IMO that talk is beenz-level bullshit. Ask yourself this - would you use this? I sure wouldn't. And designing for other people is one of the key pitfalls of tech.
You know why I brush my teeth? It's because I want my teeth to be clean and I want to keep all of them and not have bad breath. I don't need points. Or, if you must, I already got the "clean, healthy, attractive" points already.
I don't need some arbitrary xbox achievements for brushing my teeth, thanks, I already got the points from the lowest level computer there is - reality.
Right, and I wouldn't play FarmVille either but, according to the talk, more people do that than have Twitter accounts.
Given that, and the other similar points the presenter makes, I don't find it at all unbelievable that a large percentage of the population would indeed brush their teeth for points.
It's not even like you're trying to get the others to brush their teeth, you're simply adding onto their experience.
And if the technology gets cheap enough that the toothbrush they buy has it built-in anyway all the better.
Not everyone will, but companies don't need everyone of their users to do so to make it worth it.
It's hard to imagine setting up a toothbrush to connect to my wifi router, but imagine we do continue our technological pace for another 30 years. Maybe not that far fetched.
Of course we could also hit a wall and these 'games' will march into our lives and then suddenly abruptly we stop caring.
more people [play FarmVille] than have Twitter accounts
but will they in a year? Two years?
FarmVille seems to be an incredible fad to me; finally people can play a game with their real friends' names.
But in the end I have to wonder about what the possible value of such games is. Surely not too many people with any purchasing power are wasting time tending to an imaginary cow or whatever.
Coupons? For what? More toothpaste? I buy six-month-supplies as is.
And the whole thing seems to depend on this internal acceptance that what corporation A says is good for me, I should do. I would hazard a guess that there are plenty of people who will not just swallow that whole. OK, there may be plenty that do .. but the types of people who market to them are scum.
You know why I brush my teeth? It's because I want my teeth to be clean and I want to keep all of them and not have bad breath. I don't need points. Or, if you must, I already got the "clean, healthy, attractive" points already.
I don't need some arbitrary xbox achievements for brushing my teeth, thanks, I already got the points from the lowest level computer there is - reality.