NEWS: Productivity software should learn from game design

Shouldn’t productivity software make us want to work?

Three things productivity software can learn from game designers
1. Help me make decisions
2. Keep my interest
3. Make it pleasurable

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  Great metaphor.

Blogging and social networks are already games. There are goals (i.e. Michael Arrington wants coronation. I’m an old Dan Farber fan), resources (i.e. I call them conversations), competition (i.e. Techcrunch versus CNet versus SAI), and information (i.e. GA, Alexa, compete). I’ve used the metaphor, Reality Journalism - where journalists compete in real time for the attention of fans. True competitors are obsessed with winning, just like my gaming teens.

Search and SEM are games - millions try to spam their rankings through natural and paid search. Can and should productivity tools become games? I don’t think the enterprises would find this amusing, but keep in mind that blogging has already displaced word processors.

It would be interesting to have a centralized scoreboard that tracks competition among bloggers and social networkers.

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