NewsUp, for the time being, is postponing the launch of its news trivia game on mobile devices.
The startup’s public beta of its trivia game launched today on Facebook instead, after a month-long private beta “with a group of about 30 people, including gamers, news junkies and a few people who don’t usually play [Facebook] games,” said cofounder Andrew Schuster in an e-mail.
Check the game here.
NewsUp, a 2012 graduate of AccelerateBaltimore, had originally planned on developing its news-based trivia game in mobile app form, but chose “to launch for Facebook first to solidify the game play and grow our audience,” Schuster said.
As Technically Baltimore previously reported, NewsUp launched its trivia feature this past September, a few months after presenting at AccelerateBaltimore Demo Day last July, and had plans for a mobile app through which users would receive points for picking the correct answers to a variety of news quizzes.
“After we finished our mobile prototype, it became clear that products going ‘mobile first’ were becoming increasingly more difficult to market and grow because of a flooded app market and high user acquisition costs,” said Schuster. “We’re utilizing the web first to make sure that when we release for mobile, it’s because our audience is already active and wants to carry us around in their pocket.”
In the Facebook version of NewsUp’s trivia game, users pick from a variety of quizzes, based on politics, entertainment, sports and technology.
- Players are presented four possible answers to five different questions.
- Players earn points by choosing correct answers in the fastest time possible against an opponent. “Power ups” are also available, including a clock freeze, a 50/50 that removes two wrong answers and hints.
- Each quiz is worth 100 points, and despite answering all five questions correctly in the politics quiz — something we’re telling you because we’re insecure about our physical height — Technically Baltimore received a score of just 66 points because we didn’t answer questions quickly enough.
The NewsUp team is six people strong, and aside from $25,000 in seed funding from AccelerateBaltimore, the startup has been bootstrapped.
“We have exciting plans in our roadmap,” said Schuster. “But right now we’re extremely focused on making the world’s best news trivia game.”
Companies:
NewsUp
Before you go...
Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.
3 ways to support our work:- Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
- Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
- Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
Join our growing Slack community
Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!