REDWOOD CITY, CA and CHICAGO, IL -- (Marketwire) -- 02/27/13 -- How many times have you attended a conference and found yourself bored silly, constantly checking your email, Twitter feed, Google+ page or Facebook page, wishing you hadn't spent a few grand to attend a conference that sounded good on paper, but didn't deliver the experience you were hoping for once you got on site? Or have you attended a conference that was so good you wished more of your colleagues had attended?

From ConferenceIQ LLC (CIQ), a global directory of business events and speakers and the leader for independent user-based ratings for business events and speakers, comes the solution: impartial event and speaker ratings from real conference attendees.

By leveraging Bunchball, the pioneer and market leader in gamification, ConferenceIQ attendees, speakers and event organizers can all be rewarded for a variety of interactions with the conferenceiq.com website. Similar to TripAdvisor, attendees can accumulate points when they engage in certain actions, such as completing profiles; posting, commenting on, liking or sharing reviews; and clicking on event profiles. As point tallies mount, members earn trophies such as "The Collaborator" or the "Einstein Club" and they are rewarded further for sharing numerous reviews or comments on Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Within the gamified ConferenceIQ experience, users can quickly build their online reputation by attaining up to eight different "IQ" levels, from "Prodigy" to "Presidential Scholar." Plans are being made for users to be able to redeem these points for event discounts.

Conference and event speakers can also amass points and status levels for expertise based on the number of events in which they present and receive reviews within a given year including status such as "Conference Maven" and "Golden Microphone."

Conference organizers can receive the "Event Pro" badge when they organize 5+ events in at least 5 different subject areas. Attendees, speakers and organizers can also earn the "Jet Setter" badge when they attend conferences in 3+ countries in a given year.

ConferenceIQ is powering its site using Bunchball's acclaimed Nitro platform. With Nitro, ConferenceIQ seamlessly incorporates motivation techniques and game mechanics into its site to motivate attendees, speakers and event organizers to share their insights and opinions both on the conferenceiq.com site and on their favorite social media platforms. Bunchball's Nitro uses motivational techniques -- like goal-setting, real-time feedback, competition, virtual rewards, and leveling up -- to keep people sharing, collaborating and participating.

"An online community like ConferenceIQ becomes increasingly valuable as more people share their opinions and experiences, and gamification offers a powerful way to motivate users to contribute frequently," said Caroline Japic, senior vice president of marketing, Bunchball. "Because we all wish to be recognized for our expertise and opinions, the prospect of creating a positive reputation within a community offers an ideal opportunity for a well-designed gamification experience to encourage and reward users for their ongoing participation. We're excited to see this dynamic take shape with ConferenceIQ."

The more reviews are posted, the greater impact to the business attendee, speaker and conference organizer. The more reviews an event has, the more confident users are in the average ratings assigned to that event. It's a trifecta win for business attendees, speakers and the event industry.

About Bunchball:
Bunchball is the market leader and visionary in gamification. Bunchball enables organizations to improve business performance throughout their ecosystem by creating highly active and loyal customers, employees, and partners. Bunchball's comprehensive suite of innovative cloud-based solutions empowers companies to engage and motivate, leading to improved employee productivity, customer loyalty, audience engagement and ROI. Bunchball's world-class customers include Adobe, HP, Cisco, Warner Bros., Comcast, LiveOps, VMware and Hasbro. Based in Silicon Valley, Bunchball's investors include Granite Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, Northport Investments, and Correlation Ventures. For more information, visit www.bunchball.com, our blog at www.gamification.com, or follow @bunchball.

About Conference IQ
Conference IQ LLC (CIQ) is a global directory of business events and speakers and the leader for independent user-based ratings for business events and speakers. CIQ was founded by business event pros David B. Wheeler and Lise Puckorius who felt there was a need for an online destination to get unbiased information about conferences, events and speakers and a tool for speakers and event organizers to promote their events. Visit www.conferenceiq.com, or follow @conferenceiq.