The app, which launched yesterday, is at its most basic a way to test your knowledge of your friends against their knowledge of you. It quizzes you and your friends about each others’ profile information — hometown, favorite movies, etc. Whoever gets the higher score “owns” the other person until another friend gets a better score than the winner. The goal is to own the most people.

However, the app also prompts you to click through to Smart.fm’s home site, a sort of structured knowledge service where people can share their expertise and learn from others. For example, one user provided a list of German irregular verbs and their English translations. The site lets you create a mini-course to help you study and review these verbs, through a feature called iKnow! You can also turn this information into a sort of quiz where you can compete to try to score higher than other users. Also called Brainspeed, it’s the game concept technology behind the Facebook app.

Smart.fm’s home site initially launched in Japan has already been used by half a million people in the country. Partly as a result, the bulk of the existing content is mostly about language learning, a popular topic on Japan. The Facebook app is a prelude to a fuller-scale US launch the company has planned for October, where the company will also introduce a range of new features and a broader content focus.

Here’s a video from the company, with some more details about the Smart.fm Facebook app.

Smart.fm Facebook Application — Demo from Josh Dilworth on Vimeo.