March 2010
28 posts
WatchGreat presentation. It captures why I sometimes think about becoming a creativity coach. I want to help people unleash the creativity inside of them.
“One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we...”
– William Gibson as quoted by Jefferson Hack in AnOther
via wearethedigitalkids (via fred-wilson)
Study: Average social gamer age is only 29 in the... →
[Link]
Becky Carella
Happy Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science. Today I’m going to celebrate Super + Fun cofounder, Becky Carella. Becky is a third generation female science & technologist. Her grandmother is a published chemist and was an influential voice during her career. Her mother holds a degree in Biology and...
The Cost Of Facebook Games
There is a great piece in the SocialTimes on The Economics of Facebook Games. The costs of building facebook games is insightful and in line with what I’m seeing.
One of the most interesting statistics disclosed by John Pleasants was the cost of developing games. According to Pleasants, the average game costs between $100,000 and $300,000 to produce. When asked about the total cost of...
Professor Abandons Grades for Experience Points
The title pretty much says it all. Indiana University Professor, Lee Sheldon gives out experience points (XP) instead of grades. Students earn XP “through completing quests like solo projects and quizzes in addition to grouping up for guild projects and pick up groups.” The students use the XP to level up into higher final grades.
Well played Professor Sheldon.
Read the full story...
Yahoo Buys Citizen Sports
Yahoo purchased social sports app developer Citizen Sports for reportedly $40-50M. Citizen Sports has 1.51M monthly active users and 156K daily active users on it’s 719 apps ( via team specific versions of the app).
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-14) →
The Notorious B.I.G. (48)
Ronald Jenkees (2)
The Bell (1)
Said the Whale (1)
The Octopus Project (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
WatchMagazine stand of the future.
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How much is a Facebook Fan worth?
Microsoft’s recent FarmVille promotion grew Bing’s Facebook fan page from 100K fans to over 500K fans in 24 hours and gave away 1,200,000 Farm Cash dollars in the process. Each participant in the promotion was rewarded with 3 Farm Cash dollars for becoming Bing fans on Facebook.
Some of the most desirable virtual goods are sold only for Farm Cash. Farm Cash is earned in the game at a...
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FarmVille Developer Math
Gamasutra has some great numbers in a post about the GDC Social Games Summit presentation given by Amitt Mahajan, the lead designer on FarmVille. Here are the numbers that jumped out at me:
5 weeks to launch
6 web developers
2 artists
3 designers
Let’s do some back of the napkin math. First, we’ll assume everyone working on the project is a contractor. As a rough estimate,...
WatchThis presentation provides a nice primer on Facebook games. Some of you have alreday graduated past this presentation but others still think monetizing Facebook games is a new and untested idea.
“From Chaos Comes Creativity, from Order Comes Profit”
– John Edson, Lunar Design via Work Matters
WatchGaming to Save the World - Jane Mcgonigal’s appearance on CNN to discuss Evoke. A great primer on the game.
Pay attention to Evoke, which is combing games, education, entrepreneurship, and world change.
The Progress Bar
We are starting to see a widespread adoption of the progress bar game mechanic to motivate user behaviors. LinkedIn has been doing this for a long time. Facebook games are now using it to motivate players to bookmark and fan their app, since in a post-notification world that allows the game to communicate with the player more easily. Finally, a number of new non-gaming web startups...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7) →
Blood Red Shoes (3)
Kat Edmonson (3)
Erin and her Cello (3)
AM (2)
Danger (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
WatchGabe Zichermann’s funware for (non)profits.
Game incentives are the carrot
This Farmville promotion grew Bing’s Facebook fan page from 100K fans to over 500K fans in the 24 hours the campaign ran. Singing up for a fan page is an easy way to get virtual currency compared to entering a credit card or participating in an offers program.
More at Inside Facebook
WoW is still king
This caught my eye today from an Inside Social Games post titled, Social Games Plant the Seed for Growing Online Communities:
According to WoW statistics, the average user spends 22.7 hours per week playing the game. Contrast that with a recent PopCap study, which showed that only 12 percent of social gamers are addicted enough spend 10 or more hours per week gaming. But WoW has about 12...
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A follow up on Facebook notifications
AllFacebook reports:
Just over 24 hours after Facebook turned off application notifications, developers are reporting a dramatic decrease in traffic. Speaking to a number of developers, we’ve heard traffic has decreased in the range of 10 to 50 percent, depending on the application, most hovering between an 18 to 27 percent decrease. While our poll sample was small, Facebook developers are now...
Game Mechanics in Software Engineering
Unit Testing Achievements
Unlock achievements for running your test suite!
Works with nose, unittest, and Django
Tested with Python 2.6 and 3.1
Entry points for discovering more achievements
Score achievements for unit testing! Some of the achievment names are hilarious and its a great commentary on using game mechanics to motivate user behavior.
Unit Testing Achievements on...