Techdirt. Stories filed under "fun" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "fun"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:33:00 PDT Making Your Kickstarter Even More Fun: Marian Call Turns Kickstarter Into European Adventure Quest Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120724/15125919814/making-your-kickstarter-even-more-fun-marian-call-turns-kickstarter-into-european-adventure-quest.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120724/15125919814/making-your-kickstarter-even-more-fun-marian-call-turns-kickstarter-into-european-adventure-quest.shtml bunch of experiments that helped her connect with fans and give them a reason to buy. As we noted, what she demonstrated is that it takes a lot of experiments to figure out what "works" for a particular creator and their fans. Some ideas will fail, and some will succeed. Since that time, I've checked in here and there on her career and it seems to be going great. I'd missed, however, that she launched a Kickstarter campaign last month, and thankfully Aaron deOliveira clued me in, thanks to a blogpost on Popehat about Marian Call's Kickstarter campaign, which has a few really cool features. So many artists are doing Kickstarter campaigns these days, that there's usually not that much to write about with them. But Marian (not surprisingly, given her willingness to test out "crazy" ideas, decided to take things a bit further with Kickstarter, and turn it into even more of a game than it normally is.

That is, she created Marian Call's European Adventure Quest, in which she effectively "gamified" Kickstarter, such that the more she earned, the more levels would be "unlocked." The main idea was that she would tour Europe and record a live album, but the more she raised, the more places she would visit and the more cover songs she would do (she usually does originals, but people have requested covers, and she was worried about the licensing fees if she didn't raise money in support). She's even got some nice retro video game graphics to show her progress:
The campaign is actually just about to end (within a few hours), but it just recently surpassed $55,000, which means that she'll be performing and recording "Particle Man" by They Might Be Giants... and she'll be doing it live at CERN, which is so awesomely appropriate.

One of the things we get concerned about, at times, is that people get so focused on how others have been successful with things like Kickstarter that they stop being additionally creative on their own and merely copy others' projects. But Marian is showing how you can continue to be creative above and beyond the basics of Kickstarter, and do so in way that is fun and better connects you with fans (while also getting those fans to support you in a big way). It's always great to see these kinds of inspiring examples.

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]]> neato http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120724/15125919814 Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Games For People... Not Computers Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110121/10460612769/dailydirt-games-people-not-computers.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110121/10460612769/dailydirt-games-people-not-computers.shtml enjoy playing -- or even winning. It'll be quite the feat to create artificial intelligence that actually understands which games are fun to play... and what games are boring. Game designers aren't guaranteed to create fun games, so it's not exactly an easy task for humans to figure out. But when a game is fun, people seem to naturally know it. That's not to say that every popular game is fun for everyone, but there seems to be some quality of good games that can't just be replicated easily. Here are a few quick links on games designed just for us humans. By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110121/10460612769 Mon, 4 Oct 2010 08:46:04 PDT Is Fun No Longer Fun When It's Corporate Fun? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100920/02343711076/is-fun-no-longer-fun-when-it-s-corporate-fun.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100920/02343711076/is-fun-no-longer-fun-when-it-s-corporate-fun.shtml happy workers were not more productive workers. The whole area of study seemed a bit questionable to me, as there were so many other variables that could play into such things, such as the type of work and what kind of "happiness" we were talking about. Also, I could see where, perhaps, in certain jobs, "happy" workers might not be any more productive than unhappy workers, but that the happy workers might be more loyal and have less turnover, which could be quite valuable as well.

Either way, I still tend to think that a happy workforce is something worth striving for -- but not everyone thinks so. The Economist recently had an article mocking companies (mainly tech companies) for trying to keep their workers happy, suggesting that once happiness became "corporate," it no longer really functions to make workers happy:
This cult of fun is driven by three of the most popular management fads of the moment: empowerment, engagement and creativity. Many companies pride themselves on devolving power to front-line workers. But surveys show that only 20% of workers are "fully engaged with their job". Even fewer are creative. Managers hope that "fun" will magically make workers more engaged and creative. But the problem is that as soon as fun becomes part of a corporate strategy it ceases to be fun and becomes its opposite--at best an empty shell and at worst a tiresome imposition.
While I think it's true that in many cases, corporate policies designed to make sure employees "have fun," can be an "empty shell" or "a tiresome imposition," I don't think it's necessarily true in all cases. I think it really does depend on the company, the culture, the people and the "fun." The writer of the Economist piece mocks some of Zappos' ideas for fun as being to coercive:
The most unpleasant thing about the fashion for fun is that it is mixed with a large dose of coercion. Companies such as Zappos don't merely celebrate wackiness. They more or less require it. Compulsory fun is nearly always cringe-making.
But is that true? Again, plenty of weak attempts at forcing fun on people can backfire, but if you look at what Zappos and some other companies do it's not about "coercive" fun, so much as it's about setting up the overall environment such that people just have fun. This is a key difference, which the Economist piece ignores. Yes, I think mandated moments of fun can be lame and do the reverse of the desired impact, but setting up an overall culture that embraces fun can absolutely work. I think it's one of the reasons why Zappos has had success in paying new employees to quit early on, as it gets rid of those who don't fit with the culture. And, those who stick around appear to be having legitimate fun as a part of their job, not because they suddenly had to go "do fun now," as the article implies.

It appears the real confusion by the author is in thinking that fun and work cannot mix -- and it appears that's because whoever it is (which, of course is hidden thanks to the Economists' no bylines policy) seems to think of "fun" solely in a rather antiquated manner. Fun, according to the author, is smoking, drinking and sex at work -- and if you can't do those things, it's just not fun at all:
While imposing ersatz fun on their employees, companies are battling against the real thing. Many force smokers to huddle outside like furtive criminals. Few allow their employees to drink at lunch time, let alone earlier in the day. A regiment of busybodies--from lawyers to human-resources functionaries--is waging war on office romance, particularly between people of different ranks.
Of course, some of us have no interest in doing any of those things at work, and actually prefer an environment where we get along with our coworkers in ways that actually do seem like modern fun, rather than some stereotypical fun from the 1950s. Oh, and as for the research about happy employees being good for companies? It seems those old studies I looked at in college are now being refuted by new studies.

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]]> can-work-be-fun? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100920/02343711076 Thu, 9 Apr 2009 17:38:00 PDT Giving People A Reason To Buy: Make Buying Fun Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090401/1552334345.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090401/1552334345.shtml real reason to buy is to make it an experience where people want to pay the prices that you're offering. In fact, one of the best to do this has been Josh Freese -- who set up a variety of hilarious options on what people could pay him for additional value beyond his latest album, causing the $250 option to sell out quickly -- and the $20,000 option to sell out as well (there was only one, but still... someone paid $20,000 for it). $20,000 is a lot, even for getting the following:
  • Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
  • T-shirt
  • A signed DW Snare from the 2008 Nine Inch Nails tour.
  • Maynard James Keenan, Mark Mothersbaugh from DEVO and I take you miniature golfing and then drop you off on the side of the freeway (all filmed and posted on youtube of course).
  • I give you a tour of Long Beach. I'll show ya my first apartment, the coffee shop on 2nd St where my buddy paid Dave Grohl $40 to rip up some tile just weeks before he joined "Nirvana". I'll show you all my old stomping grounds....the Vandals old rehearsal spot, the house Quackenbush and I use to rent, where to go for the best tacos, Snoop Dogg's high school, etc.... for an extra 50 bucks I'll show you where Adrian and Tom from "No Doubt" live. For another $25 I'll throw in Brooks from Bad Religion and Eric from NOFX's houses too! We then spend the night at the Queen Mary and take the "Ghost Tour" (seperate rooms of course.....no spooning).
  • I write 2 songs about you (or if you want 1 can be about you and the other one can be about whatever or whomever you'd like) and it goes on my next record (you can sing back up on them, clap, play the drums, triangle solo...whatever you want).
  • Drum lesson OR foot and back massage (once again.....couples welcome).
  • Pick any 3 items out of my closet.
But, still, the whole thing is fun, and that's a big part of the reason why people find it worth buying. There have even been rumors that some bands are looking at buying the $75,000 option, which would get them lots of attention, and include options like Freese playing on tour with them for a month and recording an entire EP about whatever they want.

But, of course, it's not just in the music business where this works. Reader William Jackson writes in to point to an interesting article of a guy noting that making buying fun works in a range of industries, from software to t-shirts. He describes the process of buying a t-shirt at the T-Shirt Deli, a t-shirt shop that is set up just like a deli, and makes the process of buying a t-shirt like the process of buying a sandwich -- including handing you the final product wrapped up in wax paper with stickers... and including a bag of chips as well.

So, if you're looking for ways to give people a reason to buy -- a good place to start is to make buying your product fun.

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