Reposted from Matters of Grey
Social gaming and social measurement collide within Empire Avenue. While other social measurement tools exist (Klout, Peer Index), Empire Avenue creates a gaming level enticing cognizance and interaction. In its basic form, Empire Avenue is a social stock market; purchase shares in individuals or brands and watch their value go up and down based upon their social measurements. I have been playing with this tool for nearly 3 months now, and I can say that it can become quite addicting. It is getting more and more buzz in the industry lately as an interactive social platform that measures your network value.
Designed to mimic a stock market, it’s nearly as confusing. With a variety of complex choices and screens, its easy to get lost. Tom Ohle, Vice President of Marketing and Media Relations, admits that user experience can feel overwhelming at first and the startup is working on cleaning it up. This is great news, as the clutter of information is enough to rattle a newbie. At its core, Empire Avenue has three essential components, a game, a networking tool and a tool to measure social worth.
Empire Avenue Is A Social Media Game
As a social media stock market, your friends, followers and brands are your stocks and bonds. Create a portfolio, create watch lists, set up price alerts and follow your ticker to see who is rising and falling in value. Share price rises and falls based on a variety of factors, but primarily due to how much people are interacting with your social content. Are your tweets being retweeted or replied to? Are your facebook status’ garnering likes and comments? Are your Flickr photos or youtube videos being viewed? Are you writing new and engaging blog posts? All of your social networks add up to your share price. However, the other layer involved, are people buying or selling you on Empire Avenue? Like the NYSE and NASDAQ, share prices can fluctuate daily based upon social media and Empire Avenue interactions.
It is easy to get caught up in a daily competition with friends to see whose share price will climb higher. Even while writing this, I haven’t been able to resist buying and selling shares. But there is a layer that goes beyond just competing with your twitter and facebook friends.
Empire Avenue Is A Social Networking Tool
Empire Avenue has a community aspect to it. You can join different community forums based on topic, location, brand, and nearly all types of interests. Interact with users by joining or starting discussions based on a topic. You can start a chat on any subject, and engage with other users. There is also often a level of reciprocity, buy a user that shares similar interests as you, they often will buy your stock as well, inflating your price and enabling conversation between the two of you.
Empire Avenue Is A Social Media Grader
Measure your social influence with Empire Avenue. Connect your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, FB Fan Page, and even your personal blog to your profile. Empire Avenue then uses their grading system to measure your influence in each channel, and forms a combined value to create your share price. Long-term activity trends on each social system will add up to your score. You will be given a score for each social network, and this displays on your profile. Awareness of scores encourages a user to continue to provide good content across all of their channels.
Social Gaming
Some say that social gaming is the new frontier, Duleepa Wijayawardhana, CEO of Empire Avenue, agrees.
What I will agree with is the notion that this decade will be the decade that the mainstream understands the use of games and gaming layers in more than just building crops and shooting enemies. I do believe we are seeing the start of a generation that has grown up with computer games and can see that games can actually teach us about Real Life and, indeed, ourselves and how we affect our environment. It’struly an exciting time in my opinion.
With a Facebook app recently released and the plans for Foursquare integration, Empire Avenue is looking to build upon their social gaming platform. Spending virtual money that isn’t yours, investing through Empire Avenue is a social Monopoly. Build your network and your social net worth today.
