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Recently, Flappy Bird – a rather simple-looking yet extraordinarily difficult game – took the internet by a storm. Not only did it secure millions of downloads in both the Apple App Store and Google Play, but it also earned a stream of (seemingly ridiculous) reviews on Twitter using the #flappybird hashtag. By the looks of it, Flappy Bird hardly seems to have anything out of the ordinary. Its graphics seem to belong back in the 8-bit era, and the gameplay itself is nothing more than frantic screen-tapping to ensure that the flying bird does not hit the green pipes. That’s […]

Have you ever wondered what makes a website successful? Why are some sites able to make more money, grow larger subscriber lists, and more generally, be successful? With these questions in mind, I began to investigate and stumbled on an area of research called captology—or the study of computers as persuasive technologies. In this article, I’m going to share what I found, and what I believe makes a website credible. The Importance of Credibility Dr. BJ Fogg, Director of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, indicated that, Anecdotal evidence suggests web users are becoming more skeptical of the information they find online […]