When new ideas, theories, tactics and practices are created, it's not always clear at first the value or purpose or direction they may go. Often many people are thinking along the same lines, independently, and refining the ideas. At some point, these ideas begin to coalesce around an overriding theme and a name emerges so that everyone can begin to understand each other when speaking about a topic. How does an idea get a name? It's a good question and I don't know if there is one answer. Why is crowdsourcing called crowdsourcing? Jeff Howe's Wired article from 2006 seems to have been the inflection point that really launched the concept into the current mainstream (though the concept itself has been around quite a while).
Today the marketing buzz that used to surround crowdsourcing now surrounds another idea, and it's one that is having a struggle with nomenclature - gamification (or one of many other names). I'm not a fan of the term gamification because to me it says, "let's take something plain and ordinary and slap some psychological ploys and cheap incentives on top to juice our numbers." Game mechanics, game theory, social rewards... all these seem better to me.
I just read an interesting article from Peter Friedman called "A new name for gamification" in which he argues for the term maintainable motivation. He explains that it effectively exposes and expresses the intention of the designer to address a need often felt by both the purveyor and consumer: persistent engagement.
I think that's a pretty solid way of thinking about it. At the end of the post, there is a video featuring Gabe Zichermann (check out his book, Game-based Marketing)
I think this video, which is long but really engaging, shows the level of thinking that goes into this area. Now, that being said, Gabe seems pretty ok with the term gamification, so maybe I'm trying to make a distinction or argument where one doesn't exist. I'd be interested in Gabe's (and your) opinion on this. Is gamification a good term? Should it be called something else? Can it be called something else at this point?