A study of motivations for using mobile content sharing games

Applications blending games with mobile content sharing have recently attracted much interest. In this paper, we examine users' motivations for creating content in the context of Indagator, a mobile content sharing game. Studying motivations is important because a deeper understanding will help designers create compelling and impactful applications for users. We conducted an experiment where 28 participants used Indagator for a week to create content (annotations). Participants were also interviewed. All interview responses, and annotations generated (599) were manually examined and coded to ascertain motivations. Motivations for creating content include altruism, task performance, competitive play, killing time, reminder of experiences, self-presentation, and socializing. Additionally, games emerged as a motivator for sharing mobile content. Implications from our findings are discussed.