Gamification – What is the benefit for community management?

Gamification is a very young and hot debating topic. The term was not existent before 2010 [1], a fact that might explain that there are so few empirical studies on this subject. Furthermore, the available studies show mixed results [2]. Apparently, the effectiveness of gamification depends on a whole set of interrelated factors (community topic, community type, community size, cultural factors, members' motives and appraisals, the design of the reward system itself etc.). This multitude of determinants makes it difficult to decide whether gamifying one’s own community site may be such a good idea after all.

Sense of community in virtual communities

Sense of community (SOC) is a concept in community psychology with far ranging implications for the management of face-to-face communities. It is applied to geographical communities (i.e. neighbourhoods, blocks, colleges) as well as to relational communities of interest where members are brought together primarily by social interaction and not by territorial demarcation. If you google for instance „developing sense of community“ you will see that SOC is a desirable thing because individuals and institutions devote a lot of energy to its creation. So, can this concept be made operational for the management of virtual communities?