Are you looking for a little more out of the time and energy you spend on the Web? If so, you might want to check out a Passively Multiplayer Online Game or PMOG. A proposal created by Justin Hall, Passively Multiplayer Online Games look to create a game around your Web attention data. Justin Hall has been referred to by the NYTimes as the "the founding father of personal bloggers" and decided to create a game out of the Web with PMOGs as part of his Masters project at the USC Annenberg Center.
The first PMOG prototype was backed by the British Broadcasting Corporation, as a tool to teach Web literacy by rewarding users for their activities online. The current version of PMOG works with Firefox and it involves registering, downloading a Firefox extension and then surfing for points.
Some other Web products that are similar to PMOG are the following:
Askville - Amazon leverages game mechanics (gold coins, levels, superpowers, etc.) to reward participation in the Q&A site.
Itty Bitty RPG - Users can create an RPG character and fight monsters and pick up treasure embedded in Web pages.
Me.dium - Offers a Firefox sidebar showing friends floating around the sites they are visiting. Live, web co-presence.
Packet Garden - Users can grow your own garden, based on how you surf the Web.
Seriosity - A plugin for Outlook that gives you points based on your email traffic.
This video offers a little introduction to PMOG and should give you some sense of the game play.What do you think about PMOGs? Are you game?
*Special thanks to Mia Consalvo author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Video Games
