Tutorial
Putting the Fun in Functional: Applying Game Mechanics to Social Software
Amy Jo Kim, Creative Director, Shufflebrain
Date: Monday, March 26
Time: 1:30pm
- 5:00pm
Location: Douglas A
Over the past few years, we've seen an explosion of interactive services that harness the collective efforts of the participants. On the Web, services like MySpace, YouTube, FaceBook, Flickr, Blogger, and Wikipedia are providing hours of entertainment to millions of people. In the mobile world, we're seeing a steep rise in picture messaging activity, along with the growing popularity of social media services like Dodgeball, Mozes, and SeeMeTV.
These services are changing the face of networked entertainment, and rapidly displacing television as a leisure-time activity. In this talk, we'll explore the social and technological trends that are driving this change, and take an in-depth look at today's influential and innovative social media services, focusing on three key design elements: user-generated content, community infrastructure, and game mechanics. We'll review the psychology and system thinking behind community-building and game design, and explore how these elements combine to create interactive experiences that are fun, compelling, and addictive.