Most games I see nowadays that have some sort of online component has achievements. It’s a great tactic for games that don’t have the same level of commitment that World of Warcraft does. It’s pretty easy to implement new achievements, and deploying them will make gamers feel like new content is still being delivered.
Online services like Facebook and LinkedIn are also doing this and it definitely does its job. On LinkedIn, I had 60% of my profile completed. Something about knowing exactly what needs to get done made it easier to accomplish (think TODO lists). I think people generally hate unfinished things and there’s nothing like an uncompleted progress bar to remind you. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have ever asked my past co-workers to write recommendations for me on LinkedIn.
I was thinking that instead of resolutions, we could have New Year’s tasks. You know, instead of saying “I will floss every day”, you say “I will floss 365 times this year.” Each time you do, you can mark off a little box. For some reason, this doesn’t have the same appeal that achievements in games do. It’s too easy to cheat the system. Miss one day here and no one will really notice or care. How do you quantify, “Keep my room clean”? I guess people have already thought this one through. Damn.
I have a few resolutions for the new year, but I don’t want to be too bold. Also, all but one of them is relevant to people that read my blog. That one is to keep blogging, regardless of how dry my life is. I think my goal will be to blog 3 times a week, instead of just twice, by the end of the year. Let’s see how that goes.
Happy New Year and happy birthday to my baby nephew, Benjamin!
no blog posts in 4 days! is your goal of 3 per week slipping already?
(i resolve to write 23 comments on your blog this year.)
Er.. that was meant as a more gradual goal. By the end, I'll maybe be blogging Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday.