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Level upLately, I've been reading a lot more about game mechanics in media sites. They can be addictive, even with little else compelling to offer: I get very little out of FourSquare since almost none of my friends have accounts, and of even those few none actively use it.

But I still have compulsively checked in 84 times over 32 nights, earning badges like "Explorer," "Bender" and "Local." I'm not even that much of a collector personality, but I imagine this age will take much advantage of those poor souls.

But fly-by-night Web 2.0 services shouldn't be the only ones letting the games begin: As the Guardian has shown, game elements can be useful in encouraging your readers to help effectively dig through mountains of public documents.

Simon Willison, creator of the Guardian's MP expense investigation experiment, told Nieman Journalism Lab that keeping research fun and competitive let the paper offload sorting through 170,000 documents in 80 hours by a team of 20,000 volunteers.

The Guardian's tools were primarily a one-off occurrence, but badges in particular can help direct desirable user/reader behavior for the long haul. For example, if you have a