Archive for January, 2012

Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web (2008), by Gene Smith. Smith dives into tagging as a method for adding metadata to resources, which in turn increases the organization and findability of the resources.

What’s cool about tags is that you can easily tag the same information with multiple tags. Does the information fall in #techcomm, #contentstrategy, and #findability disciplines? You don’t have to choose one folder to assign the content to. With tags, resources can live in multiple places at once.

Tagging is emerging as one of the most common ways to organize resources on the web. Smith notes that Delicious, a social bookmarking site that first appeared in 2003, was one of the first instances of tagging to emerge online. However, he also notes that classification and metadata strategies have been ongoing for centuries, with the Dewey Decimal system as one of the prime examples.

You can read the whole blog entry at http://idratherbewriting.com/2011/12/26/using-tags-to-increase-findability/

Stefanie Hermann from the Reutlingen University in Germany has recently completed her master’s thesis on gamification. You can access an extract of this master’s thesis including research results and empirical data ascertainment adjusted for the interview of gamification experst at http://es.scribd.com/ivan3856/d/79357823-Stefanie-Hermann-Gamification-Master-Thesis-Extract

GreenGoose add game mechanics to real life. They provide wireless sensors that have a battery inside which lasts a year. Each one measures a different thing you do, but they all communicate with the same egg-sized base-station. Just stick to items like pet food scoops, frisbees and water bottles.

Have more fun doing everyday things! GreenGoose is a place where you can download and play real-world apps.

Feel closer to those important to you. Examples: has your dog been walked or fed? Are the kids home from school? Has your grandma taken her medicine?

Make playtime more about playing together. Sensors on toys make it fun to share and make new friends.

With more than 100 sensors in development, we have a lot more fun on its way. Keep an eye out for new sensors to add to your base-station. For developers, we have a developer’s page so you dig into our API and get information about upcoming sensors!

More info at http://www.greengoose.com

Badgeville has just announced the launch of Badgeville’s Enterprise Cloud Connectors, a suite of SaaS connectors that provide plug-and-play integration into many of today’s most widely adopted enterprise applications. Already integrated with more than 40 third-party systems, this program further expands Badgeville’s leadership in gamification across the F1000 and interoperability for its client base of global enterprise leaders.

You can read the complete Badgeville’s announcement at http://www.badgeville.com/?q=news/announcements/badgeville-launches-enterprise-cloud-connector-program

If you could plan your diet so that you got paid every time you chose a salad over a burger, would you chose the salad?

IBM “Master Inventor” Michael Paolini believes being rewarded in real time for improving one’s habits is exactly what will affect human behavior and help people become healthier. One of the inventors of a new IBM patent “Providing consumers with incentives for healthy eating habits”, Paolini says the “method, system, and program” was created so that it can be implemented in a variety of ways to accommodate groups with very different needs – be it your health insurance company, your gluten-free diet group, or your employer. But in order for the program to work, use of the system must be voluntary and trust has to first be established.

You can read the whole article at http://www.foodandtechconnect.com/site/2012/01/23/new-ibm-patent-allows-licensees-to-incentivize-good-eating-habits/