'Gamification': A Growing Business to Invigorate Stale Websites

Rajat Paharia is a new breed of business consultant. For a monthly fee he promises to invigorate stale websites by turning them into video games. Visitors become players. If they perform certain tasks, such as commenting on articles or e-mailing links to friends, they earn points or badges. Paharia's company, San Jose-based startup Bunchball, has performed more than 50 online makeovers for NBC (GE), Playboy, and other large websites. "Our customers don't want to be game designers," says Paharia, 40. "They just want more page views."

Video game designers have spent the last few decades perfecting the art of making their products addictive. Now traditional companies are building loyalty for their websites using so-called gamification techniques. Tactics such as leader boards, which encourage users to compete against one another for points, are becoming common across the Web. "We're in the middle of an arms race for fun," says Gabe Zichermann, an entrepreneur who is organizing the first Gamification Summit (scheduled for Jan. 20 and 21 in San Francisco), developing a certification course for gamification experts, and writing a book on the subject.