Last week, the first Gamification Summitconvened in San Francisco bringing together many different segments of the Silicon Valley technology market. The “Game Crawl” organized by TechCentralSF after the conference gave attendees a chance to mingle.
The most surprising part of the event was the large cross section of industries represented. There was the expected influx of game and startup executives but also NBC, Playboy Enterprises, a program insurance company, and healthcare companies. Gamification is seen by these executives as the new loyalty program and a way to keep users/consumers engaged.
Social engagement is no longer seen to be enough, adding game mechanics and metrics is the new thing in the next year for brands.
Powering these new take on loyalty programs are two startups that sponsored.
Badgeville described their business as a white label social rewards and analytics platform, a new twist on the traditional loyalty program. Now you can reward consumers not just for purchases but also desired behaviors like “sharing with social network” or “uploading content”.
Bunchball has been building its platform for the past 4 years and power programs for large brands like NBC, Comcast, USA Networks,SyFy, and Hasbro. The API’s make it easy to plug in a game, leaderboards, and integration with social networks.
By Chia Hwu. 
Jean-Baptiste Su is the technology columnist for L’Expansion, the leading business publication in France. He’s also the co-founder and editor of TechPulse 360, a blog at the crossroads of business and technology, exploring the innovation and companies defining the high-tech and clean-tech industries.
Jean-Baptiste started his journalistic career 18 years ago at IDG in France, first as reporter at InfoPC (PC World) and then senior editor at Le Monde Informatique (ComputerWorld). He later joined Decision Informatique, part of Groupe Tests (01 Informatique, 01net.com…) as senior editor, before heading to France’s financial daily newspaper La Tribune as its local Silicon Valley correspondent.
