Business Week: 'Gamification': A Growing Business to Invigorate Stale Websites

Business Week

When done right, games exert a strong psychological influence over consumers, says Amy Jo Kim, a game designer who worked on hits such as Rock Band after earning a PhD in behavioral neuroscience. "What games do is help you come up with stories about yourself," she says. Earning points or reaching new levels creates the illusion of progress and is akin to "telling you a story about yourself getting better and stronger and more powerful," she says.


Social status is another motivator. "We have this tendency to care about what image we portray," says Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University. In real life, there are mansions and handbags. "In the gaming world," says Ariely, "there are badges."

Giants’ safeties wish Tom Coughlin would be more like Rex Ryan

From NBC Sports

We are approaching the NFL Super Bowl in the U.S., and throughout the playoffs, there’s been a lot of talk about, and by, New York Jets coach Rex Ryan. Last week, two New York Giants players, who are not in the playoffs compared their coach, Tom Coughlin, to the Jets Ryan. Safety Antrel Rolle said about Coughlin, “If he just loosened up just a little bit, run the ship the way you want to run it, run the program the way you want to run it but let us have a little fun, because at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. . . . I like the coach, I understand what he’s trying to do but he has to understand it’s 2011, man, things have changed.”