The counting device

A counter is very clever virtual device used all over the internet. It's aim is to create virtual stature of an internet user, website or product based on a number or counter. It's important to note however, that in most cases, the virtual class or stature of a person, website or product is only perceived from the point of view of persons. A classic example, is someone with 100 Facebook friends vs someone with 200 Facebook friends is in no way an indicator of how social or popular they are in real life. It is only perceived that way by the user base online. Before I go through some examples, it is important to note that the counting device has a far greater impact on children than it does adults as children often adhere to the "more is better" principle.


MySpace

The counting devices were the friend count, top friends, comment count, video view count. In MySpace, these virtually had no limit.

Facebook

Facebook overcame the problem of unlimited friends by having a friend cap of 5000. Now, there was no real point in getting to 5000, because chances are about a couple of million other people probably had 5000 friends as well. Additionally, if you reached 5000 people and wanted to add someone you actually knew, then you'd have to go in and delete one of the randoms. However, they still employ counting devices such the number of likes and comment count.

Youtube

Well this one is pretty straight forward - view count.

Forums/Message Boards

Message boards can actually have a division of user classes. A typical example would be a user of class Administrator and user of class "User". However, the big counting device here is the post count. It is a counter of the amount of times you post or reply to something on the message board. This gave rise to terms such as "post whoring" and "trolling" the aim of which was to get your post count as high as possible with minimal regard to the actual topic being discussed. I believe message boards were one of the biggest influences on today's social media. The difference of course being that message boards are typically a strictly anonymous affair.

Peer to peer sharing

Your ratio is an indicator of how much you share. The higher this number, the better you look online. Total uploaded is another good counter

Runescape

The 200,000,000 xp cap. There are 26 skills, which means currently the total cap is 5,200,000,000 xp. The highest ranked player has 3,769,000,000 xp. That is, they have completed roughly 72%. Given the game was first released in 2004, it will take them about another 3 to 4 years to max out their xp and that's only if no other new skills are introduced. Why did I include this one? I played this once - how I've wasted my life :(

World of Warcraft

Item level, DPS etc etc.

In conclusion, if you want to subtly force users to subconsciously compete against each other, employing counting devices is essential. However, you do not necessarily have to employ this device to be successful, Angry Birds for example.

[Disclaimer: I'm talking shit]