Achievement systems have become hugely popular in gaming over the last few years. I sort of understood from a distance why this was so, but the concept didn’t really seem that compelling to me. Then one day the game I play the most got its own set of achievements, and suddenly I was up until 2am trying to hug a certain number of ducks or whatever just for that split second of lights and happy music. They are, indeed, addictive.

So what about achievements in real life? I was looking over Diddit, a relatively new site that wants you to keep track of things you do in your life, and was reminded of the achievement model. Diddit doesn’t take it far enough, but it kind of has the right idea. You can set up lists of things you’d like to do with your life, and when you tick them off you can publish your life achievement to Twitter or other broadcasting media.

Here’s what I think a site would have to do: gather a panel of experts from 10 or so core life areas (stuff like health, travel, family), and have them come up with a whole whack of achievements. Users could add their own , but I think most people enjoy doing things that have been preset for them by an “authority”. Assign a points system to them, and a good search/comparison engine. Integrate achievement announcements with as many different services as you can muster. Give it quirky homespun graphics and a stupid name that ends in an ‘r’. Profit!

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Looking at my site logs, two Google search referrals stand out:

a) “hate macrame owls” – Me too, anonymous Googlenaut! In the meantime, let us make faces at this collection of macrame tables and chairs.

b) “how to be less self-centered” – Oh wow, dude. Did you ever get sent to the wrong site.

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