Archive for August, 2010

Mashable.com reports about a new study (source) which shows that “one out of every five Americans over the age of six has played an online social game at least once. Altogether, that’s nearly 60 million Americans, adults and kids alike. ”

Social gaming is hence not only a playground for web geeks, but also for casual gamers. Social gaming, a new and successful entrant to the gaming market, has the potential to produce a new revenue stream which comes directly from the its end users. Virtual goods/currencies which are a typically part of the social games are best examples which were able to turn casual gamer experience into huge business for startup-enterprises.

The study also shows that 10% of respondents had already spent money by playing social games in their past and other 11% have plans to do so in the future. In 2009, users spent $2.2 billion for buying virtual goods and experts estimate that the number will raise up to $6 billion till 2013.

It is also interesting to see that social gamers tend to be of older age and female (53% women), whereas the traditional gaming sector is dominated by male players. Other research reinforces this outcome and indicates that social gamers are more likely female and their age is around 43 years. Moreover, 35% of the social gamers have no previous video-gaming experience.

Facebook turns out to be the most popular platform for social games. 83% of respondents already played games there, with an average of six different social game titles played per player.

Scholars at UC Berkeley and Stanford have created a free website, called MathOverflow, which is transforming math research. “The idea is to have a place that is a repository of global knowledge,” said Stanford professor Ravi Vakil, who supports the site through his research budget.

But there are strict rules:
- MathOverflow is only for serious mathematicians. It’s not for homework help. It’s not for wide open problems.
- When asking a question, be specific.
- Opinions about non-math topics like capitalism or the sexual orientation of colleagues bring quick suspension.
- “Be polite. Be honest. Be professional,” Geraschenko said.

Game Mechanics – there are many ways to do it wrong. Adding points and achievements to your site doesn’t have to be a grind. IActionable makes it easy to get your reputation system up to speed quickly and easily.

Game Mechanics are a means of rewarding users. They aren’t a great fit for everyone. Here are some of the characteristics the people behind IActionable have found that are a natural fit for accelerated growth through game mechanics:

• You have a community or are social where users are aware of each other.
• There are many ways a user can interact with your application or with each other.
• Ideally your users visit repeatedly; generally once a week or more.

Here are some of the basic building blocks they work with:

• Points: Do something good, get a few points. Do something great – get a lot of points. Do something bad? Lose points. It’s a concept we are all familiar with. Provide users with immediate feedback by adjusting their points – but be careful – it’s a powerful tool and you can easily find your users doing exactly what you reward them for. When used properly points can provide context within a site so user’s can quickly identify members who have been around for a while and are experienced members of the community.
• Achievements: Achievements are milestones or goals that, once accomplished, rewards users visibly, letting them and everyone else that they’ve “unlocked” that achievement. While points are great for smaller tasks, achievements are good for grander accomplishments and are seen as a source of pride for users. They usually appear in a list of “locked” and “unlocked” achievements. This provides an easy way for users to see what they can do to unlock more achievements and helps educate them about the possibilities your application offers.

All these capabilities are exposed by means of a REST API.

You can find all the information at the IActionable website at http://iactionable.com/.

You can find the whole ReadWriteWeb.com’s entry here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shopkick_brings_real-world_incentives_to_the_check.php

I found today a very interesting startup called Bolder whose business is to engage customers to do good actions by being rewarded by external companies. You can find all the information at the startup’s website: http://actbolder.com/