Gaming the Web: Using Game Mechanics to Motivate Action

This post first appeared on New Media Strategies’ blog. That is where I work.

In the hyperconnected morass that is South by Southwest Interactive, it’s easy to get stuck in the “did I check-in/update/tweet about this panel/party/handshake” infinite loop. With a slew of new apps and sites to check out and an ABGC mindset – Always be Generating Content they say – it can get overwhelming.

But even when it does come time to put the smartphone down, it’s hard.

More and more we are seeing a better understanding of the psychology of motivation and incentive determining the functionality of popular websites, social applications, and online communities. By applying these insights, either borrowed from hugely-popular services or applied anew, developers are creating experiences that are difficult to step away from. Many have hit on the idea of using game mechanics to motivate action – the gamification of the Web.

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The Whos Sell Out

by Stian Eikeland @ Flickr

Remember the 20th Century? Think hard. It was before YouTube, before American Idol even, before all of that. You were probably younger and had better skin tone.

The 20th Century began a long time ago, and a lot of great things wouldn’t've happened without it. One of the the more interesting things that can trace it’s ancestry to the the time is anonymity, a state that no century before shared.

Anonymity didn’t always exist, but many people in the early part of the 20th Century grew quite used to it, and it was embraced. Whole cities were built around the idea. It spread.

The century went on like this for some years, and the Internet came along. The Internet and anonymity went together like cellphones and Twitpic. Both flourished as handles were registered and Geocities populated. Be who you want to be! Or be your undisclosed self if you want. Join some group of like-minded recluses bound by common interest, without people knowing that you live in a big city or a big commune, whether you’re a high school teacher during the day or just high.

As the Internet grew, though, it betrayed anonymity. With that the 20th Century was all but over.

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Linkanthropy is a New Blog You Can Find In Internet Explorer

It’s true what they say about the Internet.

What I mean is, everything they say about the Internet is true. Including that, of course.

The Internet is this big, heaving thing that is largely changing the way many people live, mildly changing the way most people[1] live, and quickly expanding and rooting itself in our homes and in our lives and in our brains and our Blackberries.

But this kind of stuff is trite to say. We’re going to try to stay away from that.

The important questions are going to be: What is the Internet doing to us? and What are we doing to the Internet?

That seems like a lot. Enough for a blog.

So let’s get going.

[1] These are poorer, more remote people. Probably no one you know.