Maybe you heard already, about half the activity on the social web involves game playing or other forms of entertainment. No matter what kind of device is used to access the web, it’s clear being social is more about fun than it is about business. That being said, why haven’t more businesses caught on to what the audience is into? A new startup called Play2Shop may help change all that.
The concept of offering prizes for gaming is not a new one. Anybody out there who had Yahoo! loaded on their first PC probably ended up in a game of backgammon or chess with a distance partner at one time or other. Points to trade for this and that, the lure of the “win” hook, all that has been done and overdone. Today though, the social web is a far more sophisticated marketing channel, one tuned to just the sort of innovative dashboard the developers of Play2Shop have come up with. The service is a one-stop have fun and shop too solution for the pain of wasted time.
Face it, if you are doing to click your life away boinking bubbles and outrunning monsters, you may as well get something for it. With Play2Shop, unlike game experiences such as Zynga, the rewards are solid exchanges rather than fake currency. Users can even bid in auctions for prizes like iPads and Kindles etc. Tournaments and other engaging activities make the whole experience a lot more social too.
If there is a down side to this kind of platform it’s the linkage to old cash back methodology for me. Of course getting 10% off purchases and other incentive based hooks is a bit of a “have to” for any service linked to either wholesale or retail. Play2Shop is set up a bit like Ebates so that members earn cash back from shopping online, even as much as 70% from some merchants. But P2S differs in that members get 10 reward points for every dollar they spend. The paid VIP members, bottom line, earn more and save more while they play games.
So, if you’re going to play all day and night you may as well optimize your time right? At least this is what the developers at Play2Shop or any such service are betting you'll rationalize. If you love playing games, are online an inordinate amount of time doing it, and like shopping at places from Neiman Marcus to Canon, then it makes sense to get addicted to Duckmageddon (see my screen). I sure did. Ducks beware!
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