One of the biggest things I noticed when I joined Foursquare has become even more pronounced: Foursquare is competitive.
When I joined Foursquare, the "Mayor" system, where a member is rewarded with the status of Mayor for being the person to check in the most at a particular venue, was the most obvious way the site encouraged competition, but since I've been there, the site has taken it up a notch.
The point system, implemented about a month ago, gives users points for their check-ins. As far as I can tell, one only gets points for the sake of getting points. The site also awards "badges" for checking in at certain types of venues, for example, but there has not yet been any indication that members will be receiving badges based on their points. So why do we get points?
Well...members are now encouraged to keep going -- check in everywhere you can! Check in at places you've never been and get more points! Check in somewhere your friends have never been and get extra points! Check in somewhere at least three times a week and get extra points!
Every time you get points for a check in, Foursquare reminds you how many points you got, tells you if you passed any friends in total points for the week, and encourages you to pass the friend you're closest to catching. All of this seems to really just be competition for the sake of competition.
My guess is that this must be Foursquare's way of trying to get its members to check in at every venue they visit. Some people, as I've mentioned in class, only check in to certain places that will create a "cool" Foursquare persona. Perhaps the site is using its new point system as a way to boost its stats, so to speak. If people are checking in more often, as my friends have been since the change, Foursquare will be able to boast about the amounts of check-ins that are taking place on the site.
Have any of you seen your sites using competition in this way?
My site, Lookbook.nu, also has a competitive aspect to it. In this site, everything is about ranking, giving points, and accumulating status.
ReplyDeleteGiving "hype" to someone is like giving them your vote, or "liking" their look. When a user accumulates hype, it transforms into "karma," which defines your reputation in the community. All users are then ranked into separate categories, either by hype or karma. Those with highest, continuous hype in looks are eventually invited to be featured in an interview. This interview, however, occurs once a month. Knowing that there are over 200,000 Lookbookers, your chances of getting selected are slim.
When you accumulate karma points, you are also ranked. The "biggest karma gainers" (I promise this is a real term) are ranked in a specific page. As of now, the biggest karma gainer has approximately 291,000 points.
Although Lookbookers give each other hype and karma, it really is a competition. Everyone wants to be featured in the monthly interview. Everyone wants to accumulate the most hype possible in their looks. Everyone wants to have a good reputation of a worthy fashionista and accumulate karma. Yet, in order to be popular and get more hype, your avatar has to be seen around the site. What all this comes down to is that...you have to give hype in order to receive hype.
So, the competitive aspect of Lookbook.nu is double-sided, but it is still definitely there.
Yes, actually. Elftown.com hosts art competitions all the time. Participants submit an original work of art, fiction, or poetry for the collective evaluation of the Elftown community, and the winners are decided by popular vote. There are also ways for individual users to come up with contests of their own, encompassing a wide range of activities from debates to chess tournaments to mafia-style whodunits.
ReplyDeleteI would say that these competitions serve a similar purpose on Elftown that the points system does on Foursquare; they encourage higher levels of participation. But they also allow entrants to present their work to a larger audience and find new friends based on similar interests and tastes, so in a sense winning at these things is less important on Elftown than is simply participating. It's interesting how something as intrinsically worthless as a check-in point can be transformed into a highly desired object by nothing more than a little bit of competition. Kind of scary, too.
It is also important to note how the creators of foursquare level the playing field, so to speak. They encourage new/less-experienced foursquare users to participate by making "first check-ins" worth more points. And more-experienced/veteran foursquare users have more check-ins under their belts and thus are more likely to earn a Mayorship. foursquare was clever in setting up the point system this way to be all-inclusive, so that no one really has an advantage over anyone else, new to the app or not.
ReplyDeleteMy site, DailyBooth, encourages a lot of competition in terms of popularity. The more followers you have, the better. The goal is to get as many as you can, but the trick of the game is that you don't get them by asking people to follow you, which is a mistake a lot of people make. You basically just have to be awesome and wait for people to start flocking to you. I think it is really interesting how foursquare has managed to bring itself into the real world again with these competitions by doing things like offering coupons to the mayors of various establishments. This site just seems to be doing such innovative things when it comes to the convergence of web and reality.
ReplyDeleteMy site, Flickchart, only has competition in ranking the most movies. Even so, I don't really think it's a competition, just a few people who have a lot of time on their hands.
ReplyDeleteThis is unrelated but as far as Foursquare goes, even with the point system, I lost interest because hardly any of my friends use it. Maybe if they were using the site, my competitiveness might shine through. For now, I'll do my rare check-ins on Facebook.