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September 06, 2006
Stanford class will study Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and more
In three weeks Dean Eckles and I will start teaching a new Stanford class for the Computer Science Department. Of course, it's about computers as persuasive technology (aka captology), but this year we're focusing on what makes Web 2.0 services compelling, motivating, and even addictive. During the last three weeks, we'll shift gears and look at the future of mobile applications -- how they might be designed to influence people.
We'll use video to capture and convey much of what we learn. So we've decided to set up the course home page (for now) at captology.tv. When the end of the quarter arrives in December, we'll share our work at the first ever "Captology Film Festival." (Yes, we'll give out popcorn and prizes, but we expect serious discussion as well.)
Of course, we'll invite you to the festival.
Below is the course description (which would have been more fun to do in video).
--BJ Fogg
"Persuading People Online and Via Mobile Phones"
CS377p - Stanford University, Fall 2006, 3 unitsIn this course we'll examine how technology can persuade and motivate people, a subject called "captology." We'll first build a foundation by learning about the psychology of persuasion. We'll then apply what we're learning to understand how the online world is changing people’s thoughts and behaviors, with popular examples like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. We'll then do creative projects to explore how mobile phone applications will persuade and motivate people in the future.
Posted by BJ Fogg at September 6, 2006 05:46 PM