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"A new startup from this week's DEMO conference today tackles the problem of figuring out which brands to trust.\nSocialSmack, founded earlier this year, is part information network, part consumer reviews website and part game.  Users vote on whether a specific brand deserves a thumbs-up (\"Props\") or a thumbs-down (\"Drops\").  For example, Nike now has 16 props and just 1 drop, while AT&amp;T Wireless has 14 props and (not surprisingly) 70 drops.  You can even vote comments on specific brands up or down, much like Reddit.\nBecause SocialSmack is an information network, users can share their thoughts on specific companies with their friends and the general community at large.  It also doubles as a review site where users can browse comments and quickly find out whether a company is trustworthy or not.  \nThe site's gaming elements are what make SocialSmack interesting and potentially addictive.  Like Foursquare, SocialSmack includes points and badges.  You earn points for doing things like giving props, sharing your comments on Facebook and Twitter, and voting on other commenters.  In fact, SocialSmack takes its gaming elements seriously enough to call its users \"players.\"  There is even a leaderboard where the overall leader is known as \"The Sultan of Smack.\"  The gaming element is definitely a core element of the entire website.\n\n\n\n\nThere are plenty of websites where consumers can review companies and businesses (Yelp immediately comes to mind), but we haven't seen any with so many gaming elements.  If SocialSmack can build out more points of engagement for users while keeping comments and reviews useful for casual users, then it has a chance to capture a market.  That's a very tall order, though; the company has its work cut out for it.\nWhat do you think of SocialSmack?  Is it something you could see yourself using?\nImage courtesy of Flickr, thivierr"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/09/15/socialsmack/>