Since the advent of smartphone technology, pub quizzing has been in crisis.
Already suffering something of an image crisis, this age old pursuit of pub-loving trivia buffs was dealt what looked likely to prove a fatal blow when punters started turning up to quizzes with mobile phones which could be used to surf the web – the new-found ease of cheating using search engines completely undermined the authority of quizmasters and meant that pub quizzers could never be sure of a fair game.
How SpeedQuizzing saved the Pub Quiz
But the smartphone giveth with one hand while the other hand taketh away!
A few years back an app called smartquizzing was tested out for the first time at a bar in York, England.
The app offered a completely different experience of quizzing to the norm, challenging teams to play along with the quizmaster in real time using their touch-screen smartphones. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Real time play made the quiz more exciting and dynamic, the new format breathed new life into a format which was staid to the point of staleness, but perhaps most importantly of all, it made it impossible for players to cheat.
Answering questions against the clock, in real time meant there was no time for cheaters to look up the answers to questions before it was too late. The pub quiz was saved! SpeedQuizzing has since spread around the world – check out the list of pub quizzes globally which utilize the SpeedQuizzing app to track its progress!
Early issues
No great innovative technology can ever make a totally seamless journey from launching to commercial success and worldwide ubiquity, and this rule undoubtedly applied to SpeedQuizzing.
In the early days, the app’s main problem came in the form of grumbles from some naysayers who felt that the format couldn’t succeed as not all pub quizzers actually had touch-screen smartphones.
Gladly, the team behind the app had the foresight to predict that within the space of a few years it would be exceptionally unusual for a whole pub quiz team not to own a smartphone with a touch-screen between them.
Building on initial successes
SpeedQuizzing has been developed over the past year to incorporate a range of new features including alternative modes and re-vamped audio rounds.
The continuing development of the app promises to secure its growing status as the savior of pub quizzing!
