Must Play

I agree gamification of a boring task is possible, but doesn't scale well. My thought would be to redesign the task so it is less boring. One way to do that is reduce the task down and inject more game elements. 

Another way to remake a boring task is to find out why its BORING. Everything is better WITH other people. I'm Riffing Andre W Chen's excellent How To Create A Social Product on Scenttrail Marketing right now: http://www.scenttrail.com/riffing-andre-w-chen-how-to-design-successful-social-products/

Relevant because Andre discusses the feedback loops needed to keep engagement across different segments and personas. Same applies to gamifying a boring task.  

Everything is coming up gamification and with good reason - it works. This is NOT to say the application of game theory is easy, but gamification is lexicon we must have in our Internet marketing vocabularies.

Wow, cool three ring circus example here about how to tie mobile, gamificaiton and smart phones into community.

Curation Find of the Day
Wednesday is only moments old. But I've paid for lunch already. This excellent Business 2 Community post discusses how social and video games are sliding toward one another. 

I don't think they are the only things on the slide. I think Social, Mobile, Local, marketing gamification and video games are all become one and the same idea controlled by the game consoles we carry in our pockets (Smart Phones).  

Gaming For Social Good & Cure Cancer Starter

If you don't think my eyes got wide and my breath caught in my throat a little when I saw this post about how Zynga supports social good via game play you don't know me and my Cure Cancer Starter project, our crowdfunding platform for cancer research (http://www.curecancerstarter.org). . 

It may seem strange to think of making curing cancer a game, but not to me (a cancer survivor). I don't care WHAT helps as long as engagement, awareness and donations all go UP. 

Over the weekend I scooped a piece from Dan Pallotta about how we think about charity ALL WRONG. One way that is wrong is charity is often seen as boring requirement instead of exciting FUN. As an Internet marketer I would rather sell "exciting fun" any day since that SCALES. Boring requirement doesn't scale. 
 

Can Zynga help cure cancer? You bet. Am I going to be calling on Zynga to help do jus that? You bet. 

Mobile gaming is fully upon us. I'm designing CrowdFunde, our crowdfunding and content marketing app, now and creating mobile first. Bet video games head in the same direction - create the mobile game first then, if the numbers merit it, move to game consoles, laptops and desktops.

Gotten so I think of all Internet marketing as a game and the smartphone as the game console (lol). This LA Times article about Zynga making FarmVille for Mobile is a SOT (Sign of the Times). M

Grat post about a little engine that could on Facebook, how to relaunch your social presence and why giving up is not an option.