Must Play

Working on the gamification layer of Cure Cancer Starter and found this great Stack Overflow explanation of their three tiered badging system. Well reasoned and presented. 

 
Love this description of all the badges possible on Stack Overflow, but come on guys PICTURES are good things (lol): http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/67397/list-of-all-badges-with-full-descriptions  

Contests and Games Revolution
If the first web revolution was publishing, the second ecommerce, the third social connection then the fourth may be dedicated to contests and games. Powered by the ubiquitous mobile web, contests and games may be the stickiest content.

Look around. Does anyone just stare out into space anymore? Doubt it since most are staring down at their phone or pad. The death of free time and our ADD need to be stimulated at all times is powering the Contests and Games Revolution. 

Once our smart phones are never more than a few feet away 24/7/365 life changes. Once Google demands that relevant content should truly and finally be KING and Internet marketing changes as profoundly as it is right now we lucky few Internet marketers must change too.

Content may be KING, but not all content is equal. We need content that springs legs and walks around the world. Internet marketers need content that brings our hard won visitors back, keeps their engagement high and word-of-mouth flowing.

The Contests and Games revolution is about how to change your Internet marketing, how to be a part of this new mobile inspired, phone as game console, marketing revolution. In addition to discussing gamification the Contests and Games Revolution will share examples of cool contests and games. 

Become a guest Scooper
If you would like to provide input to any of the now 15 Scoop.it Revolutions send a Tweet to @ScentTrail.  

Interesting. I am a B&N member and prefer buying books in a store despite the fact I know it costs me more. I have a B&N right near my house so it gives me a reason to get out and hang out (I often work there too when it isn't crazy). 

The interesting part of this video interview with B&N's Loyalty Director is you don't see Badgeville on the face of the website. If I buy books online I buy from Amazon, so B&N must be using Badgeville as an email play to existing customers. 

I would sure get the gamification upfront if I were B&N and fighting for my life against a powerhouse like Amazon. B&N has NO HOPE of winning at the platform or SEO level, so using gamification to change the conversation would seem a great idea. 

Ways B&N could use gamification and Badgeville on the presentation layer:

* Beef up their paltry reviews (review and get the badges). 

* Reward heuristic metrics (time on site, pages viewed, return visits). 

* Reward social mentions. 

* Create UGC (share ideas get the badge). 

* Create personas and segments based on badging. 

This last bullet may be the most promising. Use badges as a form of segmentation. Beautiful thing about badges is they create their own personas here's how:

* Define the badge based on your persona. 
* Define the activities that earn the badge (consistent with persona). 

* Create the tribe of similar badge holders. 

Profiling is dead. No one is going to spend five minutes helping you sell to them by filling out endless forms, but they will play a game the net of which is you have defined segments and personas.