(c) Can Stock PhotoA survey of some of the stories from the last week that caught my eye as they passed by in the stream

Gamification grows, even in B2B

Research group Gartner raised eyebrows with its projection that half of organizations that manage innovation processes will apply gamification to those efforts by 2015. A year earlier, Gartner said, more than 70% of Global 2000 companies will have adopted at least one gamified application. All that sounds fine for internal purposes, such as Deloitte’s use of gamification to attract 10,000 corporate executives from 150 organizations to compete in online training programs. Internal wellness initiatives also lend themselves well to gamification. And for consumer marketing efforts, gamification is definitely on the rise. But B2B? According to Pod Design founder and CEO Steve Curran, “B2B clients are looking at (gamification) closely as someething that can motivate a wide range of things, from employee motivation to prospects learning more about their products (and services),” accordin to a report from the Business Marketing Association. An example: Veev Distillers has introduced a game-based sales training tool. The company has launched a new Veev Spirit product, and through three mini-games, the company is educating those in the company’s sales channels about the product’s three key attributes.

Mobile, mobile and more mobile

Still need convincing that world is rapidly moving toward mobile as its primary means of accessing, consuming and engaging with digital content and social media? My feeds are increasingly occupied by mounting evidence. For example, 82% of consumers want to engage brands via mobile/social channels, and doing so will improve their expectations. That’s the conclusion of a study from EmpathicaInc, reported by Luxury Daily. Meanwhile, Mobile Marketer reports on a Coca-Cola partnership with FourSquare that expands on its efforts to establish mobile as a primary platform for its CSR efforts. The America Is Your Park campaign, which ended July 15, let mobile users vote for their favorite parks via FourSquare check-ins, with the top vote-getters earning grants to improve their activity facilities. (Speaking of FourSquare, businesses will be able to send messages directly to people who check in frequently at their locations, says AdAge—through their mobile devices, of course. Facebook, whose mobile ads are outperforming Twitter’s (says Forbes), is now rolling out its Timeline feature for pages on mobile devices, according to Inside Facebook.  And the Games Industry notes that “the number of gamers playing on mobile devices is growing so rapidly that it is now the most valuable gaming platform, according to research seen by Marketing Week.” And what kind of wrap-up would this be if there was no mention of the upcoming Olympics, which 40% of U.S. adults plan to stream on their mobile devices, according to ZDNet. There’s no escaping the shift to mobile.

Twitter allows location targeting of promoted tweets

The coders over at Twitter have been busy lately, introducing a rash of new features and capabilities. Internet Retailer reports that Twitter rolled out an enhancement to its promoted tweet product that lets marketers deliver promoted tweeets to categories of consumers without all followers seeing them. Up until now, promoted tweets were visible to all the followers of a company’s account. “What if you want to make an offer just to New York Twitter users?” asked Twitter product manager Kevin Weil. “Today (July 19), we’re introducing targeted tweets, an enhancement that enables brands to reach specified audiences on twitter without first sending a tweet to all followers.”

Given that companies listed in the Fortune Global 100 are mentioned online on Twitter more than anywhere else—and that 82% of those companies have at least one Twitter account (all according to the Burson-Marstellar Global Social Media Check-Up, reported by MediaBistro’s AllTwitter)—expect companies to take advantage of these new features.

Is this the Holy Grail of social media measurement for PR?

A cross-industry effort by multipe PR trade groups has resulted in significant progress toward establishing standards for measuring social media. That’s a huge deal, since multiple surveys continue to report that ongoing struggles to measure social media remain one of the biggest obstacles to more widespread adoption. The coalition—the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC)—has been working on this for a couple years, releasing its Barcelona Principles in 2010 and Valid Metrics Framework last year. Now they’ve identified six priorities and has completed work on the first, content sourcing and methods; a source-and-methods transparency table is ready to use. The other five categories: research and impressions, engagement, influence and relevance, opinion and advocacy, and impact and value. Details are on the New York Times piece. “Referral traffic from Facebook has steadily increased since January 2011, surpassing referral traffic from Google for the first time in May, and dipping again in June. In May, Facebook generated 61 million referrals to published digital content while Google search generated 58 million referrals.”

SoundGecko aims to reinvent radio with text-to-MP3

Let’s wrap the Wrap with an intriguing tool from an Australian startup. SoundGecko wants to bring news articles to lilfe by producing an MP3 from a URL, so you can listen to the article from anywhere you like. The company’s founder—Long Zheng, the same guy behind the MetroTwit Twitter interface that emulates the Windows Phone metro look—likes podcasts but wants “a way to listen to exactly what I wanted and when I wanted.” According to The Verge, “the service delivers an MP3 recording within 30 seconds to an email address, available for download or accessible via an iPhone app.” Do you see any potential use for business content? Could be.