Want to find out how effective your portal is in converting visitors into players? A simple and easy way is to do a conversion analysis.
This analysis can be done for many different usage scenarios. In the examples below I assume that you have advertised somewhere to find new players. So in my case the following steps apply:

User visit your portal
User gets interested and sign up
User deposit money
User play for real money
User is a reccuring player after x months

In the example above we see that we only get 30% to register and …

Image by Markus Angermeier
Web 2.0 has been a buzz word for a few years now. But yet we haven’t seen many gaming portals adapting web 2.0 technologies. Why is that?
But first, what is Web 2.0?
According to Wikipedia “Web 2.0” refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, User-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web.
In the image above you see many words associated with Web 2.0. Some of the most important for igaming are:

user centered design
sharing
collaboration
usability
joy of use
widgets
social software
trust
im

Web 2.0 focus on …

How do you know if your gaming portal (games) is the right one for your target groups? Do you release software without testing it on real players? Then you are in trouble!
Today I see so many simple usability mistakes in gaming software.
I think there are at least three main reasons for that:

You don’t have user experience people focusing on the user interface and the users in your company and projects.
You don’t involve the players in the process
You don’t test your software on real players

In the near future I know …