Gamifying the student induction experience

Gamification is one of the day's biggest buzzwords and we see it being used to get people healthy (eg, Nike+ and WeightWatchers), engage with social networks (FourSquare) and in more classic examples predating the term itself such as the Tesco ClubCard.

I looked at its application in the university student induction process - how it can help people learn the processes and physical layout of a new environment to help them hit the ground running. I tested two versions of a prototype quiz-based mobile app - one including a "social gaming" element (leaderboard) and one without and compared the performance with a control group.

Read on for an overview as well as a video of the presentation and links to the unabridged materials.

Social media competitions: a case study of winning an iPad

It's a waste of money and effort to run a "win an iPad" social media competition if your business has nothing to do with technology or a relevant industry. I made that statement before Christmas in reference to a competition being run by a local bus company. Well, it turns out I was the lucky winner of that iPad!

I'm sure many would now back down from such a stance but that just isn't my style! Instead, let's use that as a golden opportunity to run a case study on the competition to see if I was right, wrong or somewhere in between and see what they could have done to make it worth while.

Tis the season to engage through social...

Our TVs and magazines are awash with Christmas-themed adverts but we're not seeing that pattern repeated in social media.

I see the occasional brand who have updated their logo/avatar to something more festive and the occasional post featuring a festive toilet seat or photo albums showing cats in Xmas trees but not much in the way of overtly Christmas-themed marketing.

So what has happened this Christmas in social media and what could happen?

Low-friction sharing: how social media is evolving and helping drive content sharing

Imagine a world where everything you read online, every song you listen to and every TV show you watch is automatically posted to your social networks for all your friends to see.

Now load Facebook and look at your news feed: we're almost there already.

But is this a creepy world where privacy is over? Or is it just convenient and saves you needing to remember to "share that cool article" you just read?

Knowing me knowing you: how Facebook's Timeline could ruin your life

For years it's been clear that, as far as Facebook is concerned, public is the new private.

With their new Timeline feature, they're taking this to a whole new level, exposing your entire online past (and offline if you add it) to friends, lovers and employers you may not have even met yet.

If I could change the world... will the Facebook Timeline come to brand/business profile pages?

Last night at its developer conference, f8, Facebook debuted its game-changer: Timelines.

Rather than another clone of Google+ functionality, Facebook have launched a new paradigm and replaced its iconic Wall. All the buzz so far is about what this means for users and their interaction with each other. But what does this mean for brands and will they get a Timelines-style makeover on brand/business pages too? If so, what does this mean for the way they interact with consumers?

The new kid on the block - Google+ is open for business

Yesterday, Google+ went live.

Rather than simply flicking a switch to open sign-ups, they went live with 9 new features... and another 7 today!

They also made a killer play in new generating sign-ups - they stuck a huge arrow on the Google search page, the world's most visited webpage.