Google Buys Jambool: Social Networking Battle Begins Google has purchased virtual currency platform Jambool, a move that will fuel Google's reported foray into the social networking world. Jambool's Chief Executive Vikas Gupta and Chief Technology Officer Reza Hussein confirmed the deal Friday on the company's website. "We are excited to announce that Jambool is becoming a part of the Google family today," the founders write. They add, "The game has only just begun." Jambool started up in 2006 and a year later shifted its focus toward social networking sites by creating a virtual currency platform called Social Gold. "Along with success, we found fun and lucrative ways to monetize our apps -- specifically virtual currency and goods.
Badgeville launches Dynamic Game Engine and Widget Studio In an era where rewarding customer involvement has exploded to a whole new level through social media, companies are starving to get their hands on solutions that they can leverage to take advantage of social gaming and it's popularity. Back in December I wrote about Moxsie.com's use of Badgeville as their weapon of choice for building customer incentive through a Facebook badge program in an effort to involve their fans in the buying process. Badgeville won the Audience Choice Award when it launched at the Tech Crunch Disrupt last September and the demand for their social reward system has gone nowhere but up. Industry leading brands like Island Def Jam (Universal Music), The Active Network, Bluefly.com and more have signed on with Badgeville to harness the viral power of gamification to help reach user-driven objectives, turning it into profit. Dynamic Game Engine and Widget Studio There are two objectives that most companies are now trying to figure out in social media.
XEODesign Our Story XEODesign (pronounced zee-oh-design) is an award-winning firm that helps organizations increase engagement with play. We identify ways to increase engagement by eliminating factors that prevent play, and we uncover new opportunities for creating experiences based on what players like the most about games. We envision new game-inspired products and services, and we design the player behaviors, game mechanics, and emotions that make them work best. We help our clients innovate and attract new markets through revealing player's hidden motivations and catalyze their team's creativity.
Roger's Online Equation Editor Back to Roger's Main Page Roger's Online Equation Editor This page produces high quality typeset images of equations from LaTeX equations. These images can be used on web pages or in other documents. This page is a PHP implementation of the tex2im bash script created by Andreas Reigber. If you have questions or problems with this page please email me.
The Verticalization Of Professional Networks Begins: Is It A Threat To LinkedIn? This note is from BI Research, a new tech-industry intelligence service. The service is currently in beta and free. To learn more and sign up, please click here. Business Insider Research LinkedIn hiring solutions revenue Badges What is a Badge? badge [baj]: a special or distinctive mark, token, or device worn as a sign of allegiance, membership, authority, achievement, etc. (Source: Dictionary.com) A badge is a symbol or indicator of an accomplishment, skill, quality or interest.
A Checklist for Evaluating Gamification Platforms Conventional wisdom has it that sales people love competition. They want a challenge, beat their friends and colleagues, and be on top of the leaderboard. And sales managers constantly use carrots and competition, because this is what “motivates" sales agents. Traditional Publishers Release Enhanced E-books for iPhone and iPad Scribner and Simon & Schuster Digital have released what they are calling their first-ever "enhanced e-book," Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, via Apple's iBookstore application. The enhanced e-book [iTunes link] includes an original interview with the author and 27 historic video segments produced by CBS News embedded alongside the original text, which was first published in hardcover in May 2008. A digital version without the video is also available through Amazon's Kindle Store.
Customer Relationship & Loyalty Platform Oracle is currently reviewing the existing CrowdTwist product roadmap and will be providing guidance to customers in accordance with Oracle’s standard product communication policies. Any resulting features and timing of release of such features as determined by Oracle’s review of CrowdTwist’s product roadmap are at the sole discretion of Oracle. All product roadmap information, whether communicated by CrowdTwist or by Oracle, does not represent a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This document contains certain forward-looking statements about Oracle and CrowdTwist, including statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning Oracle’s proposed acquisition of CrowdTwist, anticipated customer benefits and general business outlook.
Gamification Platform Matrix Conventional wisdom has it that sales people love competition. They want a challenge, beat their friends and colleagues, and be on top of the leaderboard. And sales managers constantly use carrots and competition, because this is what “motivates" sales agents. But is this true? We know that sales reps have to make money for the company. Depending on the product or service sold, the sales process and effort can vary significantly, from products and services which need a lot of explaining and have long sales cycles, to others that need nearly no explanations and sell quickly. New Approaches To Designing Log-In Forms - Smashing Magazine Advertisement For many of us, logging into websites is a part of our daily routine. In fact, we probably do it so often that we’ve stopped having to think about how it’s done… that is, until something goes wrong: we forget our password, our user name, the email address we signed up with, how we signed up, or even if we ever signed up at all. These experiences are not just frustrating for us, but are bad for businesses as well.
How to Get More Likes, Shares on Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC] If you're looking to get better engagement out of your Facebook posts, add more pictures and start speaking in the first person. Social media data expert Dan Zarrella — who tracked and analyzed more than 1.3 million posts from the 10,000 most-Liked Facebook pages — has released details about which posts get the most likes, shares and comments on Facebook, from post type and length to the best time of day to add updates. Photos bring in the highest number of engagement across the board, followed by text and video, according to Zarrella.
10 Niche Social Networks You've Never Heard Of Are you tired of friends who clutter up your Facebook feed with stuff you don't care about? Are you easily overwhelmed by the wide variety of information posted on Twitter on a daily basis? Is the Google+ population just not doing it for you? If you're looking for a social experience that caters to your specific interests, take a peek at these 10 niche networks you may not have heard of. What kinds of niche social networks do you belong to?
Mozilla Rewards Digital Literacy With New Webmaker Badges Over the weekend, Mozilla launched Mozilla Webmaker Badges to “recognize the skills that you learn” while making “awesome webmaking projects” (and for participating in the Mozilla Webmaker community and events). Here are the badges you can earn: “As users complete projects on Webmaker.org – like creating web pages, animated GIFs, or learning the fundamentals of programming — they can earn digital badges linked to their identity,” Mozilla explains. “This provides a lasting record of their skills and achievements, and shows off their new skills to teachers, classmates, peers or future colleges and employers, backed by Mozilla.” The idea is to encourage digital literacy among a new generation of people creating for the web.
Esempio di un'azienda che ha applicato il metodo del game al suo interno.Bunchball è una compagnia californiana che offre servizi chiavi in mano di “gamification” aziendale: i sistemi proposti includono punti, sfide, obiettivi per rendere il lavoro più interessante e gratificante. E’ molto interessante, in particolare, un’applicazione di questo sistema al problema delle spese medico-sanitarie delle imprese, che, in America, rappresentano una delle voci più pesanti all’interno del costo del personale. Studi mostrano come il 75% delle spese assicurative mediche derivi dalle scelte di stile di vita individuali (fumo, alimentazione, attività fisica). L’idea di Bunchball è la seguente: rendiamo il perseguimento di uno stile di vita più sano per i dipendenti di un’impresa un gioco, al fine di migliorare la qualità della loro vita e, allo stesso tempo, ridurre i costi per l’impresa. by nymeria Mar 11