User-generated reviews lead to sales—many studies over the past several years verify that bit of common sense. For instance, Coremetrics found that people who read a review were more likely to purchase a product by fully 30%. But we've all had the experience of sifting through grumpy people's rants to get to information we can trust. It stands to reason that retailers who make it easier to find trustworthy consumer opinions will convert more guests into purchasers.

This is where gamification comes in. The topic of adding game elements to web sites and applications—or "funware", as Gabe Zichermann calls it—is still hot. Badging and point awards are especially effective at increasing community participation; but it is second-party rewards that turn a community into a meritocracy.

Second-party points are awarded when one user marks another's contribution as valuable. An effective, gamified reviews application will allow Jim to "thumb up" Jane's review, giving her a few "helpfulness" points, while Jim may also receive points of a different currency (let's call it "kindness"). The key elements are that the author earns points for helpful reviews; those reviews can be featured on a product detail page by the system without human intervention; and that trusted authors earn badges, leading to broadly better content—and ultimately, a higher conversion rate.

Pluck's built-in Rewards module offers both first- and second-party awards with easily-customized rules written in natural language, and the system is baked into every widget. Our Reviews module allows users to easily sort and filter reviews by trust rating, and there is a dedicated widget for surfacing the most helpful positive and negative reviews. All of this is also available through our SDKs, meaning you can add Pluck-based gamification to any feature of your web, Facebook, or mobile application (such as purchases and wish lists).

Smart brands and retailers have already embraced product ratings and reviews as part of their core web and mobile experiences. The next step is to elevate quality content and trustworthy users by layering in a bit of meritocratic game mechanics.