As far as engaging visitors and fostering loyalty in them goes, Badgeville is one of the most distinctive alternatives that I have seen in quite a while. Its essence can be understood if you think of it as a platform that lets any webmaster apply the game-like dynamics of Foursquare and Gowalla to his own site.
That is, what Badgeville wants to do is to open up the social gaming concept, and make it spread all over the Web. It doesn’t matter how social or not a site already is – this platform will socialize it to no end by letting visitors compete for distinctions such as badges.
Once Badgeville has been deployed, each and every activity that a visitor undertakes will be rewarded. Posting a comment, posting a link, clicking on “Like” buttons… all these activities will let them move closer to actually getting their mitts on one of these coveted badges.
This service is provided at a monthly fee that will vary according to how big your site is, and how many visitors it sees each day. In any case, note that the actual implementation entails little more than pasting a string of code into your site.
Badgeville.com In Their Own Words
“Badgeville is a white label Social Rewards & Analytics Platform We make it easy to increase the loyalty and engagement of your web audience.”
Why Badgeville.com It Might Be A Killer
The concept of rewarding visitors for their actual involvement is at an all-time high. If more tangible rewards are eventually offered, a system like Badgeville could do reasonably well.