Play it Forward with Akoha

September 12, 2008 · Comments

austin hill and seth godin Fresh off the stage from TechCrunch50, Austin Hill from Akoha has released us all from our frieNDA requirements. You’ll recall that I hinted about this a few weeks back. Well now, I guess I can talk.

Imagine a real world game (played in the open world, not your computer) where the prime goal is to do good things for others. Now, imagine that the game doesn’t stop when you perform your good deed, because in handing over the card that started the mission to the person you’ve helped, you encourage them to “play it forward” to do something good for someone else. That’s the game in a nutshell, at this stage.

Essentially: do good things for other people, share, play it forward, and earn great karma points for doing it. Make sense?

missions There’s an online component to the game that will show you where the cards have gone. When I told Seth Godin about it last Monday, he said, “like the dollar bill game, Where’s George?” Yes, that seems like a reasonable comparison the way I understand it.

Akoha has lots of ideas for how the game will work over time, and how it might be expanded. It’s all very participatory. There are lots of ways that you will have an opportunity to impact and change and shape the course of this game.

But for now, look how simple it is. Go do something helpful. Be a good person. Share something. Play it forward. Easy, right?

Check out Akoha.com, but also, if you see me at a conference in the coming weeks, like the New Marketing Summit, ask me about the game. I might just have your deck of Akoha cards with me, waiting to hand them out and get you into the game.

Photo credit, Austin Hill, used without permission.

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  • Cool! Would love to see a kid's version, too.
  • Now it all makes sense why you had a deck of cards when I saw ya the other day! :-) I love when things eventually make sense! Every time I saw the deck come out I ended up only catching a snippet of the convo.

    Sounds like an interesting concept. Now, time to sign up for another account...I think this is becoming a hobby of how many accounts I can have/try to manage ;-)

    Don't forget to bring my deck to Vegas!
  • I signed up for the beta request, and I agree with Ann. A version for kids (I could even see this as something that's done in schools) would be great.
    This could fall along the line of "games" like Geocaching, too, even.
  • Very cool. I am on a mission now to track you down at Blog World to get a card. Save a good one for me. I am excited to play. Thanks for the update!
  • Hi Chris,

    Thanks for the great post & your help in making Akoha come to life. As you point out we have a lot to do to make sure we can greet our community properly and evolve the game, but I'm incredible proud of the start our team has made.

    @Ann, we are thinking of the opportunities for kids missions & and segregated section of the community that would have the proper protections to allow kids to play safely with other kids away from the missions & adults. Would love to hear any ideas you have on this.

    @Robert, Geocaching was one of our inspirations for Akoha. We have an iPhone application coming soon that enables geo-located play which will give birth to special missions that can only be played in certain geographic locations. If you'd like to Direct Message us on Twitter http://twitter.com/akoha I can see what I can do to speed up your invite to the beta.
  • I signed up for the beta too. I would like to see Akoha Mama version developed. I'm looking forward to learning more.
  • Ha! Just saw a TV ad (United Methodist Church, I believe), where people delivered wrapped gifts to various people (random, homeless, elderly, children, etc), and I immediately thought about Akoha again.

    @Austin I'm already following Akoha on Twitter :)
  • hi Chris, nice find. This could be lotsa fun and very cool in so many ways. I just signed up for the beta.

    If anyone wants to send me chocolate or industrial strength coffee you can reach me at... just kidding! ;-) Have a great weekend!
  • This appeals to my inner spirit - the game promotes goodwill, paying it forward, doing kind things for other people and in all good fun. The idea of finding out how many people the card you just got passed through is fascinating.

    If you got a coffee card and learned it passed from China to London to Flordia to Ohio or something like that, wouldn't that be interesting? I would think so.

    It's a great idea! I wish I had thought of that - oh well.
  • Ana
    Thank you for posting about this Chris! I too signed up for the beta notice and hope I can get an invite (or card?) so I can cover it over at my place. This is something that needs to be spread in a major way.
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