LinkedIn: How does your social game play out?
Today I finally reached the last 10% remaining to give my profile on LinkedIn a 100% completeness rating.
LinkedIn has often been cited as an example of good interaction design because with this small piece of feedback they incentivize their users to fill in ever more complete profiles. Social networking mostly is a game even if it is for business, and with this score they have made it an even more compelling game.
But imagine my disappointment when upon reaching the 100% mark I did not get any kind of end game reward or a clue on what to do next. Usually in a video game upon reaching 100% (i.e. completing the game) you would get an end game sequence explaining the what you just achieved.
In some cases you would also get a new quest even if this only was starting the game anew while retaining your levels. Retaining your levels seems pretty relevant to LinkedIn but suppose there was some deeper meaning to the social network besides filling in my profile and making connections.
Oh wait, there is: Upon completion LinkedIn should offer a congratulatory message and state that now that you have succeeded in their social network, you have everything you need to succeed in the real world. The game goes on in real life: ‘Go out and kick some ass!’ Maybe add some practical pointers on how to actualize your LinkedIn network just as they did with filling in your profile.
So the lesson is that it is a good thing to give your users something to strive for, but also allow for a reward (however intangible) once they have reached that goal (Kars agrees with me). You may indeed make your users quite happy in the proces.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
October 1st, 2007Maybe a good alternative second quest would be to motivate people to write recommendations for other people, this way enforcing more and more people to reach 100%. I think the bar for 100% could maybe even be laid higher this way.
PS: I reached 100% too today.
Kars http://leapfrog.nl
October 1st, 2007As long as there is no apparent value in reaching 100%, I can’t see how Alper or anyone else would be compelled to go out and recommend other people just to help them reach a complete profile. This after all has already been established as useless in the game.
However, this of course is only true when you see LinkedIn as a game in the strict sense where all player motivations are fueled by goals intrinsic to the system. The fact is though, people use LinkedIn for goals external to the system as well (or actually, they do this mostly). I blogged about this a little bit a while ago. The conclusion is that you need to be careful which extrinsic goals to reinforce with intrinsic ones.
Having established that reaching 100% has no value intrinsically, you’re left to figure out wether there’s any extrinsic value to be derived from it. The thing is, this reflection is suspended by the feedback loops they’ve put in place until you reach the end. Basically, they’ve tricked your brain into thinking there’s something valuable to be gained from going for completion. Upon reaching 100% and not actually getting anything, the illusion is shattered and you’re left to wonder why you bothered in the first place!
Kars http://leapfrog.nl
October 1st, 2007Just one final addition: The disappointment you’re feeling is actually quite similar to what most players experience upon ending a ‘real’ digital game. After all, upon finishing Half-life or whatever, you realize that all the effort you put into mastering the weapons system and so on was actually not valuable after all…