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Comment by yourabi | Hacker News Reader

I think you are on the right track with the idea - but I see some problems with some of the specifics.

1) A lot of companies are paranoid and will want to run this inside their network/firewall. You should develop that option (look at GitHub firewall for example)

2) What incentive do platform providers have in pooling achievements / users - I don't see that happening. I would focus on a white box rewards platform - think SimpleGeo for rewards.

I wouldn't focus on having Webchiever being the destination for leader-boards ...etc because then you are competing with the people you are allegedly providing a service for. Become the plumbing, and if you do it well people will pay.

Cool idea.

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Something standalone like github:fi would be pretty cool, thanks I'll keep that in mind.

I was planning on allowing providers to pull achievement data back out like you're suggesting (unless I misunderstood you) but I'd also like to have a centralized listing of achievements as well. It allows users to discover sites/service that their friends are using, which would drive new targeted traffic to those providers. I think users would be more willing to check out sites/services if they see that they're friends are using it. If a user is already using a particular service and sees that a friend of theirs just got an achievement, their natural urge to be competitive could drive them to check it out and get the achievement themselves.

It could also be useful for helping users decide things in marginal situations. Imagine a user is hungry but not yet motivated enough to do anything about it - seeing an achievement from a friend where they got 10 points for ordering a pizza online could help push that user in the direction of completing that achievement, and in doing so driving revenue for that provider.

I definitely agree with you that achievement systems could be usefully applied to the real world. I built a point system recently to manage my own life and have now become addicted to flossing. I submitted for a demo account but would love to talk to you more generally. tony@tonystubblebine.com

Also, are you Sean Huber of InquryApp?

I'm assuming you're making a reference to Jesse Schell's "10 points for brushing your teeth" talk (link below)

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/gami...

Yes, this app was definitely inspired by that awesome talk

@yourabi I am, although I was on the clicker-training for humans kick ever since I got serious about training my dog. It didn't feel right that he had a scientifically supported system for behavior change while I had nothing.

Thats interesting that you say 'become the plumbing'. Thats exactly what everyone told us when we first launched http://www.KaBadge.com - Why do I want to give you my badges?

That's why we ended up creating another product called http://www.IActionable.com where we provide a rule engine that constantly evaluates actions performed by users and awards the badges, points, whatever for you.

I was actually just reading someone's comment this morning about how they created an Achievement system for the workplace. Can't seem to find the post it was on though.

Keep up the good work guys. I'm happy to see other sites enter this space.

Here are the posts we made for our two services. Perhaps the feedback provided there can help.

(IActionable) - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1126780

(KaBadge) - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=795952

You definitely seem to be on a similar track! IActionable is interesting, I hadn't really considered trying to handle the rule aspect of assigning achievements, though I can see for some sites how it certainly would be valuable. Have you had any luck getting traction?

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