BJ Fogg on social networking

Whilst delighting in the publication of this book justifying my innate untidyness, i came across this great blog reviewing it.

Also on it was a really interesting article about BJ Fogg's (he of persuadability fame) latest comments in New Scientist.

"If you offer people a chance to gain status, they will work for it

Fogg and his colleagues analysed hundreds of such sites and identified three stages to their success, which they called discovery, superficial involvement and true commitment."

The fun bit is trying to think up interesting ways that you can let people both give and assign status.

Islandoo (created by the lovely chaps at mintdigital) initially had a problem when they launched. They were relying on a 'friendship' relationship. Ie, a user could declare themselves a 'fan' of another user. The users with the most 'fans' rising to the top. But, much like myspace, people simply spent hours trawling round 'fanning' everyone they could see, requesting that they returned the favour. The most popular were the most persistent, not the most interesting people.

Instead they created an idea of a 'magic penny' which is a more limited rewards system. You are given one when you create your profile, and once you've given it away, that's it, until someone gives you one, which you can then pass on again.

There are also smaller different awards that can be given out like 'drinks' see this profile with some pennies and a drink on it.