Gaming American Idol: Sanjaya

Ratings, reputation, recommendations, etc. all have problems when it comes to trying to discover the most accurate/helpful/interesting/compelling content. One of the biggest problems is "gaming" which means working to produce results that diverge from the results the system was designed to produce.

Well, it appears that some are on a mission to game American Idol and actually try to enable one of the lesser-talented performers to, as the BBC reports win the whole thing. Enter: Sunjaya.

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43 Things Neighborhood Watch: Member Voting to Manage Spam

Since its roll out in December of 2004, 43 Things has won a webby, experienced steady growth and most importantly, formed a very engaged and interactive community of users who volunteer to help garden the community. Though it keeps a low profile, 43 Things is a community success story - they're approaching their millionth member and "thing".

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Alternate Reality Gaming

Last night over dinner with Brian Hsi, a fellow online community geek, I was introduced to the concept of Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG). Brian gave me a run down and reminded me that the ILoveBees.com web site to support Halo 2 was an ARG.

Recently, Audi USA created a new ARG around the idea of a missing Audi A3. (more info here) When I first saw the ad weeks ago, I was clueless.

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