Tim Chang Claims that Social Game Mechanics is a Recent Invention

In a recent article in the New York Times, Tim Chang of Mayfield Fund makes a Grooglesque assumption -- about how Twitter, Facebook, Quora and Zynga have invented social and game mechanics for a broad market.

“Twitter, Facebook, Quora and Zynga have invented social and game mechanics for broad markets,” says Tim Chang, a managing director at the Mayfield Fund, one of HealthTap’s venture capital backers. “If you can take the best of those mechanics and apply them to a single vertical, that can be very powerful.”

In fact, these mechanics were not invesnted by the above companies.  Industries in finance, trade and transport services have used game mechanics for decades to lure and retain customers for their products, such as credit cards, reward cards, flight mile rewards and so forth.
 

If anything, game mechanics is becoming passe. The next step is possibly, 'no rewards, no gimmicks. You get what you give'. 

Plus, game mechanics are game mechanics - they are employed to give users certain benefits based on their actions. The idea that it would work better if applied to a single vertical market, as Chang suggests, is not supported by research.