Such "gamification", increasingly ubiquitous in areas ranging from self-improvement to project management, works by awarding points for a helpful answer, allowing helpers to "level up".
The company's aim is to establish a platform for the gamification of everyday activities.Large technology companies are also keeping an eye on self-tracking technology.
The idea is only a couple of years old, but it has already spawned a host of breathless conferences, crowded seminars and (inevitably) TED talks.Some video-game designers are opposed to the idea on principle, arguing that gamification is really a cover for cynically exploiting human psychology for profit.
Called "gamification", it aims to take principles from video games and apply them to serious tasks.
Others argue that gamification usually misses the point, focusing on incidental features of video games such as points, badges and instant feedback while ignoring the deeper features like being able to explore freely a virtual world that actually make them fun.
An escalating series of "levels", a concept invented to measure a character's power in role-playing games, is a frequent feature of gamification schemes.Does gamification merit the hype that has quickly surrounded it?
When workplace games become dull, they are not so easy to put aside.Level-headed management types, meanwhile, say that many of the aspects of gamification that do work are merely old ideas in trendy new clothes.
Teachers in partnerships might behave more like farmers and take up new technologies rapidly.Ted Kolderie Education Evolving Saint Paul, Minnesota SIR – As a teacher and father of two young children, I sincerely hope that the "gamification" of education disappears fast.
The dishes get washed; the witch is foiled; the girl has a delightful time; and Mrs Piggle-Wiggle emerges as a pioneer of gamification.
It's easier to just buy it off the shelf .Even as software written for the games industry is being put to serious uses, the element of fun in games is being exploited through the latest management tool, "gamification".
A lot of gamification efforts do not seem to offer anything very different from the old rules of good management.
