Fenway Frank (Home)

Two recent Harvard grads recently introduced a service called Gympact based on the premise that the sting of losing money for missing a visit to the gym and the promise of collecting money for going is enough to keep you on the treadmill. Behavioral economics show that if you tie cash incentives to things that are concrete and easy to achieve like getting to the gym, it’s very effective. An article that appeared on the New York Times in January discusses the benefits, rationale and recent success of the service.

I started using the service myself since January and it has proven to be very effective, especially for early adopters or lovers of utilities that connect sports/health with technology. I think the earning part is more motivating than the not losing money part, especially when you realize it is very easy to get back to a regular routine of going to the gym. Lastly, I’ve added a couple of gyms located in Costa Rica, which is where I live, to the system. I hope they introduce the “challenge a friend” functionality soon.  

killscreendaily:

A group of Costa Rican designers are working on a new project that will translate tweets into actual gameplay changes.  It’s a bit like Scribblenauts  — whatever pops up on Twitter shows up in the two games they’ve created — a racing gaming called Route 140 and an action called Love City. 

The project is still working is way through the funding stage over at Kickstarter.

(via killscreendaily)

perfectmarket:

“With search, advertisers can match their ads to user intent. With Facebook, advertisers match their ads to user interests,” said Mr. Williams, who previously co-founded the search marketing firm 360i, now owned by Dentsu Inc. “It’s like fishing.”

Intel anuncia la edición 2011 del Desafío Intel® América Latina, la competencia de negocios tecnológicos enfocada al sector universitario. La convocatoria es realizada en colaboración con el Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, Argentina; la Fundación Getulio Vargas de Brasil, la Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María de Chile, Yo Emprendedor de Costa Rica, la Universidad EAFIT de Colombia, el Tecnológico de Monterrey de México y la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. 

Adjunto se encuentra el reglamento para los participantes que deseen concursar desde Costa Rica.

Costa Rica Reglamento Desafío Intel

Google is taking another step towards its own social network without actually building its own social network (the company insists it’s only building social layers on top of the web) with the “+1” button.