Smashbomb
is an online review site and app made created in 2017 by David Bird,
Hany El Nokaly, Imogen Johnson, and Khoa Pham. As stated on
blog.smashbomb.com/about Smashbomb is “the social network for
entertainment recommendations”. It is a relatively new online
platform for reviews and has many features similar to the ever-popular Facebook. It is currently running in a beta version but
doesn’t let that keep you from signing up because the developers are
making small changes at a time based on user feedback.
In
today's digital age it is hard to know which reviews can be trusted
and which ones have been paid for by a company. Smashbomb seeks to
eliminate that uncertainty by providing a place for unbiased reviews
and recommendations away from the site providing the product,
whatever it may be. Users
have the option to just follow others to get updates or they can
provide their own ratings and reviews. There is also the option to
create lists of items to help categorize everything by personal
preference. Users can even send each other messages and comment on
posts, similar to Facebook.
Kudos
is the point system that reviewers try to rack up and there are
multiple ways to earn them. Each time a user adds a new item to the
site (thus expanding the site as a whole) the user is awarded some
kudos. Users can also award each other kudos for posts, reviews,
comments, and rank on the leader boards (perfect for those that are
on the competitive side so long as everything is kept honest). What's
more, there are discussion orbs (kind of like Facebook Groups),
polls, videos, and even giveaways. Oh, and the topics covered include
the following: Apps, Books, Movies, Music, Podcasts, Tabletop Games,
Tech, Tv, Video Games, and Youtube Channels.
There
are so many good things about Smashbomb that I don’t know where to
start. Everything that is
offered on the web page is offered on the app as well with basically
the exact same layout, making an easy transition between the two
platforms. Users can “follow” each other to get
the latest updates and reviews from reviewers they know, trust, and
like. What I don’t really like is that it has a “like” system
called Kudos. While there is nothing wrong with this system itself,
it is slow getting started. For users who want to reach the
“influencer” status and/or get specific badges (like myself), it
is slow going building up to that 1000 kudos point mark. In a
positive light through this weeds out those not actually serious about
contributing and sets a nice goal.
Target
users are people looking for suggestions, recommendations, or reviews
for any number of things that will find exactly what they are looking for
on this site. I believe I saw somewhere that users have to be at
least 17 years old so please keep that in mind. I rate this site 3
out of 4. For still being in development this site is wonderful.
Users can do all kinds of
things to share their opinions with others. While I love this site it
still needs a bit of work. The biggest issue is that the community of
users is still small, restricting discussions.
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