As the authors say the checklist develops from the four properties defining social usability:

1. Relations: How easy is it to find other people and connect to them? How easy is it to keep those connections active? How relevant are those connections?
2. Identity: How rich is one’s personal identity expression? How much are interests and passions expressed? How much are personal distinctive traits show? How much is privacy management detailed?
3. Communication: How fast can a message reach the other person? How many messages can one handle efficiently? How easy is it to handle conversations (1-to-1, 1-to-some, 1-to-many)?
4. Emergence of Groups: How easy is it to create groups, aggregate and talk around a common interest? How active are groups once established? How long do they last? How much is important to be part of a group?

A few key properties expand on each of the four topics and are associated with a question. The list can thus be used both while developing and while evaluating a service, in the first case trying to give a positive answer for each question in the context of the system being developed, in the latter case using the checklist as a trace to guide the analysis.

It should be noticed that the checklist stems from a larger work by Davide Casale and Gianandrea Giacoma on motivational design that deserves to be known by those working on social systems (and who isn’t today?)

I’m still working a lot with apps built on rails 2.x (and even one still on the venerable rails 1.2.6 ), and even if I’d like some of the new goodies I’m not really feeling the pain in using the old release, at least not enough to justify the transition. Anyhow I’m looking to do some new development on rails 3 and maybe I’ll even start porting a very old app (actually the first or second I developer on rails) that I have still lying around (I think that when I’ll do it, this suggestions will help a lot).

Mobile and Social games are just the tip of the iceberg of the evolutionary explosion that is pushing games into every crevice of society. Look around! The grand spirit of exploration and innovation is once again thriving like almost no other time in gaming history.

Happy 2011: Celebrating frontiers in Game Design

Second, from a comment on that essay, here is an interesting article on the usage of videogame using a physical feedback system to help problematic children learn how to control anger:

The pilot study at Children’s Hospital Boston tests an intervention that features a video game based on the 1980s arcade favorite Space Invaders. Players shoot down space aliens, but with an important modification: they wear a monitor on one pinkie that tracks heart rate as they play. If that indicator rises above resting levels—signaling that they’re overexcited—players lose the ability to shoot.

Gaming the Emotions