socialmedian: The Role of Ego, Competition, Badges & Statistics on the Web

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clip

The Role of Ego, Competition, Badges & Statistics on the Web

Submitted by Louisgray from Google Reader

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

Over the last three nights and dinners, the same debate has arose among three separate groups of friends: the role of competition within the the web and user behaviors.

My strong feeling is that, other than pure content digestion (like reading the New York Times), the web is driven by ego. Ego does not necessarily mean self-adoration or superiority – but it does mean the desire to be publicly thought of as interesting, smart, authoritative, popular, etc. And, equally important, the desire to be display improvement across those traits.

Competition thus is a key component of ego and the public persona because it signifies rank and progress…. and it incents activity. It is why 100,000s of people review products on Amazon; why millions blog; millions more post status updates to Facebook and Twitter. I am guilty of all of these (and many more).

Badges play a critical role because they:

1. signify authority and reputation

2. incent continued activity and growth

3. encourage users to promote their successes

From Amazon Reviews to Foursquare badges, users want to continu

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment