The BigDoor Blog

It’s worth mentioning that today BigDoor Co-Founder and CEO Keith Smith is featured in Forbes, “The Net Breeds Promiscuity; Hang on To Your Customers.”  The article focuses on loyalty. As Keith states, “…your online customers aren’t as committed as you think they are. They’re just as happy to get into bed with some other brand as they are with you. That’s because the Internet has largely killed brand loyalty.”

Keith outlines a few strategies for gaining loyalty including creating valuable content, improving your site’s usability, excellent customer service, fostering online communities and of course adding gamification.

What’s your Loyalty Score?

With all the negative press that’s been out about working at startups we thought we’d share our experience. Like most startups, we’re moving at an incredibly fast pace.  To keep up with the demand our BigDoor team continues to grow. Today we welcome Gerry Narvaja the to team as our new DBA. Early next week Bill Dias will join as our new Operations Developer. Gerry and Bill will bring our team to a grand total of 34 employees – 26 of which are developers dedicated to working directly on our product. Since closing our Series B funding in Summer 2010 we’ve more than doubled in head count, twice!

As the company continues to grow and scale we keep ordering more desks. We thought we’d share this great photo of our Chief Technology Officer, Jeff Malek and our Chief Operations Officer, Ring Nishioka, as they pitched in to build one of our new desks yesterday. In a true startup, everyone pitches in to help. Taking ownership and wearing many different hats are two of the best things about working in a startup.  Thanks guys, and a BIG welcome to Gerry and Bill!

The first ever MBA course on gamification wrapped up a few weeks ago at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. The course was offered by law professors Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter. The experimental course was designed to explore game elements, psychology of motivation, legal and ethical dimensions of gamification and the basics of game design. The course ended with mocked up real-world gamification projects created by the students.

Earlier this year, we were very excited to send our Co-Founder and CEO Keith Smith to participate in the Wharton School’s “For the Win: The Serious Gamification Symposium”. The symposium was a step towards gamification being included as a scholarly topic of study.  With gamification being such a new concept, it is extremely encouraging and beneficial for scholars like Werbach and Hunter to get involved in the discussion and add their point of view.

Kevin Werbach says of the course, “[it] reinforced that gamification will soon be a common business practice in marketing, management, and operations, but we still have a long way to go in understanding it”. The course will likely be offered again next year, but if you aren’t a Wharton student, you can access the course materials, discussions and projects on the course website. You can read more about the course from Kevin Werbach here.

It’s that time of year – nominations are open for the 5th Annual Crunchies! The Crunchies are an annual celebration of startups and technology hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat.

We’re asking all BigDoor supporters, fans, enthusiasts, friends, family, partners and more to show your love and cast your vote for Best Overall Startup. The great news is you can cast your vote every day between now and December 13 - now THAT’s LOVE!

Happy Cyber Monday! We hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend. Take a break from shopping and read some gamification news you may have missed last week.

Is gamification of driving the answer to urban speeding? ars technica 11/26/2011 – In the past few years, American drivers are seeing more and more electric and hybrid cars hit the market. The Chevy Volt, one of the newest in the market displays some features that imply a gamified driving experience. The Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its electric battery before switching over to gas, to encourage drivers to hit optimum efficiency Chevy included a new gauge that highlights driving habits in real time, and encourages drivers to slow down and drive more efficiently.

Wearable Sensors Offer Real-Time Snowboarding Performance and ‘Stoked’ Readouts psfk 11/15/2011 Avid snowboarders might be excited to hear about a collaboration between Burton and Nokia that will introduce wearable sensors on snowboards and clothing that can provide live tracking of speed, heart rate, airtime, rotation and ‘rush.’ The project, called Push Snowboarding will sync to Nokia’s N8 smartphone via Bluetooth.  No release date has been set yet, but Nokia’s Stuart Wells says that the company has seen a lot of excitement and demand for the product.

4 Ways Brands Are Tapping the Power of Social Games on Facebook Mashable 11/21/2011 As social gaming continues to rise in popularity, brands are taking note of this trend as a new way to reach audiences and increase sales. Take a look at how top brands are using social games on Facebook to leverage their products, mission or goals.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from us at BigDoor!

In two years we have been lucky to grow to 31 team members and more than 300 partners. We are extremely thankful for all of the support which has allowed us to continue to iterate and create new exciting products.

We hope everyone has a a fantastic holiday and weekend!

Love the word or loathe it – Gamification made the short-list in Oxford Dictionary’s 2011 “Word of the Year.” Each year Oxford University Press comes up with a Word or Phrase of the Year. The 2011 winner was Squeezed Middle, but gamification made the short-list of words for the U.S. selection. Gamification was among words including Tiger Mother, Fracking, Crowdfunding, and Clicktivism. Visit Oxford Dictionaries for more information about the Word of the Year.

We just heard that our upstairs neighbors in the Techstars program are teaming up with Microsoft to offer a Kinect Accelerator program for ten firms early next year. The three month Kinect Accelerator program will provide $20,000 seed money as well as an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect SDK, entrepreneur mentor-ship, technical training and support to all ten companies. The participants, like past participants in Techstars, will work towards a demo day, which will allow them to pitch to investors, venture capitalists, Microsoft professionals and industry professionals.

In an introduction to the program, Microsoft wrote, “Microsoft is supporting entrepreneurs, engineers and innovators like you to bring to life a wide range of business ideas that leverage the limitless possibilities Kinect enables.” It’s awesome to see the success of Techstars team up with a company like Microsoft to further expand and enable the tech community here in Seattle. We can’t wait to see what participants in this program come up with!

If you are interested in applying for this program, you can find more information on Microsoft’s webpage for the program here.

We hope everyone had a great weekend! Last week was a busy week for gamification news, here are a few articles we don’t think you should miss.

Foursquare starts leveling-up expertise badges VentureBeat 11/14/2011 Foursquare has made some changes to their expertise badges last week by adding the leveling-up feature. Users who obtain expertise badges, can now level up on existing badges which improve based on check-in activity. Foursquare also plans to add this concept to other Foursquare elements, such as leveling when other users complete a tip you left.

Quora Gamifies: Credits and “Ask to Answer” Suggestions Live for Everyone TechCrunch 11/14/2011 Last week Quora turned its ‘Quora Credits” and “Ask to Answer” features on for everyone after a five month period of beta testing. Users can now earn, spend and give credits. The introduction of the credits feature allows users to pay high value experts on specific topics to answer their questions. Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever says of the release, “The results from our credits beta were really promising, so I expect this will do well and we’ll keep extending and evolving Quora Credits.”

For Job Hunters, Digital Merit Badges NY Times 11/19/2011 As the internet becomes more and more a part of everyday life, it makes sense that it would also hold a larger role in job seeking. The MacArthur Foundation is working to introduce a system of badges job seekers can load onto their web site, blog or Facebook that represent unique skills they have. The badges are not meant to replace resumes, but to supplement and spotlight skills that may often be missed on resumes (such as military service). The foundation is working hard to ensure that badges are uniform across the internet, and require specific organizations to award. It will be very interesting to see this project unfold!

What gamification can learn from the holiday season’s biggest games ZDNet 11/20/2011 What can “Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” and “Halo: Combat Evolved” teach us about gamification? According to Libe Goad we can learn everything from the importance of social elements to personalization within game layers. “The key metric should always be to actually create an experience that provides real game play and, most importantly, fun — even if it’s in the service of a greater goal”.

Gamification & Online Content: Meet BigDoor Jen Quinlan 11/12/2011 We want to thank Jen Quinlan for taking the time to learn about us as well as writing about us in this piece. We are always excited to share our goals and talk gamification with anyone interested!

This week, we would like to introduce you to another member of the player team here at BigDoor. Brian Beck is a developer who throws fantastic Twin Peaks parties and is originally from Cleveland, OH.

What do you do for BigDoor?

I’m a developer on the newly formed Player Team, meaning I spend a lot of time writing JavaScript and CSS.

What do you like most about BigDoor?

I love the culture of keeping things fun and celebrating our successes. I’m constantly impressed that I never worry about anyone getting their work done or leaving a mess for the other developers. It’s great how reliable and considerate everyone is.

Technology you couldn’t live without?

I’m a total Internet addict, just give me a connection! Besides that, I’m actually pretty wary about inviting new technology into my life. I’m not a gadget person at all.

Technology that needs to be invented?

Wireless everything. You can be sure every computer nerd is bothered by the mess of wires they’re hiding.

iPhone or Android?

iPhone. RIP Steve.

Star Trek or Star Wars?

I’ve always viewed Star Trek as “space politics” and I’m not too into that. So I’ll take the original Star Wars trilogy any day. A big part of my childhood was collecting old Star Wars toys at lots and lots of flea markets. Just look in my closet at home.

Favorite Jimmy Johns sandwich?

I am opposed to Jimmy John’s on the principal of not being yummy. Sorry.

Dog, Cat or Monkey?

Cat, cat, and cat. Preferably just two, though.

Last movie?

Attack the Block at Central Cinema, with some BigDoor folks actually. It’s a great theater we try to frequent.

Bionic limbs or ability to fly?

The flying one.

What was the earliest game you played?

“The Legend of Zelda”.

Game you’re currently playing?

“Deus Ex: Human Revolution”, although I haven’t picked it up in a few weeks.

Favorite music to work to?

Ironically, Girl Talk seems to keep me focused.

Other fun facts:

Today it’s been exactly one year since I arrived in Seattle! My girlfriend and I attempted to ride our bikes here all the way from Cleveland. We made it most of the way and still consider the trip a success. The first place we stopped here was Victrola to hunt for apartments and jobs.