Learning2.0 : Journey to about2findout.com

MyStudiyo.com is another site that allows you to easily create a quiz and then add it to your site. Some of these quizzes seem sponsored, like the one in the image about babies that gives you a Pampers offer at the end.
The site has the usual question types, but allows for images to support the questions, and has a variable number of points per question. After you submit the answer you get some feedback and the percentage of people who knew.
Sharing is possible via an embedded iframe, and you can post, bookmark or e-mail. Another nice feature is that you can created quizzes that allow users to add questions (and you can moderate that optionally).

Labels: mystudiyo, quiz, trivia

Announcing : the first trivia tournament on about2findout.com!

In July, the first Big Trivia Tournament will go live. This is what you can expect:
- There will be 25 brand new quizzes posted during the entire month. That is almost one per day.
- Only logged in users can participate (if needed you can create a free account)
- You have the entire month to solve the quizzes, so you can do it when best fits you. Do one every day, do them all at the end, or before or after you take a holiday.
- Your tournament score is the sum of all points on all the questions in the tournament. You will still get your regular points too and those include the double points for getting 7 or more on a quiz. For the tournament, it's just the sum of your points on the questions you had right.

So, just a little more patience, and the game begins...

Labels: about2findout, game, quiz, tournament, trivia

Last night I added a quiz on one of the most popular things around: the iPhone. I don't own one, but I played with it when I was in the US last year. One day I hope to find the time to write a mobile version of the about2findout.com site, that you can view on the iPhone or other mobile devices. One day...

Labels: about2findout.com, apple, iphone, quiz

Some weeks ago I stumbled upon the excellent quiz site purposegames.com. Like about2findout, it is a site that adheres to the web 2.0 principles of letting you all add games to the site and build a community around it, and it is also made by a single person. The site was started in 2006 by David Andersson and now has 4138 games and 7721 members. When I played around on the site there were 3 registered members and 147 visitors around.

While a lot of the concepts are similar with about2findout.com, the biggest difference is the kind of quiz games you can play on purposegames.com. The site specializes in very engaging, visual games where you have to point and click the right answer on an image. To give you a flavor: here are two samples I enjoyed and are typical:
- Game on the national flags of Asia
- Game on the Simpsons characters
You can play these games registered (then your score is stored) or anonymous, and when you play them again, the order of questions will be different.

Here are some of the things I wrote down:
- The main menu is games - create - community - leatherboard. Except for the last one that is similar to the quiz zone, author zone and club zone we have. The leatherboard is where you find the latest scores on the tournament. Purposegames has tournaments that spread over time. That is actually a good idea.

- Registration is easy : just one page, and the password is send to you via e-mail. You don't have to wait to be able to have access to all parts on the site, including creating new games. Only when you create games for the first time you need to agree with the terms and conditions.

- Games are flash-based. I like the clear and soft site design and looks. Wish I could do that :-).

- The community has players of the week and the month, and a history of players of the month (I like that idea very much.) It also has a member directory and you can see who is online and who are the top 5 contributors. Furthermore there is a discussion forum.

- There are a few Google advertisements on the site, but they don't bother at all.

- The home page has a game of the day.

- The site is only in English.

- There are two kinds of games: image-based games and multiple choice games. Games have a high score tab, rating, comments but you can also add a game as a favorite. Games can be marked as public or not.

- The help section is very limited, just a minimal FAQ. But when you create games, you do get clear instructions.

- I tried out the game editor for multiple choice games and created the first quiz I had on my site : Aids Day. The editor is easy and intuitive with clear instructions. They also use a concept of making - preview - publish. And the editor is actually a combination of a form-based screen where you need to fill in the boxes, and a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) at the same time. Very impressive. You cannot add feedback to questions or extra links, and for some reason my first question wasn't saved, but otherwise it went very smooth. Check it out:

http://www.purposegames.com/game/aids-day-quiz-quiz/info

My end conclusion: very good site, worth checking out!

Labels: purposegames.com, quiz, trivia

I will start reviewing other quiz sites in this blog. I'll compare them to what I'm doing with about2findout.com, share my impression, get some inspiration, and each time donate and steal one question or quiz (bring on the lawsuits!).






I'm starting with the biggest of them all: funtrivia.com. By far, it is the largest and most popular trivia site and it dates back to the nineties. It has 1.900.000 members (!), and over 91.000 quizzes with in total 1.700.000 questions. Wow, that's big. At first impression: big and ugly site, but let's not jump ahead. Similar to about2findout.com the site is all about solving and submitting trivia questions and quizzes, and scoring points and get high in the rankings. But the underlying philosophy of the two sites is completely different.

Funtrivia is a typical web 1.0 site, where the design of about2findout.com goes for 2.0 elements where ever possible.. Funtrivia.com works with categories, not tags. It has forums. It works with a small group of editors who review submissions (and reject up to 2/3th) and control the quality of the site. And like all sites of that time, it suffers from severe ugliness and complexity. The complexity is probably a direct result its size and its development over time to keep people interested. It took me a while to figure out the difference between quizzes and games. Also the point system is scary at first sight. You easily get lost in the system. As for the look and feel, well, I'll try to give it a positive spin: vintage looks are hot. So this site would look great in a web museum. You know, the time sites had Times New Roman fonts. And oh my god, all that clip art. All that clip art! And what do all the icons mean? It's a good thing looks aren't everything. (I'm not saying that about2findout.com is beautiful and as simple as it can get, but at least over the last few months it has gotten better in both areas :).

The sign up procedure is easy and works with e-mail validation. But why are children under 13 not allowed? You get a few e-mails from them and can subscribe to a daily mailing list. (I also just launched one: the Friday Quizday mailing.) Once you are a member your points are kept, you can participate in the internal mailing system, etc. As a direct result of the size of funtrivia.com, you are compared within an assigned 'class', that is roughly the 5000 people who signed up at about the same time as you, so comparison makes sense. The language of the site is English.

You can search for quizzes in a certain category and questions are either multiple choice, fill in the blank or true/false. I find it strange that you have to type in 'TRUE' or 'FALSE' instead of selecting it, but it is probably good exercise for you finger muscles. You can get questions via HTML forms or via Flash. With the Flash player you get immediate feedback, with the HTML form you need to submit everything first. They also have daily and hourly quiz games that reset automatically. The global challenge is a nice initiative: it runs over a couple of months and is really for quiz die-hards. I haven't found any multi player games but maybe I didn't find them. As said: it's a complex site and patience is not a virtue I have. You can get points and badges. For example I have been on the site for two days now and made about 20 quizzes. Now I have a first level badge and this is my score and ranking:
"Your score of 1680 points ranks you as #286,574 of 777,506 ranking quiz players worldwide." Not bad after just 2 days. I conclude that a couple of 100.000 quiz players made an account once and never came back. But that is something I know as well.

The business model of funtrivia.com is in part advertisement, in part premium membership and in part selling quizzes. There is limited advertisement, it doesn't bother at all. The mainly rely on the gold membership they try to sell you for 20$ per 6 months. As a gold member you get extra things, such as access to special tournaments and advanced statistics but also some stuff that I find quite basic such as the ability to upload an avatar, visual indications of what quizzes you have already done or unlimited score tracking (for regular members only 300 quizzes are stored). I have no idea if they are as successful as Flickr in selling premium memberships. They also sell trivia questions for use in your own quiz evenings.
About2findout.com on the other hand is just starting up and changes almost every day. It is still searching for a way to get sustainable income to cover the hosting fees. The plan is to do it via the Google Adsense on the question page. So far I haven't seen a Google dollar yet, but we are hopeful.

Some other random things I like about the site: the notions of teams (for example I'm part of the Belgian quizzes group), the fact that they suggest similar quizzes based on the one you did, the whole concept of tournaments spread over days or weeks to make sure people keep playing and come back. Some things other than the complex and ugly nature I don't like: I can't upload a quiz yet. I was ready to donate the Christmas or HIV quiz, but you need to be a member over one month and have done 100 quizzes before you are even allowed to submit a quiz that will then be rejected or accepted by the editors. I guess I'll have to keep going back to funtrivia for a month and keep you informed of the authoring capabilities in one month from now...

In summary: funtrivia.com is the biggest of its kind, and that is mainly due to its size (many people, many questions) which attracts newcomers and due to the quality of its questions database. But it is big and ugly and complex and partly free, partly paying. Above all, it is a typical web 1.0 site.
In comparison to about2findout.com, I must say they had to deal with a lot of things I don't need to because I have a limited amount of players and questions. The philosophy of the sites are different: I rely on the 'wisdom of the crowds' to guard the quality of the trivia, not on editors and all kinds of rules. But funtrivia does have something that I should introduce one of these months: a purpose. You can play tournaments etc, in about2findout.com you can only do a question and a quiz. It will improve once I get around programming the challenge, where you can bet points with your friends, but still, I need some reasons for people to come back to the site more often.

Labels: about2findout.com, funtrivia.com, quiz, trivia

Ho, ho, ho!
The Christmas Quiz has gone live. It has 9 questions on Christmas, the history of Christmas and Santa Claus. So, what do you know about it? Only one way to find out...

QuickCode: DGZMU
Link: http://www.about2findout.com/quickcode.aspx?code=DGZMU

Labels: about2findout, christmas, quiz, santa

I added a quiz type to about2findout.com. It is called the 7of9 quiz, and the concept is simple. The quiz has 9 questions. As before, every question will get you 1, 2 or 3 points according to its difficulty level. After you've done all questions and if you answered at least 7 or more questions correct, you will get double points for the quiz.

The Author Zone now has a new button to create the quiz. First you edit the quiz by just adding the IDs of 9 questions. They don't have to be your own questions even, you can add any question. Next you can preview, publish or promote your quiz, just as you can for individual questions.
Please let me know if you like this new feature and how it can be improved or made easier.

The site has just gone live with its first quiz, the Aids Day 2007 Quiz. World Aids Day is traditionally held on Dec 1st, which is also my target date for the going live. Try it on:
http://www.about2findout.com/quickcode.aspx?code=AMH7E .

Labels: 7of9, about2findout, quiz

AIDS has been around for more than 25 year now. Despite the fact it has killed more than 25 million people since 1981, AIDS is still unspoken and unknown in many countries. What do you know about HIV and AIDS? Take the 7of 9 quiz and share it with your friends!

http://www.about2findout.com/quickcode.aspx?code=AMH7E

This quiz is also the opening quiz on the brand new about2findout.com quiz 2.0 site, a site dedicated to questions, answers and quizzes. Hint: create an account if you want to keep scores.

Labels: about2findout, AIDS, HIV, quiz, World Aids Day

This Saturday I'm leaving for Orlando, Florida and I'm not coming back for 2 weeks. So I took the opportunity to create a little quiz with 9 questions on Florida. Hope you enjoy.

http://www.about2findout.com/quickcode.aspx?code=VKPLF

Labels: about2findout, florida, quiz

Creating questions is four easy steps: 1- edit, 2- preview, 3- publish and 4- promote. I made a little video tutorial on how to do it. Since Jing has a 5-minute limit, it is split in two parts. So enjoy and surprise me with your questions!

Part 1
Part 2
















Transcript:
Hello big world!
My name is Bert and today I want to show you how to create questions on the about2findout.com site. Creating questions is 4 easy steps: first you create and edit the question. You fill in all fields on the form, and don't forget to add relevant tags so people can
easily find your question back. Next in step 2 you preview the question. You can go over all options and links just as any user would see them and check if everything is as you want it. Step 3 is an important step where you publish your question. Once published, the question becomes available to anyone and you get rewarded for making a question. In step 4 we offer you some ways to promote your question like for example linking it from your blog or site.

Let's just do it.

Go to the author zone. You can go to anywhere in the site from any page by going to the main menu in the top left corner. It's the little drop down icon. Select author zone. Here you see a list of all the questions you have made. Questions can either be in draft (that means not published yet), published or expired. To create a question, either press the create button or just hover over it and select the question type from the menu.

That brings us to step 1: editing the question. Notice that the 4 steps are listed in the menu on the right side. Fill in the fields. Fields in bold with an asterix are mandatory. You can't have a question without well... a question, can you? Let's fill this in with an example. The assignment should usually be left blank, but you can type in specific instructions. Don't just say: select the best answer. Everyone knows that. For every type of question you can have other fields to fill in here. For a multiple choice question you provide between two and six answer options. The first one you type in is the correct one. When we show this question the options will always be displayed in random order. Also select the language of your question, and very important, select some tags that classify your question. Whatever you do, don't give away the answer in the tags! Because tagging is so important, you can also use the tag assistent. When you click refresh, the tag assistant will parse the text you typed in and suggest some tags to add.
Before filling in other tabs, I recommend to hit the create button. If you want to provide additional information such as feedback to the options, additional settings, type in a little text that explains, or provide links to relevant places on the internet, by all means do so. The quality of your question will greatly improve when you provide additional information. Don't forget to hit the save button before you go to step 2 and preview the question.

In the preview you can go over the question like anyone on the site would see it. The only differences are that it's a green background because you are in the author zone, you can submit several times to try out all possibilities, and you don't get any points for answering. So you see the instruction belongs here. The links you provide are shown here. If you need to go back and make a change, use the menu on the right. If all is well, proceed to step 3, also with the menu.

Before you are allowed to publish, a few checks are made. You also get to select all the publication types of your question. For example, a multiple choice question with one option, can also be shown as a multiple choice question where the user can select more than one option.
You can go back and correct by clicking on step 1, or hit the publish button if all is OK. You get 5 points every time you publish a new question.

The fourth step allows you to promote your question, for example by copy/pasting the URL to your blog or site. Returning to the Author Zone shows us that we indeed have made a new question, with direct linkt to edit, preview or promote. And that's how easy it is to create questions. Remember: quality goes over quantity, so make good questions and provide proper tags and feedback. Don't make 100 questions at once, it's too much work. Personally I try to make one new question a day. I hope to see some of your questions one of these days!

Labels: about2findout, quiz, tutorial

In August the magazine EOS surveyed 713 Belgians on their general knowledge of sciences. The survey had 28 questions on general science topics such as technology, universe, health, ICT and history of science.

I've published the questions on about2findout.com. At the moment all questions are available in Dutch and already some in English. I'll translate more later on.

So does the Earth revolve around the sun or is it the other way around?
Try it yourself! You can find back these questions at:
http://www.about2findout.com/findout/search.aspx?tags=eos2007




(Update Dec 20: link updated)

Labels: about2findout, eos, quiz, science

In april I asked readers from my blog for quiz questions. Today I loaded most of them on the experimental about3findout.com quiz site. So go along and try the first 10 questions on the site!
You can leave feedback at the bottom of the page for bugs or suggestions as explained here, or you can comment on the questions themselves after answering them. Have fun!

Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
Question 4
Question 5
Question 6
Question 7
Question 8
Question 9
Question 10

(Update Dec 20: links updated)

Labels: about2findout, questions, quiz