Parker-Duncan-shows-off-his-merit-badge-sash-at.jpg (306×410) Mashable Gamifies Tech News. Earlier this year, Mashable rolled out gamification elements for their tailored news experience, Mashable Follow.
Last week, Mashable wrote about the new features, and asked ”what makes gamification successful?” The answers they provide give a cursory case study of how gamification can motivate engagement in an already active community. Mashable badges are playing a bit of catch-up as gamification of the news has been seen before. Most recently, Google News rolled out Google News Badges and the Huffington Post beat the curve with their badge integration in April 2010. But HuffPo badges quickly became the poster child for badge fatigue, and Google News Badges seem to have fallen by the wayside. Mashable tries to overcome the shortfalls of earlier examples by making the badges fun. Community lies at the heart of the gamification elements, and Mashable hopes to build from the early success by turning to the community to help design new features with ongoing contests.
Gamification the next big step in audience-brand interaction - th... 15 Brand Examples of Gamification. Outside of the recent flurry associated with Google+, the one term that has been top of mind throughout the digital space recently is gamification.
Gamification is a term used to describe organizations using game mechanics to drive engagement in traditionally non-gaming products. There are examples of gamification everywhere in our daily lives and many brands are integrating game mechanics in unique and compelling ways all with the purpose of driving user engagement. Below are 15 examples of Gamification and how brands are capitalizing on the trend. Xbox Live | Achievements, Leaderboards | Microsoft struck a chord with traditional gamers when they first rolled out achievement points.
Users can earn a certain amount of gamerscore by completing specific tasks or actions in game. E.g. Foursquare | Rewards, Badges | Location based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla & Facebook Places have redefined game mechanics in non-gaming products. Examples of Foursquare Badges Example Ribbon Hero. David’s Blog » Notes on badges. If you haven’t heard about Mozillas Open Badge Initiative, a great explanation and round up lives on Rowins blog.
As Rowin points out that badges ‘draw upon widespread use of badges and achievements in gaming‘ and as somebody who has many badges and achievements in various game systems I can’t help but wonder if some of the problems that have cropped up in games might cross over into the Open Badge Initiative. Some early thoughts: Nobody wants to complete a level using only a hyperblaster Badly designed meta-goals can ruin an experience, some players will attempt to do all the tasks asked of them to get as many as the badges, achievements or points as possible. Is it fun completing any levels in quake 4 with only a hyperblaster? Bribery Early in life a Microsoft console a game publisher realised it had a bad game on its hands. Badge Inflation Achievements just aren’t enough anymore, as soon as games started giving out easy achievements gamers wanted more.
Social-media games: Badges or badgering? Earning badges and climbing a ladder of "levels" used to be the respective domains of Boy Scouts and devoted video gamers.
No more: It's officially the hottest craze in social-media marketing to make your customers think they're playing a game. A niche discussion site, Gravity, instantly informs new users that they've earned a virtual "New Kid on the Block" badge, and when they upload a profile photo, they get a "Photogenic" badge--and there are plenty more where that came from. An upstart daily deals site called HomeRun is attempting to take a bite out of market leader Groupon by letting repeat users rack up points by participating in and rating deals as well as referring friends; once they have enough points, they're eligible for high-end "private reserve" deals like wine tastings and charity ball tickets.
On Thursday, news outlet The Huffington Post unveiled a set of graphic "badges" to designate participation in comment discussion and moderation . "You have to be a social network.