Reviewing websites for $ / Gamification without $ incentives
Today I reached the total required by usercrowd.com to request a payment for answering questions regarding website layout and design.
This total is $10, which has been earned over 3/4 months by answering short questions that usually takes anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute or two. The tests are quite infrequent in my experience and they expire after a short period of time, meaning that you will need to have OS notifications, or an email alert set.
What I like is that there is minimal effort involved. Other sites I've looked out require software installing to record your screen and audio, but they do pay more for your service. Most of the websites I've reviewed relate to hotels, shopping, insurance, and as I've done business with those websites or similar before, it's fairly easy to wizz through the questions - some 'tests' are just one question with bullet point answers.
So having reached the mimimum threshhold for a payout, I checked my PayPal email address was correct and made the request.
The details state that this would need to be approved and take up to 30 days, and so I was surprised to receive this email less than 10 minutes later. Nice!
It is possible to configure your times of availability, and you can also request tests are sent to your mobile phone. I actually done feel like I've done any work at all, and it's quite interesting to which companies are using these crowd-review tools to work on their websites.
A little on Gamification
Although I've not reviewed anything that I felt was a website trying to increase gamification, I was reading back on a couple of comments left on the most recent Engagement League post and thought I'd drop a few notes here.
The EL is an attempt at gamifying what we do day-to-day on this social network of ours. And I think Google dictionary agrees:
... the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.
Without blowing my own trumpet too much (shh Boomy!), I think the EL has done that in some regards, and I also hope that some of the members are there just to see there numbers and track personal progress, or progress against peers.
However, the rewards aspect (although relatively small in the grand scheme of things) is present, and likely acts as a driver for some, and could well drive behavior that scores well, but is not the desired overall outcome.
The hope is that at some point:
... marketers (that's us / website owners) will seek for ways to make the desired behaviors enjoyable instead on stimulating action solely with rewards and gifts. source
which revolves around:
... Intrinsic Motivation Design (making the tasks actually enjoyable). This is important because rewards and incentives can motivate a person to start doing a set of actions, but it doesn't last long without continuous dangling of a carrot. source
So, on a social networking / website that has a core concept of being rewarded for content, how do we do that then?
Although my initial and on-going presence on usercrowd.com and Hive was/is somewhat motivated by rewards, one obvious difference between the two is that there are people on Hive - people I speak to offline, people I've met in person.
For me, this is a factor in my engagement and commitment to the platform. I want to check in on this people and see how they are, and I do this by engaging without a thought about financial rewards. 'Come to Hive and make friends', though, is unlikely draw people in, although they may find it encourages them to stick around.
So, what else could the likes of hive.blog / peakd do with their interface, to gamify (away from rewards) aspects of Hive? Or in other words, how do we make what people do here more enjoyable, without dangling the HIVE carrot?
Cheers
Asher
That's a tricky one. I am glad that arcange has bought over the ranking thingy. I can't remember what he changed the name to. Hive buzz? It would be nice if there was a better rep system that used engagement also in its calcs. People could work for badges and levels and stuff
You blew it!!! ( The trumpet ;0))
It was a dare!
Yeah hivebuzz, it's probably the best gamification that isn't directly related to rewards, although you do receive some of the rewards by earning rewards :)
https://peakd.com/hivebuzz/@hivebuzz/hivebuzz-hive-gamification-experience
A long-standing issue with gamifying for rewards is that people will game the games - escaping that whilst promoting good behavior and an good time had by all is to take the reward element away, which is tough for a 'rewards-based social media platform'.
Tough one!
It is tough. Get that ocdb lot to start promoting ENGAGE again! But that is more of a monetary thing rather than sexy gamification. Hmm. Taraz will have something I'm sure!
ENGAGE needs a bot-man to set up the commands/distribution again. But as you say, you earn tokens, and tokens could = $. Taraz always has something :P
A bot man... Could write a song about that... Bada bada bee bat bat bada bot. Bat bat bada bot. I'm the bot man!!
Sounds familiar... A cross between Eiffel 70 something and Scatman :O
All the best stuff is re-use!
A bit like code, unless I wrote it to begin with! :D
Lol. like mine then. It's ridiculously beyond re-use
Thank you for your kind words about the HiveBuzz project @abh12345. Feels good to read.
Why not support us and vote for our witness 😁
:D
The reason I don't vote for this witness is because I vote for arcange and assumed that this is also arcange?
@hivebuzz is a project created by arcange. Supporting us as witness helps us to keep doing what we do and even more 😉
cheers, @lizanomadsoul
Never heard of them, checked it out and I decided to sign up. Looks nice, and as you already shared proof of payment, I'm confident to try it out. Thank you for sharing :)
It's a slow burner, but doesn't interfere with your day or consume much time at all. Good luck :)
I don't mind, in the past, I've done a few of these things as well, was very rare to get an e-mail with task but like you said it's good to do in between other stuff and can be fun as well... We'll see when something pops up :)
Yeah, it's one or two a day on this one, and I'm set to 'here all day!'. But when it finally gets to $10, nice little bonus :)
Just hearing about this.
Will check it out and if it it worth joining then sparing part of hive time for it will not be that bad
Nice to have a bit of variety, and if you do get to a payout then you can Hive about it too :)
If hivebuzz (the new Hiveboard) can integrate with PeakD so you can see your badges, that would be pretty sick! I'm all up for having badges on display, feel like you've earned them - probably the gamer coming out in me, have been losing my hair over Crash Bandicoot recently to try and complete everything and get all the relics... infuriating but...must...collect...badges!
Yeah I think that could happen quite easily, peakd could probably do their own version on the same metrics. Good to have hivebuzz there though, I remember it encouraging me early on (not seen a badge for ages though!).
Crash Bandiwhatnow?! I think I'll go drive my truck in the hope of a Steam badge :)
Yeah I loved getting those notifications from them back then - they'd pop up when you'd least expect and then you feel like an absolute badass walking away from explosions like this guy:
Errr Crash Bandicoot, one of the best platform games in history...? One more relic away from completing the trilogy and then:
ha :)
I've just seen a hivebuzz message on a new recruit of mine - they've issued 10 up-votes :)
What about Dizzy, Magic Pockets, Turrican 2, Flashback, Manic Miner? And now another morning will be consumed by me wanting to go back to being 8 again!
Beautiful, you know they're sucked in now once those badges start coming haha!
Not heard of any of those games! I'm moving on to Spyro the Dragon next... nickyhavey on Steam if you wanted to play some games or teach @acidyo a lesson on how to play Counter Strike properly 😜
Why do you like to hurt me. :(
Sorry man...
Don't worry, I'm really shit at it, @gabrielatravels wiped the floor with me on the casual TDMs we've played together. I can't keep blaming it on the lag but...
Hahaha, always the lag!
at least you're not blaming it on hackers, next step is lag, then it's "fucking nolifers".
Haha! I'm teetering on that stage mate, give it another month, I'll let you know 😂
Sent you a friend request, let's see if we have any games in common.
If they brought Battlefield 2 back, same maps and everything I'd be in with a shout :)
The Engagement League definitely qualifies as gamification and by playing the comment game many of us have seen our accounts grow in the process of attempting to be in the top 10 each week! It's a good game to play! ❤️
:D
Glad to hear it - commenting around does help you get spotted and make the place look a lot more lively!
Hey, @abh12345.
Okay. I can see this gamification through UI is going to be a thing for a while.
So, I'm going to start asking some questions.
Instead of starting with what would make things more enjoyable, I'm going to back up.
Why are we saying the UI experience is not enjoyable? If we're specifically talking about hive.blog (since PeakD has been much more innovative and become loaded with features), what is it about hive.blog that makes it a lackluster experience?
Does it lack ease of use? Is it not intuitive? Is it too minimalist?
Is there a marked difference between the 'fun' experienced on PeakD vs hive.blog? Why or why not?
Who's not having an enjoyable enough experience? Why? How many? Is it because of the UI? Something else?
Does the very nature of blogging on a platform with rewards built in take away some of the fun? Is that what we're saying? Is not earning enough rewards on a post, compared to what others are earning on theirs, more of a turn off than actually get paid is as a perk?
What about everything that has gone on in the past, and some of that which has come through to HIVE? Are people not enjoying their experiences because of the personalities that are here, or the things they're involved with, or does that truly have little to do with it?
Maybe we're just looking for a starting point, something we can solve quicker, that doesn't necessarily undo or overhaul what HIVE is. But if we're talking about getting to the root of the problem and not going for simple bandaid solutions, it seems to me that we need to dig deeper than just an enjoyable UI.
There's plenty of things to look at still (at least, I don't think these things have been addressed) that carried over from HIVE:
Should we continue with DPoS? That seems to be a pretty big question. At least it was.
As part of that, what about the way we vote for witnesses?
Is the community or platform ready to onboard as many users as needed, and as quickly as possible?
Do those who are actually interested in using the platform (at least from a social media, gaming or gambling standpoint, since that's principally what we are still), know we even exist yet?
The general crypto community seems to know we're out here, thanks to recent events and the ongoing hard work behind the scenes. With all the awesome listings we've had lately, the meter did almost reach $1 USD a couple of days ago, so the investment market part of HIVE is improving. That's still not mass adoption mode, though.
What's it going to take to get the people who are out there still who actually do want to engage on social media, play games and gamble, plus whatever else HIVE can become, to come here?
Have all of those questions been asked? Do they have answers? Did I miss it all? If not, that's where I would start. Questions ultimately beget more questions, even with answers, so I'm sure there's even more to tackle than what came to mind now. Are we there already?
Hi Glen
I see what you've done here, answered my question with 26 of your own! I can't promise a reply to all, but here goes.....
I actually like both interfaces, one for it's simplicity and one for it's features, and the gamification musings don't really relate to the UI design/layout. Think of an built in engagement league, which used your following list or a favourite list to match you up against - all automated, real-time, didn't have to wait for Sunday.
On writing this, I've just had a thought as to why this could may not surpass the EL post. Where does the engagement and camaraderie (community building) take place, if not on a post of the results? I guess this thought ties in with the paragraph I wrote (and wondered about it's suitability) in the post about making friends - this happens in the comments and not by looking at your name at the top of the list.
The answer to this question is the one that makes us millionaires - I don't know :)
Well, that was two of them covered, sort of.
Didn't know that website, it looks nice and I might actually try it out.
For as far as engagement goes, the old non-linear reward system was imo way better. Nowadays it's impossible to upvote or support smaller accounts and actually create a community around a specific topic (like betting). Everything seems to be centered around bending your content toward what curation groups upvote with most content being just about the platform itself. Being unable to reward comments also doesn't help.
You could say that the non-linear rewards fight abuse, but I see it more like they shifted it. Removing the reward pool all together making Hive proof of stake working with some kind of tipping system is something I see as a possible solution even though it won't be a popular one. Most of my own daily engagement has pretty moved to discord and doesn't need any rewarding.
I have been using publish0x which has in my view a way better (fairer) reward model, much better content, actual readers (often 1000-3000 views).
It's still possible, but you'll have to go the hard way unless community members have, let's face it, a boatload of HP.
It's good to have tipping on the peakd interface, I've been trying that out.
I do have a publish0x account, but haven't spent any time there - I don't really feel like moving house again for a while.
I think the blockchain has the inherent base for gamification, or at least some elements. Levels, like reputation and the rewards. I love the concept, theory and psychology of Gamification. What you're talking about is amplifying that core experience by applying motivational techniques to make engagement fun and separate from the monetary reward mechanism. How can we layer it in to give us the holy grail, make it addicting and tap into that dopamine response to get us even more engaged and make that monetary reward less significant.
Hive-buzz is an great example but passive. Front-ends like PEAKD are in a good position to add gamification... not sure what plans they have around it... and from a technical side these could be sidechain(SCOT/HMT's) based things or proprietary database solutions.
Asher, I think you are heading in the right direction with EL... we just need that next push to have the tools and game mechanics added in.