Interview: IGN's Errol Pinto Discusses New "My IGN" Gamer Social Network

IGN, one of the first serious gaming news networks on the web, recently took an initiative to release My IGN, a social network designed for gamers, game news editors and games. The service focuses on bringing social interactions to the IGN experience, and is "a suite of tools that forms the foundation of a content-based social platform" for gamers. We had a chance to sit down with Errol Pinto, Senior Project Manager, My IGN/IGN Entertainment, and he discussed the importance of social to IGN. The interview with Errol is below, but I'd also like to use this opportunity to point out that we've introduced Social Times PRO, a service for more exclusive content, monthly reports and conference access passes. Click below to get more information, and check out the interview after! And now, the interview with Errol: ST) What was the design philosophy behind my IGN? Is it meant to be a social network for gamers? Errol) Our goal with My IGN was to weave a social layer into our existing sites that allows our readers to connect with others in a unique way. It's essentially a suite of tools that forms the foundation of a content-based social platform specifically targeted at gamers. It lets users easily stay up to date on information related to their favorite games. So yes, the current focus is definitely for everyone who enjoys video games, and already we've gotten a very positive reaction from our community, who are eager for more. ST) Do you plan to include playable games on this social network? Errol) Not at this time. Our current focus is help bring My IGN to all our community members and make it an invaluable tool for them. ST) What inspired the points system? Errol) We wanted to be able to give recognition to our readers for the things they do, and points is a core element to make that happen. It also allows us to award levels, as our readers gain more points, and helps us see who are the top contributors. In the future it opens a lot of doors for other ways to recognize our readers. ST) Do you find a significant percentage of new users using Facebook Connect to register? Errol) For the most part, the majority of the people that are logging in are from our current registered users. ST) What's been the biggest challenge so far? Errol) There are so many opportunities in what we can add as features, that it's hard to have to pick which ones to go with first. To help us on this front and make even the development of our My IGN tools a social experience, we decided early on to utilize an interactive feedback feature via a 3rd party service called User Voice (http://uservoice.com). My IGN members can use points to vote on features that they want to see added next, which helps guide us in our planning. ST) You talk about your Big Bang Road Block [Editor's Note: See Below] having one of the best interaction rates in history. What about My IGN accounted for that many clicks? Errol) The big bang roadblock featured our most popular editors, in a really fun way that was explosive and eye-catching. Since each editor had their own unique interaction, our readers were probably drawn to trying them all out to find out more. (http://www.ign.com/?special=myign ) Here are some of the key statistics from the launch of My IGN: - On its 2nd day, My IGN has risen to be IGN's 4th highest channel by time spent exceeded only by Guides, Video and Comics. Yesterday's time spent average for My IGN was (currently) 22.2% higher than Wednesday's. - The first Wednesday had over 112k page views and 33k uniques visit my.ign.com. - In terms of registrations, the goals are to increase the percentage of people registered from 1% to 10%, and after launch on Wednesday, there were 3700 people create new accounts. For new visitors that's over 10%. - "time on site" is over 4 minutes! Again another great stat considering most people spend less than two on most sites. - In terms of the Big Bang Road block, the interaction rate is the second highest in the history of IGN at 3.74%! Some other interesting figures are: - 30k+ games followed - 260+ blog posts made - 4700 avatars uploaded - 8000 status updates made - Resulting in over 170k points awarded!

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Interview: IGN's Errol Pinto Discusses New "My IGN" Gamer Social Network

Neil Vidyarthi

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