“Despite the sudden popularity and misuse of the term by anyone who wants to sound cool (hint: it doesn’t mean “fun”), there is a specific meaning and powerful industry around gamification.”

via Is Gamification Just a Fad?.

Both news sites and businesses have been looking for ways to incorporate gamification into their social media strategies – and I love this article’s definition of the (increasingly popular) term: “systems and processes that engage and motivate.”

The article notes that Generation Y may even require gamification in their work experiences – would you like to be part of an office where you can compete, level up and earn badges?

I have never been a cyclist. In fact, barring a brief stint while in Paris last year, I haven’t been on a bike since a bad fall when I was 16 left some pretty gnarly scars on my knees. Plus, by that point, I had my licence and figured four wheels always trumped two – unless they were motorized (I still have a soft spot for motorcycles.)

“The average visitor to the social network spent 6 minutes 47 seconds on Google+s site in March vs. 6 hours, 44 minutes on Facebook.com according to figures Nielsen supplied to Mashable.”

via Report: Google+ Visitors Spent an Average of About 7 Minutes on the Site in March.

I always find it strange to break down my days into time spent: 1 hour spent running. 45 minutes getting ready for work. 1 hour, 10 minutes riding my bike to and from the office. 8.5 hours at the office. 35 minutes making dinner. My days always feel so widely varied and full, but when I divide it  into chunks of time, well, it looks pretty homogeneous. And then I wonder, couldn’t I bike just a little faster? Or spend a few minutes less doing my hair?

But these new figures from Neilsen have me wondering just how much time I’m burning on my social networks. Nearly seven hours a month on Facebook sounds like a lot – but when I add up all those little moments spent checking alerts or flitting through the newsfeed in the doctor’s office, it probably comes pretty close. And don’t even get me started on Twitter, which could be easily double that, and Instagram, which remains a heavy commitment. And Pinterest, while I only log on a few times a week, can turn into a real session of pinning and recipe research! Thinking about my network use does, however, make me feel a little bad for poor G+ – I probably spend more time filling the kettle each day than the average user spends on Google’s social network each month.

Which social network do you spend the most time using?