Tech Moves: Joanna Lord named CMO at BigDoor; Brian Arbogast joins the Gates Foundation; and more

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—Online marketing whiz Joanna Lord has left her VP job at SEOmoz to become chief marketing officer at BigDoor, the Seattle gamification startup. In her new role Lord will oversee branding, content, community and other functions for the Seattle-based company. Keith Smith-led BigDoor raised $5 million last year, bringing total funding to $13 million. “The first… Read More…

Seattle startup BigDoor powering NFL.com rewards

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With the NFL regular season fast approaching, the football league this week announced its first-ever NFL Fan Rewards. The program gives regular users of NFL.com virtual coins in exchange for reading articles, commenting and taking part in other activities on the site. The coins can be redeemed for a variety of items, including NFLShop.com discounts,… Read More…

BigDoor rival Badgeville scores $25M for ‘gamification’ platform

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Fast-growing Badgeville has reeled in $25 million in fresh funding, money that the 20-month-old Menlo Park, California startup will use to expand its gamification platform. Badgeville, which competes against Seattle’s BigDoor, said that its revenues grew by 300 percent year-over-year as it added customers such as Oracle, Dell, Samsung and NBC. Total financing now stands… Read More…

BigDoor closes $5M, touts new ‘gamified rewards program’

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There’s so much content clutter on the Web these days that it can be tough for online publishers to keep their readers or viewers engaged, coming back each day for more. BigDoor, the Seattle upstart led by Keith Smith, Matt Shobe and Jeff Malek, believes it has the solution to that problem. And the 29-person… Read More…

Tech Moves: Spoonemore named CEO of Dwellable; BigDoor adds staff, etc.

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Brenda Spoonemore, a former digital media executive at the NBA and a veteran of Starwave, has taken over the CEO duties at Seattle online vacation rental startup Dwellable.  Spoonemore most recently led Atomic Moguls, a Seattle startup focused on fantasy sports games. She stepped down from day-to-day duties at Atomic Moguls after her second son… Read More…

Geek of the Week: Matt Shobe, BigDoor chief design officer

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Our latest Geek of the Week, Matt Shobe, is in charge of design for BigDoor, a Seattle-based company bringing the mechanics of video games to a variety of sites and online services. But his geek credentials go much further, from his passion for flying to his appreciation for good old-fashioned Windows keyboard shortcuts. Continue reading… Read More…

Seattle gamification startup BigDoor buys OneTrueFan

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BigDoor believes it has the keys to success to increase engagement on Web sites. And today the fast-growing Seattle startup — led by technology veterans Keith Smith and Jeff Malek — is taking a step to accelerate those efforts. BigDoor has acquired OneTrueFan, a San Francisco-based startup which has developed a Web site widget that… Read More…

Rewind: Keith Smith, BigDoor CEO, on the economics and future of gamification

Keith Smith in the KIRO studios (Erynn Rose photo)

Our guest this past week on the GeekWire Podcast was Keith Smith, CEO of BigDoor, a Seattle company bringing the principles of video games to the world of online publishing, with badges, leaderboards and other rewards for users of traditional websites. He talked about the company’s new deal with Major League Baseball, the underlying economies of… Read More…

BigDoor ‘gamifies’ America’s pastime, strikes deal with MLB

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Baseball already has pennants. Now, it is getting badges too — at least of the digital variety. Seattle startup BigDoor and MLB Advanced Media — the interactive arm of Major League Baseball — today announced that visitors to MLB.com can earn and collect player badges as part of an online rewards program powered by BigDoor…. Read More…

Day 2: Amazon Web Services cites progress on cloud glitches, not everyone seeing it

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As some sites continue to show signs of Amazon.com’s cloud computing glitches, the company updated its public Amazon Web Services Health Dashboard a short time ago to say that it’s “starting to see more meaningful progress in restoring volumes” in the area of its Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) service that has been suffering problems since… Read More…

CPMs or CPCs? Nope, BigDoor has its eye on the CPQ: Cost Per Quest

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You may have heard of CPMs or CPCs. But Seattle startup BigDoor wants to start a movement around another online advertising acronym. It’s called the CPQ or Cost Per Quest. Say what? Keith Smith, who founded BigDoor in 2009, unveiled the program today and he thinks it will redefine how online media companies interact with… Read More…

Feedburner co-founder joins BigDoor

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Feedburner co-founder Matt Shobe has joined BigDoor, a Seattle startup that helps online publishers engage with readers and viewers by establishing leaderboards, badges and other game-oriented services. Shobe, who most recently worked as a user experience designer in Google’s Seattle office, is serving as the company’s new chief design officer. You may recall that Google… Read More…