I had lunch with my father the other day, and I explained this series as well as I could to someone who didn’t start programming when he was 11. His immediate reaction was, “Why are there so many different formats? Why can’t everybody just agree on a single format? It is political, or technical, or both?” The short answer is, it’s both. The history of video in any medium — and especially since the explosion of amateur digital video — has been marred by a string of companies who wanted to use container formats and video codecs as tools to lock content producers and content consumers into their little fiefdoms. Own the format, own the future. And when I say “history” — well, it’s still going on. Tried to play a Windows Media Video on Mac OS X lately? The codec and container support is out there, but it’s not baked in. Want to watch movie trailers on Apple.com? Please install QuickTime. And so forth and so on. The only thing that was pre-installed on both platforms was Flash, so when a few startups dipped their toes into the Internet video waters, the ones that used Flash Video won despite it being an objectively inferior codec. (Some revision of Flash 9 added support for H.264 video, AAC audio, and the MP4 container, which is what YouTube HD uses.)

So that’s the politics. But there are also technical barriers. As with all engineering, video encoding is primarily about constraints. I can think of 10 just off the top of my head:

1. CPU capacity for decoding and playing in real time. This is one of the most important constraints, since video is meant to be watched in real time. That sounds simple, but it’s incredibly complex. Every video you’ve ever watched in your entire life had to be decoded and played in real time. Otherwise it stutters and the viewing experience sucks. And we’re talking about video here; if the viewing experience sucks, there’s nothing left. Some codecs are just more complex than others, and that translates into higher system requirements to decode videos in real time. As I’ve mentioned before, some codecs are now decoded by specialized hardware. iPhones have a little chip inside them that understands H.264 Baseline Profile; without that, the iPhone would need a Core 2 Duo processor to play movies, and it would have a battery life of 10 minutes.
2. Codec compatibility. Normal people won’t download codecs or plug-ins just to watch a dog on a skateboard, or even to watch a trailer for a $100 million blockbuster. (Sadly, they will download plug-ins for porn, but those are invariably trojan horses. Or so I’ve read. Moving on…) The phone in your pocket can probably play AMR ringtones, maybe MP3 ringtones, but probably not Vorbis ringtones (unless you have an Android phone) — and you probably couldn’t download new codecs even if you wanted to (which, I must reiterate, nobody wants to). Apple and Real Networks tried for years to corner the web video market, but 99% of schmucks with a browser have Flash, so Flash video won on the web. Meanwhile, Firefox 3.1 will ship with support for the <video> element but will only support Theora and Vorbis in an Ogg container — even if your underlying operating system ships with other codecs.
3. CPU capacity for encoding. Encoding takes a long time. Taking my home movie from iMovie to a DVD used to take 8 hours on a Powerbook G4 laptop. These days you can rip a DVD movie with Xvid in 30 minutes, or you can rip it with a more complex codec with all optional features turned on, and maybe it’ll still take 8 hours. It’ll look better, but will it look 16 times better? If you’re only doing it once, maybe you don’t care. If you’re running YouTube and people are uploading 13 hours of video every minute, maybe you do. CPU cycles aren’t free; at that scale, they’re not even cheap. (That’s a real statistic, by the way; I got it from the page on the Google intranet entitled “What can we tell non-Googlers?” and it’s accurate as of September 2008.)
4. Acceptable delay between recording and delivery. In my own experience, videos I’ve uploaded on YouTube are available within minutes, which is just mind-boggling when you consider the volume. If you’re re-encoding a live stream, even a few minutes delay is probably unacceptable. That means you’ll need a faster encoder, a less complex codec, or lower quality settings.
5. Audience size. It’s not a big secret that lots of video on the Internet looks like crap. Partly that’s because the video uploader uploaded crappy video, but it’s also because most Internet videos are only watched by a few people, and it’s just not a worthwhile tradeoff to spend 8 hours re-encoding it. On the other hand, if you’re mastering a DVD that’ll get sold to 10 million people, you’ll probably use higher quality settings.
6. Screen dimensions. DVDs can’t store high-def 1920 x 1080 video because the standard doesn’t allow for it, which makes perfect sense because it was designed around the screen resolution of standard-def TVs. Blu-Ray ups the limit, but there’s still a limit. Screen sizes vary more for PC video, but there will always be practical upper limits depending on your audience.
7. My bandwidth. If you’re streaming or downloading video, some percentage of your audience is probably living in a third-world country like the United States, with limited broadband access, slow speeds, and monthly bandwidth caps. Larger file size = longer wait to play = fewer videos watched overall.
8. Your bandwidth. Obviously every bit I download is a bit that you upload, and bandwidth ain’t free either. “When I get a little money I buy bandwidth; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Or something like that.
9. Hard limits on storage size. As I mentioned before, physical media has upper limits on total size. Commercial DVDs can hold upwards of 9 GB, which seems like a lot but really isn’t. Blu-Ray maxes out at 50 GB, which seems like a lot but really isn’t.
10. Patents / licensing costs. Did I mention that most popular video codecs are patent-encumbered? This is why Wikimedia uses Theora exclusively, and why Firefox can ship a native Theora decoder and but won’t ever ship H.264.

…and that’s the short list.

All of which leads me to the Zen of video encoding, which is this:

There is no right or wrong. There is only what works and what doesn’t.

If you can find even one combination of tools, delivery devices, and target platforms that satisfies your constraints and still accomplishes your goals, congratulations. You’re ahead of 99% of the people who’ve tried.

The most important consideration in video encoding is choosing a video codec. A future article will talk about how to pick the one that’s right for you, but for now I just want to introduce the concept and describe the playing field. (This information is likely to go out of date quickly; future readers, be aware that this was written in December 2008.)

When you talk about “watching a video,” you’re probably talking about a combination of one video stream, one audio stream, and possibly some subtitles or captions. But you probably don’t have two different files; you just have “the video.” Maybe it’s an AVI file, or an MP4 file. These are just container formats, like a ZIP file that contains multiple kinds of files within it. The container format defines how to store the video and audio streams in a single file (and subtitles too, if any).

When you “watch a video,” your video player is doing several things at once:

1. Interpreting the container format to find out which video and audio tracks are available, and how they are stored within the file so that it can find the data it needs to decode next
2. Decoding the video stream and displaying a series of images on the screen
3. Decoding the audio stream and sending the sound to your speakers
4. Possibly decoding the subtitle stream as well, and showing and hiding phrases at the appropriate times while playing the video

A video codec is an algorithm by which a video stream is encoded, i.e. it specifies how to do #2 above. Your video player decodes the video stream according to the video codec, then displays a series of images, or “frames,” on the screen. Most modern video codecs use all sorts of tricks to minimize the amount of information required to display one frame after the next. For example, instead of storing each individual frame (like a screenshot), they will only store the differences between frames. Most videos don’t actually change all that much from one frame to the next, so this allows for high compression rates, which results in smaller file sizes. (There are many, many other complicated tricks too, which I’ll dive into in a future article.)

There are lossy and lossless video codecs; today’s article will only deal with lossy codecs. A lossy video codec means that information is being irretrievably lost during encoding. Like copying an audio cassette tape, you’re losing information about the source video, and degrading the quality, every time you encode. Instead of the “hiss” of an audio cassette, a re-re-re-encoded video may look blocky, especially during scenes with a lot of motion. (Actually, this can happen even if you encode straight from the original source, if you choose a poor video codec or pass it the wrong set of parameters.) On the bright side, lossy video codecs can offer amazing compression rates, and many offer ways to “cheat” and smooth over that blockiness during playback, to make the loss less noticeable to the human eye.

There are tons of video codecs. Today I’ll discuss five modern lossy video codecs: MPEG-4 ASP, H.264, VC-1, Theora, and Dirac.

MPEG-4 ASP

a.k.a. “MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile.” MPEG-4 ASP was developed by the MPEG group and standardized in 2001. You may have heard of DivX, Xvid, or 3ivx; these are all competing implementations of the MPEG-4 ASP standard. Xvid is open source; DivX and 3ivx are closed source. The company behind DivX has had some mainstream success in branding “DivX” as synonymous with “MPEG-4 ASP.” For example, this “DivX-certified” DVD player can actually play most MPEG-4 ASP videos in an AVI container, even if they were created with a competing encoder. (To confuse things even further, the company behind DivX has now created their own container format.)

MPEG-4 ASP is patent-encumbered; licensing is brokered through the MPEG LA group. MPEG-4 ASP video can be embedded in most popular container formats, including AVI, MP4, and MKV.

H.264

a.k.a. “MPEG-4 part 10,” a.k.a. “MPEG-4 AVC,” a.k.a. “MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding.” H.264 was also developed by the MPEG group and standardized in 2003. It aims to provide a single codec for low-bandwidth, low-CPU devices (cell phones); high-bandwidth, high-CPU devices (modern desktop computers); and everything in between. To accomplish this, the H.264 standard is split into “profiles,” which each define a set of optional features that trade complexity for file size. Higher profiles use more optional features, offer better visual quality at smaller file sizes, take longer to encode, and require more CPU power to decode in real-time.

To give you a rough idea of the range of profiles, Apple’s iPhone supports Baseline profile, the AppleTV set-top box supports Baseline and Main profiles, and Adobe Flash on a desktop PC supports Baseline, Main, and High profiles. YouTube (owned by Google, my employer) now uses H.264 to encode high-definition videos, playable through Adobe Flash; YouTube also provides H.264-encoded video to mobile devices, including Apple’s iPhone and phones running Google’s Android mobile operating system. Also, H.264 is one of the video codecs mandated by the Blu-Ray specification; Blu-Ray discs that use it generally use the High profile.

Most non-PC devices that play H.264 video (including iPhones and standalone Blu-Ray players) actually do the decoding on a dedicated chip, since their main CPUs are nowhere near powerful enough to decode the video in real-time. Recent high-end desktop graphics cards also support decoding H.264 in hardware. There are a number of competing H.264 encoders, including the open source x264 library. The H.264 standard is patent-encumbered; licensing is brokered through the MPEG LA group. H.264 video can be embedded in most popular container formats, including MP4 (used primarily by Apple’s iTunes Store) and MKV (used primarily by video pirates).

VC-1

VC-1 evolved from Microsoft’s WMV9 codec and was standardized in 2006. It is primarily used and promoted by Microsoft for high-definition video, although, like H.264, it has a range of profiles to trade complexity for file size. Also like H.264, it is mandated by the Blu-Ray specification, and all Blu-Ray players are required to be able to decode it. The VC-1 codec is patent-encumbered, with licensing brokered through the MPEG LA group.

Wikipedia has a brief technical comparison of VC-1 and H.264; Microsoft has their own comparison; Multimedia.cx has a pretty Venn diagram outlining the similarities and differences. Multimedia.cx also discusses the technical features of VC-1. I also found this history of VC-1 and H.264 to be interesting (as well as this rebuttal).

VC-1 is designed to be container-independent, although it is most often embedded in an ASF container. An open source decoder for VC-1 video was a 2006 Google Summer of Code project, and the resulting code was added to the multi-faceted ffmpeg library.

Theora

Theora evolved from the VP3 codec and has subsequently been developed by the Xiph.org Foundation. Theora is a royalty-free codec and is not encumbered by any known patents other than the original VP3 patents, which have been irrevocably licensed royalty-free. Although the standard has been “frozen” since 2004, the Theora project (which includes an open source reference encoder and decoder) only hit 1.0 in November 2008.

Theora video can be embedded in any container format, although it is most often seen in an Ogg container. All major Linux distributions support Theora out-of-the-box, and Mozilla Firefox 3.1 will include native support for Theora video in an Ogg container. And by “native”, I mean “available on all platforms without platform-specific plugins.” You can also play Theora video on Windows or on Mac OS X after installing Xiph.org’s open source decoder software.

The reference encoder included in Theora 1.0 is widely criticized for being slow and poor quality, but Theora 1.1 will include a new encoder that takes better advantage of Theora’s features, while staying backward-compatible with current decoders. (Info: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, source code.)

Dirac

Dirac was developed by the BBC to provide a royalty-free alternative to H.264 and VC-1 that the BBC could use to stream high-definition television content in Great Britain. Like H.264, Dirac aims to provide a single codec for the full spectrum of very low- and very high-bandwidth streaming. Dirac is not encumbered by any known patents, and there are two open source implementations, dirac-research (the BBC’s reference implementation) and Schroedinger (optimized for speed).

The Dirac standard was only finalized in 2008, so there is very little mainstream use yet, although the BBC did use it internally during the 2008 Olympics. Dirac-encoded video tracks can be embedded in several popular container formats, including MP4, Ogg, MKV, and AVI. VLC 0.9.2 (released in September 2008) can play Dirac-encoded video within an Ogg or MP4 container.

And on and on…
Of course, this is only scratching the surface of all the available video codecs. Video encoding goes way back, but my focus in this series is on the present and near-future, not the past. If you like, you can read about MPEG-2 (used in DVDs), MPEG-1 (used in Video CDs), older versions of Microsoft’s WMV family, Sorenson, Indeo, and Cinepak.

Game Dynamics are constructs of rules and feedback loops intended to produce enjoyable game-play. They are the building blocks that can be applied and combined to gamify any non-game context.

Early examples of gamification are based on rewarding points to people who share experiences on location-based platforms such as Facebook’s “Place” feature, Foursquare and Gowalla.

Gamification is used by marketers and website product managers as a tool for customer engagement and encouraging desirable website usage behaviour. Gamification is readily applicable to increasing engagement on sites built on social network services. One site, DevHub, increased the number of users who completed their online tasks from 10% to 80% after adding gamification elements.

Below are listed 47 game dynamics. The challenge comes from taking these mechanics and employing them in a website setting. If you have some good examples, please feel free to post a comment.

1. Achievement – A virtual or physical representation of having accomplished something. Achievements can be easy, difficult, surprising and funny and can be accomplished alone or as a group. Achievements are often viewed as rewards in and of themselves.
   Example: A badge (Foursquare, Gowalla and Booyah), a level (Tiny Wings and Angry Birds), a reward (Fruit Ninja), points (Doodle Jump and Pac-Man), really anything defined as a reward can be a reward.
2. Appointment Dynamic – A dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take some action. Appointment dynamics are often deeply related to interval based reward schedules or avoidance dynamics.
   Example: Cafe World and Farmville where if you return at a set time to do something you get something good, and if you don’t something bad happens.
3. Avoidance – The act of inducing player behaviour not by giving a reward, but by not instituting a punishment. Produces consistent level of activity, timed around the schedule.
   Example: Press a lever every 30 seconds to not get shocked.
4. Behavioural Contrast – The theory defining how behaviour can shift greatly based on changed expectations.
   Example: A monkey presses a lever and is given lettuce. The monkey is happy and continues to press the lever. Then it gets a grape one time. The monkey is delighted. The next time it presses the lever it gets lettuce again. Rather than being happy, as it was before, it goes ballistic throwing the lettuce at the experimenter. (In some experiments, a second monkey is placed in the cage, but tied to a rope so it can’t access the lettuce or lever. After the grape reward is removed, the first monkey beats up the second monkey even though it obviously had nothing to do with the removal. The anger is truly irrational.)
5. Behavioural Momentum – The tendency of players to keep doing what they have been doing.
   Example: From Jesse Schell’s DICE 2010 talk: “I have spent ten hours playing Farmville. I am a smart person and wouldn’t spend 10 hours on something unless it was useful. Therefore this must be useful, so I can keep doing it.”
6. Blissful Productivity – The idea that playing in a game makes you happier working hard, than you would be relaxing. Essentially, we’re optimised as human beings by working hard, and doing meaningful and rewarding work.
   Example: From Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk wherein she discusses how World of Warcraft players play on average 22 hours per week (a part time job), often after a full days work. They’re willing to work hard, perhaps harder than in real life, because of their blissful productivity in the game world.
7. Cascading Information Theory (also known as Progressive Disclosure on the Web) – The theory that information should be released in the minimum possible snippets to gain the appropriate level of understanding at each point during a game narrative.
   Example: Showing basic actions first, unlocking more as you progress through levels. Making building on SCVNGR a simple but staged process to avoid information overload.
8. Chain Schedules – the practice of linking a reward to a series of contingencies. Players tend to treat these as simply the individual contingencies. Unlocking one step in the contingency is often viewed as an individual reward by the player.
   Example: Kill 10 orcs to get into the dragons cave, every 30 minutes the dragon appears.
9. Communal Discovery – The game dynamic wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a riddle, a problem or a challenge. Immensely viral and very fun.
   Example: DARPA Network Challenge; a competition that explores the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilisation. The cottage industries that appear around McDonald’s monopoly to find “Boardwalk”.
10. Companion Gaming – Games that can be played across multiple platforms
    Example: Games that be played on iPhone, Facebook, XBox with completely seamless cross platform game-play.
11. Contingency – The problem that the player must overcome in the three part paradigm of reward schedules.
    Example: 10 orcs block your path
12. Countdown – The dynamic in which players are only given a certain amount of time to do something. This will create an activity graph that causes increased initial activity increasing frenetically until time runs out, which is a forced extinction.
    Example: Bejewelled Blitz with 30 seconds to get as many points as you can. Bonus rounds. Timed levels
13. Cross Situational Leader-boards – This occurs when one ranking mechanism is applied across multiple (unequal and isolated) gaming scenarios. Players often perceive that these ranking scenarios are unfair as not all players were presented with an “equal” opportunity to win.
    Example: Players are arbitrarily sent into one of three paths. The winner is determined by the top scorer overall (i.e. across the paths). Since the players can only do one path (and can’t pick), they will perceive inequity in the game scenario and get upset.
14. Disincentives – a game element that uses a penalty (or altered situation) to induce behavioural shift.
    Example: losing health points, amazon’s checkout line removing all links to tunnel the buyer to purchase, speeding traps.
15. Endless Games – Games that do not have an explicit end. Most applicable to casual games that can refresh their content or games where a static (but positive) state is a reward of its own.
    Example: Farmville (static state is its own victory), SCVNGR (challenges constantly are being built by the community to refresh content).
16. Envy – The desire to have what others have. In order for this to be effective seeing what other people have (voyeurism) must be employed.
    Example: My friend has this item and I want it!
17. Epic Meaning – players will be highly motivated if they believe they are working to achieve something great, something awe-inspiring, something bigger than themselves.
    Example: From Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk where she discusses World of Warcraft’s ongoing story line and “epic meaning” that involves each individual has motivated players to participate outside the game and create the second largest wiki in the world to help them achieve their individual quests and collectively their epic meanings.
18. Extinction – Extinction is the term used to refer to the action of stopping providing a reward. This tends to create anger in players as they feel betrayed by no longer receiving the reward they have come to expect. It generally induces negative behavioural momentum.
    Example: Killing 10 orcs no longer gets you a level up.
19. Fixed Interval Reward Schedules – Fixed interval schedules provide a reward after a fixed amount of time, say 30 minutes. This tends to create a low engagement after a reward, and then gradually increasing activity until a reward is given, followed by another lull in engagement.
    Example: Farmville, wait 30 minutes, crops have appeared.
20. Fixed Ratio Reward Schedules – A fixed ratio schedule provides rewards after a fixed number of actions. This creates cyclical nadirs of engagement (because the first action will not create any reward so incentive is low) and then bursts of activity as the reward gets closer and closer.
    Example: Kill 20 ships, get a level up, visit five locations, get a badge.
21. Free Lunch – A dynamic in which a player feels that they are getting something for free due to someone else having done work. It’s critical that work is perceived to have been done (just not by the player in question) to avoid breaching trust in the scenario. The player must feel that they’ve “lucked” into something.
    Example: Groupon. By virtue of 100 other people having bought the deal, you get it cheaply. There is no sketchiness because you recognise work has been done (100 people are spending money) but you yourself didn’t have to do it.
22. Fun Once, Fun Always – The concept that an action in enjoyable to repeat all the time. Generally this has to do with simple actions. There is often also a limitation to the total level of enjoyment of the action.
    Example: the theory behind the check-in everywhere and the check-in and the default challenges on SCVNGR.
23. Interval Reward Schedules – Interval based reward schedules provide a reward after a certain amount of time. There are two flavours: variable and fixed.
    Example: Wait n minutes, collect rent.
24. Lottery – A game dynamic in which the winner is determined solely by chance. This creates a high level of anticipation. The fairness is often suspect, however winners will generally continue to play indefinitely while losers will quickly abandon the game, despite the random nature of the distinction between the two.
    Example: Many forms of gambling, scratch tickets.
25. Loyalty – The concept of feeling a positive sustained connection to an entity leading to a feeling of partial ownership. Often reinforced with a visual representation.
    Example: Fealty in World of Warcraft, achieving status at physical places (mayorship, being on the wall of favourite customers).
26. Meta Game – a game which exists layered within another game. These generally are discovered rather than explained (lest they cause confusion) and tend to appeal to ~2% of the total game-playing audience. They are dangerous as they can induce confusion (if made too overt) but are powerful as they’re greatly satisfying to those who find them.
    Example: hidden questions / achievements within World of Warcraft that require you to do special (and hard to discover) activities as you go through other quests.
27. Micro Leader-boards – The rankings of all individuals in a micro-set. Often great for distributed game dynamics where you want many micro-competitions or desire to induce loyalty.
    Example: Be the top scorers at Joe’s bar this week and get a free appetiser.
28. Modifiers – An item that when used affects other actions. Generally modifiers are earned after having completed a series of challenges or core functions.
    Example: A x2 modifier that doubles the points on the next action you take.
29. Moral Hazard of Game Play – The risk that by rewarding people manipulatively in a game you remove the actual moral value of the action and replace it with an ersatz game-based reward. The risk that by providing too many incentives to take an action, the incentive of actually enjoying the action taken is lost. The corollary to this is that if the points or rewards are taken away, then the person loses all motivation to take the (initially fun on its own) action.
    Example: Paraphrased from Jesse Schell “If I give you points every time you brush your teeth, you’ll stop brushing your teeth because it’s good for you and then only do it for the points. If the points stop flowing, your teeth will decay.”
30. Ownership – The act of controlling something, having it be your property.
    Example: Ownership is interesting on a number of levels, from taking over places, to controlling a slot, to simply owning popularity by having a digital representation of many friends.
31. Pride – the feeling of ownership and joy at an accomplishment.
    Example: I have ten badges. I own them. They are mine. There are many like them, but these are mine. Hooray.
32. Privacy – The concept that certain information is private, not for public distribution. This can be a demotivator (I won’t take an action because I don’t want to share this) or a motivator (by sharing this I reinforce my own actions).
    Example: Scales the publish your daily weight onto Twitter (these are real and are proven positive motivator for staying on your diet). Or having your location publicly broadcast anytime you do anything (which is invasive and can should be avoided).
33. Progression – A dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemised tasks.
    Example: LinkedIn uses a progress bar to motivate you to complete your user profile, whilst Mendeley combines the progress bar with a statement suggesting what content needs to be completed: “Fill out your research profile to increase your impact in the Mendeley network and to enable your colleagues to find you.” Levelling up from Paladin level 1 to Paladin level 60.
34. Ratio Reward Schedules – Ratio schedules provide a reward after a number of actions. There are two flavours: variable and fixed.
    Example: Kill 10 orcs, get a power up.
35. Real-time vs. Delayed Mechanics – Realtime information flow is uninhibited by delay. Delayed information is only released after a certain interval.
    Example: Realtime scores cause instant reaction (gratification or demotivation). Delayed information causes ambiguity which can incentivise more action due to the lack of certainty of ranking.
36. Reinforcer – The reward given if the expected action is carried out in the three part paradigm of reward schedules.
    Example: Receiving a level up after killing 10 orcs.
37. Response – The expected action from the player in the three part paradigm of reward schedules.
    Example: the player takes the action to kill 10 orcs.
38. Reward Schedules – the time-frame and delivery mechanisms through which rewards (points, prizes, level ups) are delivered. Three main parts exist in a reward schedule; contingency, response and reinforcer.
    Example: Getting a level up for killing 10 orcs, clearing a row in Tetris, getting fresh crops in Farmville
39. Rolling Physical Goods – A physical good (one with real value) that can be won by anyone on an ongoing basis as long as they meet some characteristic. However, that characteristic rolls from player to player.
    Example: Top scorer deals, mayor deals.
40. Shell Game – a game in which the player is presented with the illusion of choice but is actually in a situation that guides them to the desired outcome of the operator.
    Example: 3 Card Monty, lotteries, gambling.
41. Social Fabric of Games – the idea that people like one another better after they’ve played games with them, have a higher level of trust and a great willingness to work together.
    Example: From Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk where she suggests that it takes a lot of trust to play a game with someone because you need them to spend their time with you, play by the same rules, shoot for the same goals.
42. Status – The rank or level of a player. Players are often motivated by trying to reach a higher level or status.
    Example: White Paladin level 20 in World of Warcraft.
43. Urgent Optimism – Extreme self motivation. The desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle combined with the belief that we have a reasonable hope of success.
    Example: From Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk. The idea that in proper games an “epic win” or just “win” is possible and therefore always worth acting for.
44. Variable Interval Reward Schedules – Variable interval reward schedules provide a reward after a roughly consistent amount of time. This tends to create a reasonably high level of activity over time, as the player could receive a reward at any time but never the burst as created under a fixed schedule. This system is also more immune to the nadir right after the receiving of a reward, but also lacks the zenith of activity before a reward in unlocked due to high levels of ambiguity.
    Example: Wait roughly 30 minutes, a new weapon appears. Check back as often as you want but that won’t speed it up. Generally players are bad at realising that.
45. Variable Ratio Reward Schedules – A variable ratio reward schedule provides rewards after a roughly consistent but unknown amount of actions. This creates a relatively high consistent rate of activity (as there could always be a reward after the next action) with a slight increase as the expected reward threshold is reached, but never the huge burst of a fixed ratio schedule. It’s also more immune to nadirs in engagement after a reward is achieved.
    Example: Kill 20 ships, get a level up. Visit a couple locations (roughly five) get a badge
46. Viral Game Mechanics – A game element that requires multiple people to play (or that can be played better with multiple people).
    Example: Farmville making you more successful in the game if you invite your friends, the social check-in.
47. Virtual Items – Digital prizes, rewards, objects found or taken within the course of a game. Often these can be traded or given away.
    Example: Gowalla’s items, Facebook gifts, badges.

You can read more about “Gamification” on the Gamification Wiki or on the Wikipedia Gamification page.

To provide the best possible experience on each platform, don’t deliver an iPhone experience to a BlackBerry or Android user. Every platform has its own UI and usability guidelines that every user is expecting from your application. For example, the popular Twitter application TweetDeck has a different user interface and therefore user experience between its iPhone and Android versions, albeit the TweetDeck team aims to provide a similar user experience on both devices. The same can be said between mobile an tablet devices with Reeder and Pulse prime examples on iOS devices.

Apple (iOS)

• iOS Human Interface Guidelines or the PDF version (PDF 12.9MB, pp. 150)

BlackBerry

• UI Guidelines for BlackBerry 6.0 Smartphones or the PDF version (PDF 9.2MB, pp. 109)
• UI Guidelines for BlackBerry 4.x, 5.x Smartphones or the PDF version (PDF 7.4MB, pp. 89)
• BlackBerry Browser Content Design Guidelines (PDF 356KB, pp. 29)

Google (Android)

• Android User Interface Guidelines
• Motorola’s Best Practices for Android UI

Microsoft (Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7)

• UI Guidelines for Windows Mobile
• Windows Touch UI Guideline
• UI Design & Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 version 2.0 (PDF 11.9MB, pp. 101)

Nokia (Symbian)

• Nokia Design & User Experience Library
• Symbian^3 UI Style Guidelines (PDF 4.5MB, pp. 105)
• Forum Nokia Design Portal
• Symbian UI Wiki
• Nokia Series 40 UI Style Guide
• Hildon UI Guidelines for Nokia Maemo

Palm/Hewlett Packard (webOS)

• webOS UI Guidelines

Sony Ericsson

• Sony Ericsson UI Rulebook

Others

• Bada Application UI Guide
• MeeGo UI Design Guidelines

If you know of any other examples of UI guidelines for mobile or tablet devices or have any general thoughts, please feel free to add them to the comments.

In January 2010, Apple announced to great fanfare that they had recently sold their 3 billionth iPhone application. Of course not all these applications are paid-for, but with a 30% levy taken on each and every paid-for application, Apple are taking a significant share of the revenue from the application pie. However, as a distribution channel, the AppStore is second to none, whilst the iPhone uptake is staggering, with a majority share of the smartphone market in many regions of the world. There is a significant opportunity for any developer to make a huge return on investment, assuming the idea is a winning one.

iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Nokia and now the larger form factor iPad and Kindle support the idea of applications, or will do in the near future. So what do you need to do to design and build your first application?

1. Familiarise yourself with the rules
   Whether you’re going to build applications for the iPhone OS, Android OS or any other of the mobile platforms, you will need to familiarise yourself with how each operating system does things. Smartphone development is different from the development we are accustomed with on the Web. Reading the user interface guidelines for each platform will go a long way to developing your first application. Smartphones are personal devices and know where you are almost all the time through GPS. They have rotation detectors, compasses and multitouch screens with gestural interfaces. Only once you know what is possible with each smartphone platform can you begin to design your application.
2. Brainstorm the issues
   This is the creative part of your application development process. You have a basic idea, but you need to take it forward into something that has features and benefits. Will the application be paid-for or free? Will it provide a service or be a marketing channel? Will it be standalone or link closely with other online presences and networks? Smartphone applications, unlike ordinary websites, invariably need to actually do something. There is an element of artificial intelligence at play, whereby the phone can actually know where it is in the world and it’s orientation, whilst the user interface is remarkably different from that of simply a mouse and keyboard. Smartphone applications can’t simply be flat catalogues, they need to do something and do it well. Whether this is booking and accessing a car as with StreetCar, buying something from eBay, paying with PayPal, creating music with RjDj, drawing pictures with Brushes, price comparison with RedLaser, reading the latest news from the Guardian, video casting with Qik or planning your journey with Tube Deluxe your app needs to be compelling.
3. Create a prototype
   You have your compelling idea; create a proof-of-concept prototype. This prototype is used to test some or many aspects of the intended design without attempting to exactly simulate the visual appearance, content or intended interactions. Such prototypes can be used to “prove” out a potential design approach such as range of motion, mechanics, sensors, architecture, etc. Making paper prototypes, for example, is a great way to test the application rather than creating low or high fidelity wireframes and hoping for the best. Doing this also provides a perfect opportunity for people around you — friends, colleagues and family members — to try out the prototype with little fuss. Only once you’re happy with the design should you begin any form of coding.
4. Submit early
   You have your application working. You have conducted a number of usability tests and all is looking great. It’s time to submit it to the appropriate application store. Apple has its AppStore, Android its Market Place, Nokia its Ovi Store and so on. Each store has its own nuiances, but if you’re considering an iPhone application, Apple has been know to drag its feet when approving applications for release. Apple has a much discussed approval process, with the possibility of rejection commonplace. Don’t make plans that depend on Apple. It is better to silently release the application, rather than creating a huge fanfare.
5. Iterate often
   Once your application has been launched your work is nowhere near over, indeed it has just begun! As you gain more and more users, improvements will suggest themselves not only from within your team, but more often, from your users. Here is where you go back to stage two and start brainstorming again. Version 2 may include bug fixes, but also major feature updates. For the latter, your brainstorming will decide what is most important for the next iteration. When your next iteration is complete, the AppStore, for example, makes upgrades far easier to achieve than for normal desktop software.

If you’re planning an application that could disrupt one of the smartphones capabilities, such as Google Voice for the iPhone, it may be worth considering whether building an application specifically for that particular operating system is worthwhile. Google Voice was neither approved nor rejected by Apple for the iPhone, but has now been replaced by a fully featured HTML5 web-based application; circumventing the Apple approval process. Of course this now means that the same web-based application can be used for not just the iPhone, but other smartphones.

Now go forth and build it!

Resources

Smartphone User Interface Guidelines:

• Apple iPhone Human Interface Guidelines (HIG)
• Apple iPhone Application Programming Guide
• Android User Interface Guidelines
• Android Human Interface Guidelines (adapted from Apple)
• Nokia User Interface Style and Visual Guidelines
• Palm User Interface Guidelines
• RIM Blackberry User Interface Guidelines

Application Development Frameworks:

• PhoneGap an open source development tool for building iPhone, Android, Blackberry and other mobile apps with JavaScript
• Appcelerator a mobile development platform for javascript developers

Mobile Web Application Frameworks:

• jQTouch a jQuery plugin for mobile development
• iUI an iPhone/iPod Touch user interface framework

Other:

• Wikipedia article on Mobile Development

But what makes up a web community; what makes them successful? Below I discuss the four C’s of community: Content, Context, Connectivity and Community.

Content

A current meme when organising or building a website is the catchphrase Content is King. A big shift in the web in recent years has been the way websites are constructed. Today it’s a necessity, and indeed best practice, to separate form from content. In one hand you have the compelling content, whilst in the other you have the presentation, be it in the form of HTML and CSS, Flash or RSS, amongst others.

Quality content is one way in which you can make your website stand out. It is also a great way to attract the people who are needed to form the elusive community that your brand is hoping build. When considering community initiatives, there are three questions to ask: Where will the content come from; for example community driven or syndication? Does it provide indisputable value; does it have a unique selling point (USP)? Can a regular flow of quality content be maintained? Even pre-Web 2.0 initiatives have to focus on keeping the content itself fresh and relevant.

Web accessibility and search engine optimisation are also vital, so having content completely separated from presentation means a number of assistive technologies can make better use of the content, whilst the web robots can also readily consume the information.

Context

Context means understanding how people use your website, where they are in the user-journey and serving them the right experience at the right time. Well-designed applications and functionality have great opportunities to deliver on context.

For example, FriendFeed‘s iPhone version, which is simply a re-worked web interface, is perfectly designed for contextual usage on the go. Similarly, Remember The Milk updates the interface explicitly for mobile and iPhone users, whilst also syndicating the content to applications such as Google Calendar. (It is questionable whether user-agent switching is good practice, but that is a whole new blog post.) Conversely, Delicious makes no attempt at changing the user interface for iPhone or Nokia N95 users since the iPhone and N95 have full web-capabilities through their respective web browsers.

In some instances the context in which the content is displayed will require reduced functionality. For example, the Last.fm mobile site does not allow you to play music, but simply search music listings, view recommendations, events and friend listings, and edit settings. However, through its API, Last.fm is able to offer its data and platform to third party developers to aid the building of new applications and communities, thus changing its context.

Connectivity

Connectivity is the ability of a system, whether that is a web-based community or a device like the iPhone, to connect with little or no modification. In the realm of communities, the ability to easily connect to your peers is the Holy Grail of the application.

Successful communities thrive on fluid, hard-to-measure activities that are, in the purest sense, relationship-based. It’s not all about mass communications — although Twitter and YouTube are both bucking this trend — but more about the micro-interactions. Designing experiences that support thousands of micro-interactions means that the community is able to function, unhindered, almost indefinitely. Facebook lends itself expertly to micro-interactions through the user’s ‘wall’.

Companies are turning to communities as the new customer relationship management (CRM), but this requires people to mind them. Organisations such as 37Signals and WildBit very effectively use Twitter to broadcast service updates and sometimes apologies, whilst the BBC and The Guardian online use it to broadcast links to new content.

Continuity

People often don’t like change, but communities that thrive often do so though evolution to meet the needs of users. Communities need to be flexible to evolve while still providing a valuable and consistent user experience which can be sustained. Too much of a radical change will almost certainly have a detrimental impact upon visits, at least initially.

Building communities is the new marketing for a brand, whether that is through wholely-owned properties or 3rd party social media services such as Twitter, WordPress or Ning. The starting point to any community is finding a niche that is currently underserved and serving that community better than anyone else. But Brands need to know a few things before they head down the community path. The web is saturated with communities. Some are thriving, while others have come and gone. Creating a community is not like your average marketing campaign that you can ditch it is a failure. If the community is successful the four C’s of content, contect, connectivity and continuity will have to be maintained and indeed, developed.

QR-Kill Rules

1. A QR-code with your name and phone (SMS format) will be printed in a 20cm minimum width sheet of white paper. It will be reinforced by a hard cardboard and stuck to the back using american tape.
2. The QR-code must be visible at all times. It cannot be covered by any means, wall, floor, etc.
3. Once you receive the deathly SMS you must leave the scenario right away.
4. When team playing, members can only communicate by using same phone they use as a weapon.
5. Disguising is allowed as along as the QR-code is visible.
6. Unless playing sniper mode no extra devices can be used to capture the QR-codes (e.g. zoom photo cameras, videocams, etc.)
7. If there is a conflict deciding who killed first, SMS time will decide (we recommend synchronising watches before the game starts)
8. No one can assist you to kill the enemy with your phone. However you can hire spies, etc.

You can create QR-codes on Kaywa’s website.

Barcamp Brighton was a great event, attended by some of the web-gliterati: Jeremy Keith, Aral Balkan, Tantek Celik, Jerome Ribot and Mark Wudden to name but five I was lucky to converse with. That’s not to say the other attendees were any less significant. It was everyone who made the event great.

As you may have observed from the title of this post, I presented a talk, along with my good friend Rob Douglas, titled Talking QR.app.

The presentation can be viewed below, or via the SlideRocket website.

I have also bookmarked a number of QR-code links on Delicious.

But there was something missing in my toolset; a WordPress app. Typepad have long since had one, so it was about time my favourite blog platform upped the ante!

Well, I’m glad to say, as of today an app has finally reached the Apple App Store that allows me to write posts: thank you Automattic.

In fact, just for good measure, this blog post has been written from the app.

The interface is intuitive and easy to use, although it does lack admin features, which for some may be a concern.

I’m sure I’ll get RSI if I continually blog via my iPhone, but for those moments when I’m caught away from a computer and desparately want to offer my 10 pence worth to the blogosphere, it’s a good tool to have.

So what is the big deal? The Adobe marketing team state that:

The Adobe AIR runtime lets developers use proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications that deploy to the desktop and run across operating systems. Adobe AIR offers an exciting new way to engage customers with innovative, branded desktop applications, without requiring changes to existing technology, people, or processes.

What AIR applications should you check out?

What is intriguing is that all the tools I have chosen are generally useful tools for the developer or designer, with the exception of twhirl, which is a social-interaction tool. I’m looking forward to when other, less developer-centric tools become freely available. AgileAgenda has taken the lead with this respect, albeit not freely available, as has eBay desktop, but I would like to see examples from the BBC in the form of a desktop BBC iPlayer or maybe a Flickr image browser, del.icio.us bookmark reader, RSS aggregator and a Picnik image editor.

Analytics Reporting Suite

The Analytics Reporting Suite, by Nicolas Lierman, brings Google Analytics to the desktop. It uses it’s own custom API to interact with Google and nearly implements all the features of Analytics.

For website owners this is a must-have application. Like the twhirl AIR application below, it is a fantastic example of what can be achieved with Flex and AIR. Measuring visitor trends and traffic are essential tasks to managing and improving a websites performance. The Analytics Reporting Suite allows you to configure multiple Google’s Analytics accounts and access the web-based suite’s plethora of features via a desktop application. The application displays integrated graphs and animations via a tabbed interface, which allows you switch between a number of reports. These reports can then be saved as a PDF, Excel or XMLdocument, or printed.

You can download and install the application from the About Nico website.

twhirl twitter Client

twhirl, by Marco Kaiser, is probably the most popular desktop client for the twitter micro-blogging service. Most of the features available on the twitter website are accessible through twhirl, plus, a lot of usability enhancements have been added to make it easier to manage multiple accounts. This is great for those who want to separate business and personal accounts they may have.

The twhirl application is a great example of how AIR can bring web applications to the desktop; it can dock to the system tray, display message alerts and you can configure the applications opacity when not focused (great if you like Mac and Vista-styled themes). The application allows you to search twitter users, view their timelines, add friends, view followers, delete tweets and much much more. Twhirl automatically fetches your friends’ status updates, direct messages and replies, whilst also colour coding different types of messages and alerting you to messages both audibly and visually.

The twhirl application is skinnable and comes with several built in skins with which you can customise the application. All-in-all twhirl is not only one of the best twitter clients, but AIR applications.

You can download and install the application from the twhirl website.

Kuler Desktop

Adobe kuler is the first web-hosted application from Adobe Labs designed both to stand alone and to complement Adobe Creative Suite software. Built using Adobe Flash and ActionScript 3.0, kuler is all about colour: colour for exploration, inspiration, experimentation and sharing. Kuler is clearly targeted at the designer, but anyone interested in colour will benefit from its use.

You can download and install the application from the Adobe Labs website.

WebKut

WebKut is a web screenshot tool that allows you to capture web pages, or parts of them in a very simple way. It provides you with 3 capture options: the entire page, the current view, or only a selection. This little application proves particularly handy for those presentations or projects that need great visuals from the web.

You can download and install the application from the WebKut website.

RichFLV

RichFLV, by Benjamin Dobler, lets you edit FLV files. The key features include reading FLV metadata, read and edit cuepoints, cut FLV files, convert the sound from an FLV to MP3 format, convert an FLV to an SWF … and much more.

You can download and install the application from the Adobe AIR Marketplace website.

SearchCoders Dashboard

This Flex-based chat widget is designed with programmers in mind. The code input feature allows developers to chat about code without disrupting the conversation.

You can download and install the application from the SearchCoders website.

Pownce

Much like twhirl in look, feel and ease-of-use, but with a slant towards productivity rather than micro-blogging, Pownce is a way to keep in touch and share things with your friends or colleagues. You can send people files, links, events, and messages and then have real conversations with the recipients. This is a great collaboration tool and was one of the first services to really embrace AIR as an application architecture, which could realise their service as a desktop client. Everything that is available via the Pownce website is also available via the client application, except and possibly importantly, the ability for the user to amend their account settings and add friends to your network; this still has to be done via the website.

For a small annual amount, Pownce offers a paid-for service which will eliminate adverts from your profile and allow you to send huge file sizes (100MB) and customise the theme of your Pownce.

Pownce also offers Drupal integration and a mobile application, which works with the iPhone, BlackBerries and many more ‘internet-ready’ mobile devices.

You can download and install the application from the Pownce website.