John Whalen's ideas on User Experience, Social Media, and Persuasive Design from Washington, DC

In foursquare the game adds interest single-user experience, because when you check into places you can start earning badges and mayorships right away. For first time-users, that’s very important. It changedthe reason to check in. Then people ultimately discover the core application as they start to find their friends, restaurant reviews, and so forth. By [...]

We have created five tools to help designers apply findings from the field of behavioral economics to their practice in order to provide a head start on framing research as well as developing new strategies for solving user problems. Download the introduction book.
This tool kit includes:

Reference Cards: behavioral economics research findings organized [...]

MySpace: CEO Leaves; MySpace will die. But now I wonder: Who is going to be the next MySpace? Virb? Bebo? (And don’t underestimate LinkedIn.)
Virtual Goods: Insane, but insanely popular. The creation and selling of virtual goods and gifts makes absolutely no sense to people who just use the Internet as a basic communications tool. Have [...]