Google News Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Google News Badges

Whether you think gamification is the road that leads to the bright future, or instead straight to the irreparable infantilization of the Web, even the harshest of critics have to admit that there's more to the concept than simply slapping some badges on a website, game or application, Foursquare-style. The more I read up on this new Google News Badges stuff, the more I think some people over at Mountain View didn't quite get that particular message. Starting today, in the U.S. edition of Google News, users can earn more than 500 types of badges as they read articles about their favorite topics.

Google News Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Google News Badges

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/cI9UpSgfNIg/

Cartoon: Apparently, We DO Need Those Stinking Badges (ReadWriteWeb)

I'm suddenly seeing badges everywhere. Location-aware apps like Foursquare and Gowalla award them for things like visiting more than four venues in one night (the "crunked" badge) or checking into the kind of venue known for a particular personality type (the "douchebag" badge). And now I'm getting badges in nearly every game and entertainment app I use, often with oddly low standards and...

Source : ReadWriteWeb

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Post originale: http://wik.io/info/US/227079150