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
- Newbish
After first {n} actions [of type x]
- 4sq: Newbie
- "Congrats on your first check-in!"
A special case of the Newbish pattern. After first action [of type x]
- Diversity
After first {n} actions of {m} different types
- 4sq: Adventurer, Explorer, Superstar
- "You’ve checked into 50 different venues!"
- Spree
{n} actions [of type x] in {m} consecutive {periods of time}.
- 4sq: Bender, Crunked
- "That’s 4+ nights in a row for you!"
- Cycle
{n} actions [of type x] 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
Action 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]
Action from a specific location/area
- 4sq: Brooklyn 4 Life, Gossip Girl
- "That’s 25+ checkins in Brooklyn for you!"
- Spatial context [Location app specific]
Action from a location/area with specific characteristics
- 4sq: Photogenic, Zoetrope, Jobs
- "You found 3 places with a photobooth!"
- Completion
Upon completion of a one-time-only task
- Hunch: Good Citizen
- "Complete your profile to get this."
- User milestone (*)
Upon action number {n} of type [x] for the user
- Site milestone (*)
Upon action number {n} of type [x] on the site.
- Leadership
For being among the top users of the site for some specific criteria
- HP: Level 2 Networker
- "if you're among the most-connected users in terms of friends and followers, and if you've connected your HuffPost account to your Facebook or Twitter account, we make you a Level 2 Networker"
(*) For reasonable enough types of which I can't provide a source/live example (yet)
Full List of Active Foursquare Badges [http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/active-badges/]
Hunch badges [http://hunch.com/hunch-badges/]
Huffington Post badges [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/p/frequently-asked-question.html#badges]
Permanent vs non-permanent
May the badge be lost after a while?
Example of a non-permanent badge: http://hunch.com/hunch-badges/on-fire/2739453/
One time only vs. collectable
How many badges of this kind may a user grab?
For example, one user can only get one Completion badge (for one specific task) but can get many Spree badges.
Unique vs. repeatable
Can more than one user of the site grab this badge?
For example, only one user of the site can get a Site Milestone badge, but many different users can get a Cycle badge.
Single dimension vs. multiple dimension
Awarded by satisfying rule A vs. awarded by satisfying rule A AND rule B (and C, and D..) See Huffington Post badges
I'm not sure if the badge 'Epic Swarm' of Foursquare belongs to one of the typologies you describe here (maybe as an example of 'Site milestone'?):
Epic Swarm. : "Check in to a venue that has at least 1,000 people checked in. Yes, if you are number 950, you will get the badges when person number 1,000 checks in."
Source: http://thekruser.com/foursquare/alphabetical