducted further for gaps in the sequence. The object is to beat the computer’s attempt at analyzing the sequence before the time runs out.
The game becomes one not of just coordinating patterns, but also of decision making. Players can also choose their level of difficulty and even choose what disease they want to help study.
You can also look at the all-important leaderboard to see the highest number of completed levels.
If you play this game, pay close attention to the tutorial, because understanding the scoring system can be a little tricky. It’s clear that a lot of steps were taken to make this game as accessible as possible considering the complexity of what it’s literally trying to do. While it may not be action-packed or a triumph of design, the underlying concept shows a lot of respect for the power of gamification and how well the human brain responds to such challenges.
Phylo also creates a sense of status and community in a unique way. You’re not interacting with other players and though you can see the highest scores, you’re not in direct competition with anyone. Really the sense of pride comes from the significance of your role and the language being used to describe it. You’re not just completing a level, you’re “analyzing a sequence”, you’re not just playing a game, you’re “contributing to science”. The feeling of a community comes from seeing the work being done by the collective and being part of something bigger than yourself.
Games have been used for education, health and completing tasks and this game combines all three with the goal of the greater good for everyone. People can get together to achieve amazing things when properly motivated. As we learn more about the benefits of gamification we can expect to see more games like this in the future.
An inside look at Sharleen Sy: Co-founder of Play Dynamics Inc. and Writer for Strategic Synergy
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You can read more of Sharleen’s thoughts by following her on Twitter: @SharleenSy
And don’t miss the chance to network at the Gamification Summit in January!
If Yelp and GetGlue had a baby, it would probably look something like InTheMO, a new site (still in Alpha) that allows users to get & give recommendations of cool spots around the world. While there are a plethora of review sites for restaurants, clubs and the like, InTheMO specifically targets small social networks as a way to get first hand accounts from your actual friends. The site uses high quality video to give you a sense of various cities and suggest different locales therein.
Start out with a quick rating game of places near you. Click to say whether or not you’d “Rec” (recommend) it and how much it matches your tastes on a scale of 100 (10% being “Forget it” and 100% being “Perfect for Me”) to increase the system’s ability to guess your tastes. Add comments, reviews and photos to places you’ve been, or create a wishlist for places you long to visit. Create new listings for locations that aren’t on the site yet.
Earn “Street Cred” whilst you roam, giving you clout and earning trust amongst your followers. You can also unlock different ranking categories as you earn points. Become an expert by rating frequently in one category, such as bars, theaters or parks and make it to the top of the leaderboards.
While InTheMO is centered around places, it also branches out and asks you to “rec” movies, games, brands, products and more.
Like GetGlue, there is a high amount of usability and “stickiness” to the site. It encourages repeat visits as well as longer visits, as there are a lot of activities to keep you clicking. While the use of game mechanics is somewhat shallow, it is well counter-balanced by a high degree of social interaction. InTheMO relies heavily on status and community, for this reason it is appealing for those who have a great deal of hometown pride and want to be the expert on the coolest hangout spots in their neighborhood. It could also work well for the jet-set type who wants to show off the many different countries they’ve visited. If it’s successful, and the game mechanics are well-balanced, InTheMO could solve a major problem in Foursquare and Yelp’s design: the expert on a place isn’t always the person who is there the most often.
This tautology – equating frequency with depth – is one of the reasons we need a new measure for engagement. Attend Gabe’s opening keynote at Gamification Summit 2011, and you’ll hear him talk about these future metrics.
IntheMO itself has a lot of room for growth, especially given the momentum around location-based apps. It surely won’t be long before they launch a mobile check-in feature, and we hear an iPhone app is already in the works. Since businesses can claim their listings on the site, they’re also likely to begin programming specials and discounts like Facebook Deals or the newly launched Yelp Checkin offers. I for one can’t wait to see what InTheMO has in store, though I can’t help but wonder why it’s not called something like RecEngine or Recster.
An inside look at Dean Takahashi : lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat.
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You can read more of Dean’s thoughts by following him on Twitter: @deantak
And don’t miss hearing him speak at the Gamification Summit in January!
