Below is a first draft of a typology of criteria used by social apps on their merits/badges/awards systems. It’s my intuition that’s there’s only a limited number of overarching principles sustaining such systems, and this list will try to catalog at least the most popular and easily found of those.
The methodology I’ll be using consists in revising available list of merits for different sites to try and detect the underlying patterns. For each pattern I provide a name, a description, notes if pertinent, relevant Foursquare examples, and a typical string literal associated to the badge.
Feedback, corrections, suggestions, and links to relevant literature will be greatly appreciated.
Manuel González Noriega - [email protected] - 2010
- Virginity
After first piece of content [of type x]
- 4sq: Newbie
- "Congrats on your first check-in!"
A special case of the Virginity pattern. After first {n} pieces of content [of type x]
- Diversity
After first {n} pieces of different content
- 4sq: Adventurer, Explorer, Superstar
- "You’ve checked into 50 different venues!"
- Spree
{n} pieces of content [of type x] created in {m} consecutive {periods of time}.
- 4sq: Bender, Crunked
- "That’s 4+ nights in a row for you!"
- Cycle
{n} pieces of content [of type x] created within a {period of time}
- 4sq: Local, Super User, Overshare, Gym Rat
- "10+ checkins in 12 hours!" "You’ve been at the same place 3x in one week!"
- Time
Creating piece of content after {time of day} [and before {time of day}]
- 4sq: School Night
- "Checking-in after 3am on a school night? Well done!"
- Space [Location app specific]
Creating piece of content from a specific location/area
- 4sq: Brooklyn 4 Life, Gossip Girl
- "That’s 25+ checkins in Brooklyn for you!"
- Spatial context [Location app specific]
Creating piece of content from a location/area with specific characteristics
- 4sq: Photogenic, Zoetrope, Jobs
- "You found 3 places with a photobooth!"
Full List of Active Foursquare Badges [http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/active-badges/]