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Parents throughout the ages have known that “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” as the saying goes, and recently businesses have begun to catch on too. That’s essentially the premise behind Ridekicks, EpicWin and Deal Machine, and it’s also at the heart of Gamify, which aims to help businesses far and wide incorporate gaming into their own offerings. Now in beta, San Francisco-based Gamify bills itself as a “universal gamification platform.” What that means is that it can be used to incorporate game-like reward programs, customizable game mechanics and widgets into any web-enabled service or application. Reward programs, for instance, can help a brand generate engagement and loyalty by giving users a compelling incentive to visit a site or take particular actions. A variety of rewards are possible, from intangible ones such as points and badges to more tangible goods such as coupons and prizes. Widgets, meanwhile, can be added anywhere that allows JavaScript to incorporate features such as progress bars, leaderboards and user profiles. Finally, elements of game mechanics can be added to create a “game layer” to any site, service or application, thereby turning users into players and offering a fun, branded experience. Real-time analytics can help brands monitor the success of the service, while A/B testing is available to optimize marketing efforts. Nathan Lands, Gamify’s CEO and cofounder, explains: “We believe that gamification is the most significant trend to affect our society since social networks. Just like Facebook has, it will add great value to our lives and improve them by making life more fun and creating new ways for us to interact with the world around us.” Time to increase engagement with your brand…?