Gobbledygook for the Empire Avenue robots: {EAV_BLOG_VER:cca0b081a4b11fd5}
Nearly a year after its beta launch and after receiving dozens of invitations, I finally gave in and joined Empire Avenue. That’s right, you can now track my sticker symbol and buy and sell shares of my stock to your heart’s content.
As I write this sentence, I joined 3 hours ago and have 66 shareholders — who helped raise the price to 26 eaves (the name of the game’s currency).
See, Empire Avenue is essentially a game and that is predominantly why I kept saying no every time a new invitation arrived. When people said they were addicted to the virtual online stock exchange called Empire Avenue, they may as well have been referring to Farmville. I didn’t understand the rationale to buying and selling “stock” in friends and websites. Was there a point beyond the aspect of fun?
I now realize the site is more than a game.
Gamification comes into play
When Jane introduces herself to you and thinks you two may want to explore a business relationship, and furthermore mentions John’s name as the mutual acquaintance who told her about you, you can thank social proof. John thinks you are influential enough to warrant Jane approaching you, and when she does so, she does so because of social proof.
Perceived differently, every time you click a social sharing button, such as those above and below this blog article, you are telling the people who read your shares that you believe the content author is influential. When someone in your network then approaches the author or further shares it, that’s social proof.
Empire Avenue preaches gamification every time you invest in a stock because that action is (by default) shared with your networks and connections who view the transaction. And because of reciprocal back scratching, you will invest in anyone with the presumption they will invest in you in return. Empire Avenue is fun and can be addictive but that’s because it’s powered by the game mechanics of social proof. Influence.
Adriel Hampton (who sent me many of those invitations over the past year) reflects and muses how it’s an influential location to learn social media metrics. He’s cultivated business relationships and secured work assignments as the direct result of transactions on Empire Avenue.
So there you have it.
Empire Avenue now joins Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking spokes and sparks more people to visit my business website. They (and you) can learn how I help the nonprofit and public sectors with social media marketing and editorial services.
Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing, and investing — in ariherzog, and you can see the latest trading data in the box below.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
July 3, 2011 at 1:01 AM
FYI – here is where you can find the ticker to display on your blog/website.
http://apidocs.empireavenue.com/badge
Thanks! I since figured that out.
July 3, 2011 at 4:36 AM
Welcome to Empire Avenue Ari! Adriel is an amazing resource for the site, social media, politics and business. You are in good hands and hope to see you gain something useful by being a part of the community.
This was the first time I’ve heard of this stuff and I think this is cool. It’s like playing in the stock market without investing all your money.
July 3, 2011 at 1:43 PM
Ok, you’ve convinced me to go and have a look at it. First time that I’m hearing about it
July 3, 2011 at 4:12 PM
I signed up, connected all my accounts, and bought stock of a few people I know. I also received about 5 notifications of people buying my stock and sending shoutouts, I know none of them
I aim to please!
July 3, 2011 at 2:55 PM
Ari, I signed up and it was all going well until the Facebook Fan Page connect, when I read that Empire could “Manage my pages -Empire Avenue may login as one of my Pages”
So, I disallowed that particular thing for http://facebook.com/Quillcards
Did you allow it on your Fan page?
It will never post to your profile as it will never tweet for you. It’s more of a social sharing authentication, so yes I allowed it.
Hi Ari…I really thank you for posting this blog because it helps a lot…Great job Ari!!!
I used to play Empire Avenue but I got really caught up in it and spent too much time playing. Now I completely stoped but I spend almost as much time on my computer doing God knows what!
July 5, 2011 at 12:16 AM
Haha, this my first time hearing about Empire Avenue. Looks kinda fun but I really don’t want it to interfere with my internet marketing especially since I’m REALLY new to the whole thing. Gave up video games, for the time being at least.
Ive never heard of Empire Avenue before, it looks like a really crediditable program though. Im looking forward to getting more involved with it over the coming weeks .
Thanks alot Ari, i always enjoy visiting your site.
I’ve also never heard of Empire Avenue so this post is an amazing discovery for me
Not much of a gamer but this one sounds a bit interesting if its about stock exchange. Thanks for sharing Ari, I’ll look forward to learn more about this game.
Well that sounds interesting! I had not heard about ‘Empire Avenue’ until today Ari, but I sure am interested now
I still don’t 100% understand it – is any real money exchanged, or is it just social media ‘points’?
Off to do some research now
July 13, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Hi Ari,
Thanks for the post, I’ll be interested to see how you find it a few weeks down the line.
I wrote a blog about it a few weeks ago, and a large group of the FreshNetworks team joined to get involved. I feel like there is a potential to “burn out” after a while though, as it does demand a bit more time and attention, for not such a clear benefit.
I like the concept and think it is fun, but really echo Mathilde@kidioui’s comment. I’d love to hear how other people are finding it after the initial “novelty” wears out.
http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2011/05/empire-avenue-social-capital-and-the-value-for-brands/
July 17, 2011 at 7:31 PM
I’ve been on since May and it has really come to consume a lot of my time. If you are active in the communities (on Empire Avenue & Facebook), it can take time away from actually creating content in blogs or on Twitter. Or your day job! Plus, it helps if you are reciprocal and buy people who have invested in you but they don’t always make the most money so you have to be constantly looking for new avenues to earn eaves in order to keep your dividends up or people will dump your stock.
It helps if you don’t take it too seriously but it’s hard not to when your name/identity is attached to a number. Everyone wants to increase in value, in that way, it appeals to ones pride and ego as well as self-image. I’ve seen people delete their account rather than see their stock decrease in value because they can’t invest the amount of necessary time in “the game.”