During PSFK’s production of their recent report “The Future of Gaming,” they noticed an interesting trend – One-Upmanship. The most inherent of all human qualities, the desire to be better than another, the fuel for the fire of passion – is it not something that we all experience at one point or another?

Harnessing this power is often a difficult feat, but playing off of the Internet’s notorious reputation of anonymity, the folks at Digg noticed and wisely put one-upmanship to good use. Sites like Wikipedia use anonymous updaters to keep their content flowing, but where Wikipedia is more like an Encyclopedia, Digg is closer to a scrolling news feed at the bottom of your screen – their content needs to be streamlined, with no room for error.

By implementing a game-like rewards system, top contributors receive points and badges based on their submissions that are filtered through Digg’s content algorithm, which measures posts based on views and user shares on social networks. The bigger the reach, the better the recognition.

Week in, week out, the BFG content team trailblazes the Magical Internet Lands to bring you back only the finest in Internet and pop culture treasures. We read the Internet so you don't have to.

The content team has doubled in size over the last year, so take a few moments to get to know a little something about each of our team members as we reflect back on the Hits and Misses of 2011. We hope you'll enjoy this little stroll down Amnesia Lane.

Best Thing I Read (Or Listened to on AudioBook)
Sloane: Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
Brian: Just Kids, Patti Smith
Celby: Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Hal: Still Life With Woodpecker, Tom Robbins
Kristina: Blood, Bones, and Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton

Favorite Blog or Website (besides this one, of course)
Sloane: For 91 Days
Brian: Gawker
Celby: Texts From Bennett (even if it was a hoax)
Emily: Color Me Katie
Hal: AdVerve
Kristina: Laughing Squid

Best Internet Meme
Sloane:

Who owns your Twitter followers: you or your employer? Strong cases can be made for either viewpoint depending on the circumstances. That's why it's probably best, if you're an employer, that you cover this in your company social media policy. (You do have a social media policy, right?)

If you're considering a job that will include the use of social media and the organization in question does not have an established social media policy, it's probably a good idea to negotiate your retention of your own social media accounts beyond the duration of your employment. Otherwise, insist that new social media accounts be created for utilization on behalf of the organization.

Get ready. We're going to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the coming years.

FOLLOW-UP:
I had the opportunity to discuss this topic on WSAV Tech Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

Introducing the Polaroid Z340, the classic Polaroid Instant Camera’s younger and more tech savvy sister. What makes this camera special is that it can edit your pictures like a digital camera and then print them out like the old school Polaroids we love so much.

The 14.0 megapixel camera comes equipped with an LCD screen where you can view your photos and edit them to your liking. The editing capabilities are simple, like cropping or adding a filter to your picture, but the coolest part is being able to instantly print and view your masterpiece and all of its tangible glory while still keeping a digital copy on the camera’s SD card.

We can finally have our proverbial cake and eat it too. The Polaroid Z340 features digital camera capabilities while staying true to what Polaroid cameras are known for -- a quick and easy way to capture, print, and share photos with your friends. Though we are moving further away from the real world and into our cozy megabyte-manageable lives, the nostalgic and ironic allure of making the digital into tangible objects is an ongoing trend, especially with photography. For example, Postcardly is a service that turns emailed pictures into snail mail postcards and relies on the novelty of receiving postcards--as backwards as that may seem.

This hybrid camera is something that photography nerds, hipster folks, and tech geeks can all flock to, especially with the last hurrah of 2011...

Every quarter, we dive into the top digital trends and technologies to watch. This quarter is of course no different and so we present the latest digital trendspotting report. It's chock full of goodies to watch as we head into 2012, like m-commerce, personalized products and luxury brands pulling back the curtain.