[zbailey]

It's funny. The company I work for is doing exactly what you describe. Our product is called Wildfire Platform - http://www.wildfireplatform.com. It's really great to see other people that have similar ideas.

We're all about empowering grassroots movements and helping grassroots movements be more effective via exactly the methods you mention - competition and fun for the supporters. The "pressure" concept you mention is exactly like our "Personal Impact" analytics we keep that tracks (in a hierarchical fashion, even!) your actions and the actions of those that have recruited to help the movement, and that score is available for all to see similar to an XBox gamer score.

We also have a huge library of actions like the ones you mentioned - social media actions like updating your status or outreach actions like phonebanking and walking that all tie back in to our Platform.

And finally we have the organization piece you hit on - traditionally political campaigns and non-profits organize around geographic lines and then find the most active volunteers in those regions and that's exactly what we help our users do.

I'd love to talk to you more about your ideas for "Pressure" since it seems like you've mulled it over quite a bit - and of course we're always looking to add smart, motivated people to our team :)