May 15, 2026
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design

Vogue Raptor Easter Egg

Why You Should Have Easter Eggs like Vogue’s Hat-Touting Raptor

Ivan Kuo49 mins

“Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A,”

And boom: you’ve just earned yourself 30 lives because Contra for the NES was too damn hard. If you’ve never heard of any of these terms before, Contra is an notoriously difficult side-scrolling shooting game that was released back in 1988 on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The button combination above, known as the Konami Code, is a cheat that granted players 30 extra lives to progress through the hair-tearing game.

And in the case of Vogue’s UK website – this code does something awesome and you should have something similar for your own website.

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earn your wings foodie badge

Earn Your Wings: Air Canada’s Successful Gamification Venture into Loyalty

Gabe Zichermann211 mins

There’s little question that the loyalty “industry” has an innovation problem. With few exceptions, the world’s largest loyalty programs (mostly in travel, finance and retail) are mostly the same as they were 20 years ago. Social, mobile, gamification have struggled to find a footing, even as they are the entire foundation of next-gen loyalty systems such as those developed by Square, Belly or any number of gamified providers. With so much inertia and torpor, it’s easy to give up on traditional loyalty providers when it comes to innovation…but perhaps the old dog has a few tricks left.

A few weeks ago, through a social sharing post by a friend (this data point will be crucial), I came upon a new promotion run by Air Canada, called Earn Your Wings. The program created a leaderboard of top flyers during the promotional period that were ranked based on a range of activities. These included, but weren’t limited to, miles flown and were supported by a series of badges awarded for different activity loops. Top players split a large pot of 10 million miles at the end of the promotion period, and that activity seemed especially fierce, which is what really excited me.

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engagement platform

The Quest for the Perfect Engagement Platform

Ivan Kuo29 mins

Starting my own company was always the obvious choice. I was raised to look up to entrepreneurs as successful and independent visionaries. I set out to help people to realize the potential of cloud- based services and founded Alien Interactive in 1999. Almost 14 years ago, it was not an easy task. But my vision was bigger than that. I wanted to find a way to offer people what games and sports had offered me; the enjoyment of motivation, determination and deep engagement. The word gamification was not yet heard of but I was fascinated by the thought of making an engaging game out of less exciting work-days. But almost 14 years ago, without the adoption of technology we see today, it was even harder for people to understand that idea than the potential of cloud services.

My entrepreneurial ambition spawned, and still does, from one fundamental stance: There is no reason why work shouldn’t be a thrilling experience. By adding a well-designed engagement system to our enterprise-environment we can take advantage of the elements of games and sports to truly engage users, employees and partners.

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top influencers at GSummit SF 2013

How to Drive Repeat Traffic to Your Blog with a Monthly Top Influencer Leaderboard

Toby Beresford58 mins

For most gamifiers, a social media presence is a must-have to promote gamification skills and your services in particular.

Whether offering a software as a service or consulting (check out the list of vendors in the GCo buyers guide), a blog is a must have.

We all know that getting people to read our blogs and keep coming back for more is a tricky behavior to encourage but as with many desired behaviors, gamification certainly can help.

I’ve been using a few simple gamification mechanics for nearly two years to drive repeat, valuable, VIP traffic to my personal blog (GOW). In this post I want to share the approach and learnings with other gamification.co readers.

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7 Ways to Royally Mess Up Your Gamification Campaign

Kevin Shane16 mins

There’s already an entire library of information about game mechanics and how startups have successfully implemented gamification. If you’re considering gamifying an experience, however, you should probably know the ways you can reduce its efficacy. That way you can either choose differently, or if you really want to test social experiences you can see how well people respond to gamification that simply doesn’t work.

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7 Reasons Why Apple’s Enterprise Bread and Circuses Fail in iOS 7

Gabe Zichermann315 mins

Yesterday Apple revealed iOS 7, the latest version of its operating system for mobile devices. The update was greeted – as usual – by thunderous applause from the company’s legions of fanboys and with vocal derision from pro-Android bigots. In the midst of all the hoopla and traded social media barbs, one thing seems glaringly obvious: Apple is out of ideas, particularly for business users.

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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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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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Top 12 Pitfalls To Avoid in Managing Enterprise Gamification

Siddhesh Bhobe112 mins

Gamification is fast being touted as a panacea for everything from employee engagement to higher productivity, from customer loyalty to effectiveness in teaching. It’s no wonder that more than 70% of Forbes Global 2000 companies have announced plans to deploy gamification in some form or other. As more and more enterprises wake up to the potential of gamification, there is also an increasing frustration with projects that have petered out after the initial hype, with low or no returns, and a growing disillusion with fun at work!

But a closer look at the failures will reveal some simple ground rules which can ensure the success of your gamification initiative. Here are the top 12 pitfalls to be aware of, and avoid, in your quest for successful enterprise gamification:

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4 Social Gamification Techniques That Work in Enterprise

Siddhesh Bhobe47 mins

As more and more enterprises wake up to the potential of gamification in employee engagement, there is also an increasing realization that the applications for social gamification go far beyond kudos, points and badges. For example, at Persistent Systems, a 7000+ employee IT company based in India, social gamification has been used as a delivery mechanism for a wide variety of employee-centric applications that increase employee bonding, productivity, and have a direct impact on health and wellness.

In this article, we discuss four social gamification ideas that can have a direct, positive impact in your organization.

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Foursquare and the Fun Gap: What Foursquare Should Have Been

Gabe Zichermann410 mins

Today Foursquare announced a new round of debt-based financing amounting to $41M in loans and convertible notes. It has been controversial, because debt-based financing suggests the company has a significant performance problem (Jason Gelman has a good wrap-up of the spirited discussion). Foursquare’s problem has become increasingly clear to Gamification folks over the past two years – it’s just not fun anymore. In the transition from a (great) game to a (good) loyalty program to a (mediocre) recommendations engine, they lost the plot, alienated customers and wasted a ton of resources and time.

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