With film becoming so big in my life I like to keep track of what I watch. Lots of you obviously follow me on Twitter where I waffle and tag in at Cineworld and some of you follow me on Letterboxd where I log my daily watches and Unlimited visits... but film isn't my only love. I've got Good Reads for my books and I had Vero for a while for a bit of everything (though it wasn't massively popular or very user-friendly). As social media grows so do the number of apps you "need", the one thing I always wanted to have was a place to keep all of my logs rather than have them scattered around, Smashbomb is a great way to do that.
I first signed up when I saw someone post about it on Twitter, as I started to explore the thing I noticed is that it's really quite simple to use on any device. Yes, I spend a lot of time on my phone but when I'm doing reviews and research my laptop is my main device and a lot of sites don't translate well or have the same functionality as they do on the app but that doesn't seem to be an issue here.
Writing reviews
Rating
You can rate a title out of 10. 1 being "disastrous" and 10 being "epic". As you can see on the left I picked a 5 for my review of Wolf which is "shoddy". I'm not sure I agree with the words that accompany each number but the design of the stages works really well.
Good and bad
You can add in a list of pros and cons about the film you're reviewing. If you're commenting on Once Upon A Time In Hollywood then you might mark a "What's good?" comment as "The acting from Brad Pitt" and on Anna you might put a "What's bad?" comment as "The final edit on action scenes left the sequences dull to watch." I don't know if there are limits on how many you can input but you can certainly put a few in.
Full review
If you've got a lot of comments then you might want to put the highlights in and elaborate on them underneath in a full review.
You can also personalise your reviews with a header and mark them as containing spoilers so that people who haven't seen the film don't get a nasty surprise if they happen across your review.
New content
Never fear, there's a solution for that!
You can add items that don't appear and complete the required data so that you can then rate and review it. You can mark genre, actors, network and add your own description. Just remember to double check that you've not missed the entry somewhere, some programs and films might have a different name in your territory. I would also recommend that you don't just put in the very basic of details, after all, this site is about helping other people find great things and they won't be able to do that if you're not giving them the best things to find.
Make sure to add a good image that makes it clear what the film/program is, where possible I would say it's best to get images and blurb from the official site, you'll be able to log sources for the content you provide as part of the result.
Community content
Much like some other social media sites you can join in with other members to start discussions and share insights in various ways.
On Smashbomb you have Orbs, these cover a wide variety of topics and I'm sure you'll find something that matches with your interests. I've joined a few Orbs so far, including Bookworms and Movie Fun and Trivia, I haven't explored this side of the site much but you can drop in at any time and ask for recommendations, create polls and share content to start discussions with the rest of the group.
Having another look at my Orbs now did highlight one thing, there's not a lot of discussion going on in the groups I'm in. Don't be discouraged by this. Smashbomb has only been around for a couple of years and even I (who spends way too much time on the internet) only found it a few months ago. As more people come on board discussions will grow and you'll start finding people to follow who share quality content and opinions that help you find new things.
Us newbies probably need to not be scared to try and start new discussions too. Look through some of the posts that are already in the timeline and get a feel for the audience and then jump right in. And as always... be nice... we're here to make friends and discover new things, leave your muddy boots at the door and keep the place nice.
Community standing
Smashbomb uses a rating system (of sorts) for its users called Kudos Points, or KP for short.
Users can award KP to others based on their content. If you read a great review that gives reasoned and balanced opinions with clear points then you can award it a KP. Posts in Orbs and other participation can also be awarded points. It's a built in part of the system and you have to earn points to award points, by that I mean that you can't just start an account and massively inflate some content over others.
My KP is currently at 107 at the time of writing this post, that means that I can award 8 points to other people in the community per day. As my points grow so will my ability to award points to other content providers.
"Likes" on some platforms are often an automatic reaction used more as an indicator that you've seen something rather than a genuine acknowledgement that what is being posted is of a decent quality. I'm certainly guilty of the "automatic like" and I think that this system has actually trained some of that out of me. I'm much more aware of what's being posted rather than "oh that's my friend, I'll click like". Ultimately this means that I'm enhancing better content (sorry friends!) for other people... well, I hope I am.
In the early stages of membership it will also encourage more interaction, if you run out of points to award and find a great piece you could comment on it instead and tell them why you liked it and share some of your own thoughts.
Initially I thought that the points system was a little odd, it could become a very competitive thing and be another target to chase on social media, but when you look at it closer it's actually designed to encourage a good growth within the community. For example, earning KP also helps you earn badges. Each area of the site has its own set of badges, you start out as a Reviewer and can get up to Legend when you earn enough points in that topic, at the moment I'm a Movie Reporter (because I've been slacking about putting my reviews up). When you visit people's profiles you can see where they're making an impression on other users and it's another way to find people to follow and new things to try.
What you should do
If like me you've got a wide range of hobbies and interests then this is a great place to collect together all of those things. Even if you're just obsessed with one thing it's a great place to be. If you're already in Film Twitter's clutches then you'll definitely find a few of your favourites are over on Smashbomb already, take a look at some of their profiles and get a feel for it.
Even if you can't interact on the site/app all the time it is easy to drop in and have a quick catch up and check out new things that are happening, there are plenty more feature going on that I haven't mentioned (I don't want to ruin all the fun of exploring) and I'm sure you'll find things that I haven't come across yet.
Click on the image below to go to my profile page, remember to give me a follow if you decide to sign up and share your profile link in the comments below or on Twitter so others can find you too.
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