Just for fun and to gain more participation, Gogobot is introducing gaming — badges, in particular — to its social travel website.
Travis Katz, CEO and cofounder, says Gogobot is the first company to introduce some gaming — and fun — into Facebook Places, the social network’s check-in service.
Gogobot previously integrated Facebook Places and Foursquare check-ins, but now these check-ins show up in y0ur Gogobot Passport in the form of badges and points.
In fact, Gogobot users now earn points and badges for these check-ins and also for writing reviews, posting photos and answering questions.
Thus Gogobot is enabling its users to earn points for activities both on the site and elsewhere in the real world.
And, Gogobot’s gaming touch also introduces an element of competition.
You can visit the Gogobot Leaderboard and view who has earned the most points on Gogobot overall or who’s the top dog in your social network.
And, the way you earn points for Facebook Places and Foursquare check-ins on Gogobot is different than how you build up your badges on Foursquare, Katz explains.
Gogobot isn’t as interested in your quantity of check-ins — whether you checked into your local pizzeria 450 times — as Foursquare is, but emphasizes new places you’ve checked into because Gogobot is a travel site, Katz says.
Games are not all fun and games, but the concept of games is serious stuff for Gogobot and online businesses.
“The concept of games is very powerful,” Katz says. “It’s starting to be integrated into sites across the Web.”
Katz says Gogobot is believed to be one of the first travel sites to inject gaming into the rest of the fun.
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Smart move. Gamification is the next tool to improve customer engagement with social media by giving them a sense of participation and competition. With a whole generation of gamers being active on the social web as potential customers it is time for integrating this aspect. Travel is a very suitable vertical to benefit from this.
Joe: Gamification. Love the word. Sounds important, and yup, perhaps it is.
Seems to be, at least according to these folks running what looks like a successful company called Lithium with major brands as clients.
gtrot Travel badges based on adding cities you’ve been to, attending major events like the World Cup and visiting over 10 countries launched in early June 2011.
Sounds stupid, I don’t know how, been using this service for a while now, not impressed.