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I wrote a post about Gamification last week and this week, I want to dive into more detail about how to apply gamification and game mechanics to a community site.  It is interesting to see gamification now being applied in a marketing/website/community context, because many marketers and community managers have already been using these techniques to build engagement for several years.  But I am more than willing to jump on the gamification bandwagon if it helps push the boundaries for other marketers and community managers.

Much hype surrounds the topic of gamification. Often seen as a technique to add engagement to existing tasks, projects, marketing campaigns, and initiatives, the term gamification unfortunately lacks the seriousness it deserves. This report seeks to change the point of view and demonstrate where gamification plays a role in the enterprise. More importantly, executives will discover how gamification can drive behavior and outcomes through both monetary and non-monetary incentives in enterprise class settings.

To some people, gamification - the method of applying game mechanics and philosophy to nongaming applications in the real world - is a dirty word. Video games, after all, are more than just their mechanics: Some have elaborate narratives, fantastic musical soundtracks, and appealing graphics that all come together to create a seamless experience. When you strip a game down solely to its mechanics, it can seem cheap, soulless, and even exploitative when it comes to businesses and corporations using gamification for their own interests. But gamification isn't about creating games. It's about enhancing user engagement, something game developers know how to do. And as witnessed at this year's recent Gamification Summit held in San Francisco, game designers are clearly interested in helping this new industry with its growing pains.

Gamification -- the application of online game design techniques in non-game settings -- has been quickly gaining the attention of leaders in business, education, policy and even terrorist communities. But gamification also has plenty of critics, and the debate over its future could become an epic battle in the same vein of many online game favorites. This special report includes coverage of a recent Wharton conference titled, "For the Win: Serious Gamification," in addition to interviews with conference participants who discuss the use of gamification in business, government and other arenas. 

The more we win, the more we want to play. Human beings are competitive animals, even when we claim not to be, and rare is the individual who doesn't take pleasure in winning. Gamblers understood this long before Bugsy Siegel broke ground in the Nevada desert. Both Las Vegas and the minds behind rewards and fidelity programs have spent decades capitalizing on the human need to win. The video game industry would vanish if it didn't continue to exploit our thirst for competition-and victory-with its aggressive approach to keeping games fresh, challenging, and in many cases, incredibly addictive. Along the same lines, social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn have employed "gamification" to engage their constituencies, keep them coming back for more, and perpetuate their business models with new users. As these tactics are proving to be invaluable in consumer-facing applications, companies are beginning to adopt gamification strategies for nongaming business activities like employee engagement, sales force motivation, and relationship building with partners. Far from being just another entry in the buzzword lexicon, gamification is changing the way companies do business.

Gamification is the latest buzzword on the street. It ranked a keynote panel session at Enterprise 2.0 in November and it was one of two main topics discussed at the recent Institute for Social, Search and Mobile Marketing (ISSMM) K1 Executive Roundtable.  

Games are fun-well, unless you're playing with your super-competitive friend. And we all have one, don't we? Still, for the most part, games are entertaining-and that's why gamification has taken off as a technique to entice people to adopt various applications and processes. Gamification is defined as the use of game design techniques, game thinking, and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts. In other words, gamification gets people interested in something they otherwise wouldn't notice while also encouraging them to compete in game-like activities.

"When adding game elements to your site or business, be sure to incorporate a way for current customers to recruit new ones, says gamification expert Gabe Zichermann. Unlike loyalty programs, which can reinforce behaviors of existing customers, the "viral nature" of gamification can help attract new customers to your business. "At the very heart of what you're trying to do with gamification is to get people to come in, keep coming in and bring their friends to create a cycle in which your products, services and egagement drive customer adoption," Zichermann says."

In any industry, the need to manage your brand's community is pressing. Companies have invested significant resources into building community on social networks, but as Facebook and other social media sites continue to block access to your user data, smart marketers and business leaders are realizing that the real value of social engagement is found on their own web properties and applications. Gamification offers a means of applying the benefits of social engagement directly to your properties. It is a proven business strategy that enables businesses to influence the behaviors of your entire community, and exceed your user-driven business objectives.

Engagement is a good thing, of course. The preference to be not bored is pretty universal. But with time constraints and information overload, getting and maintaining people's already short attention spans is harder than ever. So, marketers and content specialists are turning to gamification as the latest Holy Grail. Too bad they don't know what they're doing. Gamification without solid core ideas to communicate, and a clear, concise method of doing so, is doomed to fail. It's about as effective as taking a PowerPoint deck and just changing every fifth slide to read "REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN!" Attention getting? Maybe. More effective communication? No. Just lipstick on a pig.

Businesses struggle with the idea of playing games at work - the term conjures up the idea of having fun without a purpose. But the practical application of gamification is disrupting that assumption and slowly changing the way businesses learn. In a nutshell, gamification is the concept of applying engaging elements of game theory to non-game applications. An example would be to create a game to learn something new for work: While a lecture session could potentially turn off employees and prevent learning, a game that teaches the same skills could lead to an interested employee that is eager to learn.

 It's always surprising just how polarizing the idea of gamification is. Some people love the concept of adding game-like elements to all different types of social and commercial interactions, while others hate it with a seething vehemence, either because they're "gamers" who hate seeing their favorite art form debased, or because they're anti-gamers, who don't [...]

Gamification isn't just about badges and trophies. Experts weigh in on what you need to make next-generation customer rewards really work for your business.

Over the past five years we've been told repeatedly that business needs more collaboration.  Over the past 18 months we've rediscovered the value of competition. Gamification is the ungainly name for its re-emergence in the social sphere. What does it mean for how we view marketing and HR strategy?

Gamification, the use of gameplay mechanics for non-game applications, is transforming online news into an engaging, social and fun activity. It's quickly becoming the next frontier in web and mobile technology.

At its core, gamification is about one thing: fun. In today's competitive battle for mindshare, games are the most effective tool for leveraging technology, rising above marketing noise and engaging the socially networked consumer.

Gamify Your Marketing Strategy and Reward Social Influencers" by Mara Lewis, Co-founder and CEO, Stopped.at Leveraging gamification principles as part of the user experience and value proposition magnifies the effects of recognition and subsequently, the engagement of all users, power or casual. These principles help to package and promote recognition across the site so users interact and respond to it more often and to a greater extent.

Learning can be fun when you make a game out of it. That premise underlies the decision of an online learning platform to use game mechanics to engage college students. It works by motivating students to join, participate, contribute and share their successes.

Marketers will spend over $350 billion advertising on the web this year "betting" that they will reach the intended market of buyers. Advertisers create slick campaigns "betting" that they will get the markets attention to their offering. Betting is a game, sometimes you win and most of the time you lose.