True, if there's any way to game the system or brute force your reputation, it's going to cause problems. Digg had issues with power users getting paid to post,

True, if there's any way to game the system or brute force your reputation, it's going to cause problems. Digg had issues with power users getting paid to post, and even news aggregators like Reddit and HN can be abused if people have their friends upvote submissions. People like sharing things they find interesting/important or have an emotional response to, as twitter has proven. If you search a business' name on twitter you'll get some sort of consensus on what people think about it. This stuff isn't aggregated in a way that is really helpful, though. That's is what my startup is trying to solve - http://moodstir.com http://moodstir.com. When a company like Netflix pisses off its customers and they are willing to tweet about it, others considering using the service ought to be able to find out the general emotional stance customers have towards the service.