Virtual Goods News

It's well-established that virtual goods have a role to play in social networks, virtual worlds, and online gaming... but what about online forums? PC industry giant Dell announced on its official forums a few days ago that it was considering a virtual goods system as a way to reward members for site activity.

Right now, users on the Dell official forums can amass points by posting questions and answers in the official forums, or by adding information to Dell's official wiki. An active community takes pressure off of Dell's official reps to answer every question asked by users, and overall makes the forums a more efficient source of help for others. As of this writing, there is no way for Dell forum members to spend their points.

Successfully introducing virtual goods into official forums could successfully monetize what is often one of the most difficult to operate features of an official website. It's well-established that promise of virtual reward can motivate real behavior like opening e-mail or visiting a website. There are also established methods of making sure more valuable contributions to a community receive a more substantial virtual reward. Both Mahalo's question and answer service and Amazon's Askville are specifically designed to give users who offer better community contributions more virtual currency to play with. 

One hurdle Dell must overcome to bring virtual goods successfully into their forums, though, is making sure fans don't see the goods as a distraction from problems posed by forum software, ad