Badges and Points - Life is a Game.
This stuff called social media is connecting people on levels and in ways previously left to chance encounters. The social platforms are taking a good bit of mystery and coincidence out of life - and turning it into a voyeuristic game.
Rather than run into your friend at the grocery store by chance, you can receive updates when he checks in via Foursquare. Instead of showing up at a friend’s party wearing the same sweater, you can crosscheck recent shopping trips and item purchases thanks to blippy. Instead of talking to your friends about common interests, let hunch figure that kind of stuff out.
The real sad things that happens sometimes with these apps is that their core functionality is just not enough to keep us interested. So the brains behind these apps got smart and turned them into a game by giving out badges (Foursquare) or banjos (hunch). Others give out points, etc.
So, naturally many new services are jumping into the game with loyalty badges and leaderboards. Life is turning into a game, and some of us DO need those stinkin’ badges. What is going to be really interesting is when the leaderboards, badges, and points start to infiltrate the more stalwart and static industries like grocery stores, banks, health insurance, home energy, and automobiles. Imagine getting emailed a weekly report telling you your friend’s home saved a greater percentage of energy than yours did…Hmm…we can’t have that. Let the games begin.
Sidenote: Does game driven participation make people more comfortable handing over “private” information?
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