Links, Likes & The Future Of Gamification

Billions of years ago, when the earth was cooling and a few tiny amoebae started their sexy little single-cell dance in a pool of water, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jesse Schell talked about the future beyond Facebook games. Well, at least two years in Web time seems that long on the evolutionary timeline. Professor Schell is the creative mastermind behind Schell Games, and the guy is an absolute monster when he shares his thoughts on the future of gaming.

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So What Are The Rules For Gamification?

There are a slew of things to take into account when adding or creating a game-like environment for your site or its content. I'm going to assume that I don't need to tell you that, before any of you determine your goals, you should do a deep competitive analysis and determine the mindset of your demographic prior to spending any real money in this direction. This topic is a bit more than 101 when it comes to the new-world marketer, as it's making rapid changes and not a lot of it has been truly tested...

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Empire Avenue: Can Anything Professional Come From It?

Empire Avenue for social gamers and social media professionals is quickly becoming the rage. Empire Avenue or #EA as it's AKA, is by their definition "The Social Media Exchange - Empire Avenue is the Social Media Exchange, where you can invest in any social media profile by buying their shares, meet new people, unlock Achievement badges, and earn boatloads of virtual cash by being active and social online! Buy shares in your friends, your followers, people with similar interests, brands you love, celebrities – anyone!

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Quick Hit From Vegas

Here's a few things that I learned from my recent trip to Vegas.

• Holy crap has everything gone downhill!
• The 'City Center' (and their casinos) are now the prime Jewel of the strip just edging out the Wynn & The Encore
• The casinos plan heavily for Chinese new year
• There are so many Cirque du Soleil shows they're no longer special
• There are two kinds of drinkers, those who cannot find a scantly clad waitress to serve them something for free and those with a plastic "yard" in the shape of a titty sucking down grain alcohol
• The closer you walk to Las Vegas BLVD. the closer you come to depravity and emotional doom
• Finest line from a pan-handler selling bottled water "the water is free ladies, it's just a one dollar handling fee"
• A new coat of paint does not equal a renovation
• All cab drivers should be put on suicide watch
• People don't know how to have fun anymore
• "Porn Slappers" (these are the people that slap escort service flyers at you on the strip as you walk by) do not clean up bygone marketing materials
• Smokers you are a dying breed even in Vegas
• You can get away with shooting cell phone pictures in the casino, but the same cannot be said for USING a cell phone while playing in a casino
• Less social media advocacy than I would have imagined from casinos
• Although more location-based services (LBS) offers than I would have thought
• There still are black-tie events that are not weddings
• There's nothing funnier than drunk women fighting their CFMP's trying to fall into an elevator
• Asian card dealers will take all your money
• Betting 'with the craps table' is still the best way to enjoy the game
• Penny slots are treated like the plague; while $1 slots are now treated as the default rate
• Vegas is still not family friendly
• There are far more coffee shops in casinos now
• People really do get up at 7AM to workout in the fitness center
• Don't even look at the mini-bar unless your Indiana Jones and you have a bag of sand
• The Excalibur, New York New York, The Flamingo, Circus Circus (anything Bally's) and the Stratosphere all need summoned back to Satan
• All the servers hate you
• Tip the cleaning staff and you'll win more mini shampoos than a slot machine on a progressive payout
• Don't quote "The Hangover" if you don't want pee in your drink
• Aria Hotel & Casino and Wynn's "Encore" are top-notch
• No, you'll never be able to afford that necklace
• Two words: "hand sanitizer"

What's In My iPhone -- Part One: Child's Play

I'm of course not going to go through the iPhone OS preloaded applications. Needless to say most of them are simply, very effective and world class.

Items NOT in a folder:

App: Dragon Dictate
Rating: ✩✩✩✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Voice recognition, speech to text application.
Cost: Free
Comments: It's a little tricky at first but once you get the hang of it you'll never txt while driving again.

App: Camera Genius
Rating: ✩✩✩✩✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Multi-tool set to add functionality to your iPhone image capture ability.
Cost: $1.99
Comments: You'll see later that I own a ton of photographic applications for my iPhone, and this is the only one (short of the default "Camera" app) that's not in a folder.

The "Sydney Folder" (for those new to this blog that's my two and half year old daughter) -- This is a tab bit misleading as she barely plays with these anymore going straight to the youtube icon to watch her shows.

App: Animal Sounds
Rating: ✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Animal pictures and correlating sounds.
Cost: $0.99
Comments: When you have the 'four-up' option open and begin to mash all of the animals together it sounds like people being tortured in hell. Or so I would assume.

App: City Sounds
Rating: ✩ (out of 5)
What is it?:  Car and city pictures and correlating sounds.
Cost: $0.99
Comments: See above.

App: Pet Sounds
Rating: ✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Pets and basic domesticated animals pictures and correlating sounds.
Cost: $0.99
Comments: See above.

App: Zoo Sounds
Rating: ✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Zoo and exotic animals pictures and correlating sounds.
Cost: $0.99
Comments: See above.

I give those apps some crap but for parent I would advise it really seemed to get her wits about her when we where in public places and parks. Good learning tool.

App: Word Cub
Rating: ✩✩✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: A phonics based applications that allows learning of letters and sounds.
Cost: $1.99
Comments: Well worth the money, it's power is in it's simplicity and it manages to hold her attention from time-to-time.

App: Old MacDonald
Rating: ✩✩✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: A fun-filled animal to farm matching game.
Cost: $0.99
Comments: This has a little game-play aspect to it that will initially take some figuring out for your little one.

App: Old MacDonald - by Duck Duck Moose
Rating: ✩✩✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Interactive cause and effect touch app based on the childhood song.
Cost: $1.99
Comments: This is a must-have app for the age group. Funny and interactive, you might even find yourself playing with it.

App: Wheels On The Bus
Rating: ✩✩✩✩ (out of 5)
What is it?: Interactive cause and effect touch app based on the childhood song.
Cost: $0.99
Comments: Another knock-out app from app developer Duck Duck Moose.

Seeing as we're on a kid theme this post I'd also reco' this site parents: The Playgrounder

Avatar Game Banners – Kinda' But Not Really

I'm always very excited to see what agencies will do for major launches like the DVD release of Avatar. So when I saw the complete ad domination on ESPN this morning I was giddy to see what they had done. The concept is simple, a little too much in my professional opinion. It gives you the ability to pan and zoom into a trailer that have 'hot spot' nodes throughout. Those hot spots by the way give you a nanosecond to click on them, and while the intent I feel to act like 'game play' it comes across like a bit of a lame old puffed up banner.

As much money as this movie's already made BEFORE DVD sales it seems to me they missed the mark on the launch. The claim that the movie is like 'nothing you've ever seen before' is in many respects true, too bad the interactive advertising agency didn't get that creative brief. Tell me your thoughts.