Social Action & Ubiquity of Reward. Pegmo aims to Unify & Gamify Customer Engagement
I was researching Pegmo (thanks to a tip from @lttlewys), it turns out another friend @seanmcginnis just wrote a review and a video. You got to love the power of social discovery.
As a board-game publisher, gamification explorer and technology startup guy, Pegmo got me curious. I love anything that fuses online and offline action, and Pegmo has the potential to do that really well.
I get the sense Pegmo is scratching the surface of something very interesting. I love the notion of “Social Actions” (that’s the term that popped into my head when I used the platform – I wasn’t surprised that there’s a startup by that name ). Every startup needs to find it’s own “Social Graph” expresion to help drive their story.
For me the magic of Pegmo is this;
- Social Actions – Anyone (brands and consumers) can challenge friends to complete tasks (Items on a check list) – essentially socially-driven, shareable actions . These actions can be completed by fans/friends for reward and glory, and completion can be shared socially via all the usual channels.
- Equality – Uniquely brands and consumers play on a relatively level playing field. Pegmo is really designed for Brands (and there are not many sites that do that well). Many social media site treat business as a second class citizen, something facebook has struggled with. In reality there’s little difference in how consumers of brands create challenges for their friends/fans to complete.
- Integration – These “Tasks” or “Challenges” may seem limited today to a handful of actions ( eg Liking on Facebook, Following on Twitter, Checking in on Foursqare), but I’m sure they will expand to satisfy audience curiosity ( as API’s expand and as Pegmo fills in the gaps.).I loved the fact that some tasks are checked auto-magically and some require you to approve. I created a few Pegmo tasks myself. Pegmo offers value to brand running activies anywhere, that’s unique.
There’s a limitless pool of future actions, eg;
- “Make a Donation”
- “Donate time”
- “Scan a QR Code”
- “Send in a SMS response”
- “Donate blood”
When I looked at the SocialActions.com it made me think that’s not fun (that’s not its goal) – it has a singular focus, which isn’t a criticism, it’s just not aiming to be a gamification platform.
- Enhancing Reality – I was touched by Pegmo’s potential to touch the world for good (mixed in with some fun and silly stuff too) – That’s no mean feat. Having recently read “Reality is Broken”, I’m so much more motivated by any game that has the power to do good and have a positive impact on reality. I found myself comparing Pegmo to Empire Avenue, which is totally ego driven. I sense Pegmo has far greater potential to a positive force on the world, while also feeding egos globally.I’d go futher that the magic of Pegmo could well be the unification of Brands, Consumers and Charities (Not for profits and Causes) to drive local/global action for fun and glory. It’s all about balance – critical to the creation of any great game, and Pegmo has the power to offer balance and continued interest and diversity.
- Social Glue – Pegmo manages to glue together a number of social media platforms and become an uberscoreboard or measuring stick. That is smart and unique. In a world where the number of social platforms is growing, anything that unifies, stands a chance of becoming significant. Pegmo has a chance to be the ultimate over-arching “Soclal Proof”. That’s cool.
I guess one downside is users can create some pretty awful tasks, Pegmo may want to help educate people on it’s use, but for now I guess they are in discovery mode themselves. Ultimately the users get to judge what content is good and bad.
I didn’t like the fact that all tasks are valued equally. I could imagine there being a market to value some acts higher than others, but that’s just fun and speculation into Pegmo’s roadmap.
As with all these types of apps, you quickly get bombarded by too many emails.
I do wonder how satisfying the whole experience really is, but I sense that’s just and “early days” feeling, that will become enhanced as the platform fills out.
For something so new and different, I was impressed. I sense Pegmo (and any me too plays) will be fun to watch as they evolve. I sense there is real value in exploring it for your brand, especially if you are already into Facebook, Twitter & FourSquare. Pegmo offers a nice touch of unification.
Image Credit: elwillo
Nick is co-founder the social curation platform Listly, that combines crowdsourcing, content curation and embedable lists to drive high-level community engagement, live inside your blog posts. Connect with Nick on Twitter · Linkedin, Facebook and G+ and follow his writing via his other guest posts and on his blogs at NickKellet.com and blog.list.ly
