OK, OK, so I may not have Spotted today's post on my walk to work this morning...and I can't even take credit for spotting it (thank you, Travis)...but it is most definitely Spot worthy!
Last Wednesday I announced that I will be joining the TapMommies crew over at HealthTap (yay!), a blog that "helps pregnant women and new moms make better decisions about their health and well-being." And yesterday morning while we were enjoying a delicious breakfast at my parent's house in Redwood City, Travis was flipping through the Sunday Business section of the San Jose Mercury News and all of a sudden looks up and says, "Hey, HealthTap is mentioned in this article..."
The article? Get ready for the decade of Gamification by Chris O'Brien. It's a great piece that examines how "Gamification" (which "developers believe...will make the dreariest of tasks more fun and engaging") will not only become more and more commonplace, but it will soon become expected in the consumer online experience.
HealthTap, therefore, is on the cutting edge of the internet trend - people want to have engaging experiences online...and not just engaging experiences, but fun experiences. If HealthTap can channel this desire and create a positive, educational, and health-promoting experience all at the same time, then I feel like they're truly tapping into (pun intended - I crack myself up...) something special.
As stated in the article, "Ron Gutman, founder of HealthTap, a valley startup that's in early development, said his team is trying to figure out how to use gamelike tools to motivate people to share their health concerns, find treatments or providers that can help them, and then take better care of themselves. 'If you can get hundreds of millions of people playing a game like 'FarmVille,' what can you learn from this kind of engagement?' he said. 'And can we deploy it in a place that it will do good? Like helping people lead healthier lives?'"
I must say, not only was it fun to read about HealthTap in the paper (and to understand more about the significance of Gamification), but I'm proud to be a small part of such a positive initiative.
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