Interesting article in the Times a few days ago on technical job flight from the U.S.  Would you pay $65 more for your iPhone if it meant keeping that production in the America?

Here is a link to the article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=2&hpw

Not Gamify, Inc., but apparently they filed for trademark protection around the use of the word the way we in the industry already know and use it:

Not cool, kind sirs.  Read about EVO Media Group's reaction to this on our blog:

http://www.evomediagroup.com/blog/533322-no-one-should-own-the-word-gamify/

I'm not really the Euro French rap kind of guy.  But I really admire their use of the iPod and Facebook theme in this video.  Note their use of familiar tones and buffering!  Appropriate to the end...

I was recently given the opportunity to join the BigDoor team and a few of their clients up in a beautiful cabin in the evergreen forests of Washington to do a jam session on gamification.  *Thanks Keith, Jeff and team!*

Leading the session was co-founder of ShuffleBrain Amy Jo Kim, who has been gamifying systems before there was even a term for it.  Remember eBay seller ratings?  Yup, it incorporated game elements and she was a part of that.  Rock Band, The Sims, Bejewelled 2?  Uhh... yeah, she helped in the design of those games too.  She is an awesome speaker and I highly recommend you go to one of her talks if you have a chance.

As I go over and organize the notes I took, thought I might as well do it here on my WebHub to help spread the knowledge around.  Provided below in Standard Outline Form ...

read more

I have to fly quite a bit domestically.  Whenever I do, and its reasonably priced, I try to fly on Virgin America. I've heard quite a bit of people voice similar sentiments about this airline and I recommend it to you all if you ever have the chance.  So what makes Virgin America so Cool?

Is it because prices are cheaper than other airlines?  Usually not.

Is it because they serve better food or drinks?  Not really.

Is it because they have the hottest flight attendants?  Eh, hit or miss.

Is it because of their built in tv/game/entertainment system for every seat (even coach)?  I think that's part of it, but other airlines do this too (see Delta Song, JetBlue, etc.)

So why is Virgin America so Cool?  I don't think you can point to any one thing, but rather look at the package they ...

read more

Coming this holiday season, Harmonix's third installation of Rock Band.  What makes this one so groundbreaking is that they've elevated gameplay to the point where controller input completely mimics that of a real instrument.  That's right, guitars now have real strings instead of those dorky colored buttons, there's a MIDI-compatible electric keyboard, etc.

(you can click on the pics below to learn more about them)

In essence, while playing through RB3, you'll learn to play that instrument!  In terms of gamification, this one is interesting.  Instead of a real-life system moving towards game (like DevHub), here we have game moving towards a real-life system.

Open Thoughts:  I wonder if we'll see some new RB3 based bands spring up, and I wonder if people will consider it legit.  If you strum wrong in RB3, the song doesn't sound right, so what makes playing this ...

read more

Post the launch of the brand-spanking new DevHub.com system on July 9th, we've had a lot of inquiries as to why we introduced game elements into our free website builder (most people love the idea, but a number have been curious as to how we arrived at it).  This post breaks down some of the thought processes that went into making the decision to gamify DevHub...

First, a Little Background

From February 2009 to June 2010, DevHub was simply a platform that allowed users to make money by building websites. Throughout early 2009, we went out and struck numerous deals with various partners on the Web to hook in their products and advertisements into DevHub.  These products and ads were then provided in our site editor tray and users could easily incorporate these revenue-generating elements into the sites they built on DevHub.

This setup worked well for awhile ...

read more

Hello, denizens of the Interwebs!  This will be the spot where you can read my insights and ramblings on Technology, Gamification, Music, Design, Culture, and more.

Much of my thoughts come from working as the CEO and GameMaster for the EVO Media Group, a company I helped found three years ago that takes boring things online and "gamifies" them, resulting in systems that are more fun, challenging, and rewarding. One of our first successful gamification implementations is for our own free website builder, DevHub.com.

My other thoughts just come from my constant analysis of things happening around me. I tend to glob on to huge ideas and macro-shifts and then try and suss out patterns, opportunities, and applications in real life before they become too mainstream (mind of an entrepreneur, I guess).

Experience has shown me that I tend to view the world a little differently than most, which ...

read more