Crandi

A Brief History Of Sporcle Sporcle Blog R Sporcle Reddit

Leo Migdal
-
a brief history of sporcle sporcle blog r sporcle reddit

Sporcle isn’t just a website, or an app, or an entertaining evening in a bar at night. Sporcle is a company dedicated to trivia and the all important mentally stimulating diversion. Here is its story. In late 2006 and early 2007 after leaving a company he helped found, Matt Ramme was looking for something new. Ramme had an entrepreneurial spirit and was looking for a way to combine his love of sports with user-to-user interaction. He had an idea for a website that would allow users to prognosticate sporting events in a fantasy sports type of environment.

He created a site that allowed anyone to be an oracle with a sporting chance and called the site Sporcle. Ramme asked a graphic designer friend create a logo for him that incorporated a fun-looking crystal ball to help round out the idea. He chose the color orange as the color scheme because it was associated with joy and represented enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, and determination. With the help of his longtime friend and fellow entrepreneur Ali Aydar, Ramme launched Sporcle on January 30th, 2007. Users could create an account, join or create a group and predict what teams might win within the NFL, NHL, NBA, and other sporting leagues. The site got some traction and a couple hundred users created accounts.

However, the problem was that Ramme was a one man show and updating results across various sports leagues week over week was a tedious process. For example, Ramme had to update Sporcle to reflect the NHL playoffs while on vacation in Europe during the spring of 2007. The other problem – he didn’t really like what he had created. With Sporcle up and running Ramme was busy but still had time for side projects. Ramme and his wife were avid New York Times crossword lovers and regular Jeopardy watchers. He noticed that most of these puzzles, games, and trivia-related activities shared many common traits.

It helped to know the US Presidents, state capitals, periodical table of elements, and other subjects one often learned in middle and high school. Initially, Ramme made a series of flash cards to quiz himself, but soon took to the internet to see if there was a easier way to test himself on more topics. The problem was there weren’t many online sites in place that helped people (re)learn these topics. Frustrated with the poor options out there, Ramme created a basic page that quizzed him on the US Presidents. Sensing that others might share the same interest, he posted the quiz on Sporcle on July 2nd, 2007 and promptly went camping. When I started Sporcle 6 years ago, I could never have expected that so many people would end up playing these quick trivia and puzzle games.

What started as a better way to remember the U.S. Presidents has become a totally new way to play trivia on the web. In the process, it has spawned the collective creativity of millions of people all around the world. So today we have reached a billion games played. Since we know the average game takes about 3 1/2 minutes to play, that means Sporclers have spent nearly 3 million days playing Sporcle games. That’s 8,200 years of naming presidents, countries, and things Meatloaf wouldn’t do for love.

I started Sporcle as a way to improve my Jeopardy and crossword skills and ended up learning so much more than that. Hopefully that is an experience a lot of users have…stumbling upon some new tidbit of knowledge or learning something about the world they didn’t know, such as which countries have the most chickens. We here at Sporcle have been blessed with the best community on the internet, and we have a blast every day seeing what Sporclers come up with. You’ve taken our love of trivia and focus on quality, and helped create nearly a half million quizzes on every topic imaginable, even 19th Century Composers from Finland. We love hearing from Sporclers about the fun times they’ve had trying to come up with that one last answer, or finding themselves pulled down a rabbit hole into quizzes they didn’t even know... Sporcle is a web site and mobile application that provides fun and addictive quizzes.

Games range from trivial diversions to educational study guides. Our mission is to provide our users brain-engaging fun everyday. Sporcle is a privately held company with offices in Seattle, WA and San Francisco, CA. For inquiries and questions, please drop us a line. Sporcle was founded by Matt Ramme (@cofeer) and is led by Ali Aydar (@eyedar). The product team is led by Derek Pharr (@dpharr) and the engineering team is led by Bob Scheld (@nandgate).

Founded in 2007, Sporcle came to life with the response to its first quiz, naming theU.S. Presidents. As avid crossword, Jeopardy! and trivia fans, we created that original quiz not only to test knowledge, but also as a way to learn a piece of information that seemed to come up again and again. We’ve all heard it - the Great Sporcle Redesign of 2022 is nearly upon us. Because the site’s design has remained relatively stable for several years now, newer users may not realize that it ever looked different and longer-term users may not remember what the previous iterations looked like.

As such, a walk down memory lane might get us better prepared for the coming redesign. 1. The beginning - Sports predictions (April 2007 front page screenshot) When Sporcle first launched as a domain, it was a sports prediction platform. The oldest screenshot that the Wayback Machine has is this one from April of 2007. If you’ve wondered about the origin of the word ‘Sporcle’, take a gander at the upper right-hand portion of the screen here:

2. The Sporcle we know - Quizzes! (July 2007 front page screenshot) In July of 2007, a site capture appears with the first quiz on the site - The U.S. Presidents quiz that we still know and love. The sports predictions are still there, but the seeds of modern Sporcledom are planted:

On the morning of July 4th, 2007, the US Presidents quiz made the front page of digg.com (which in 2007 was a pretty big deal). In one day that quiz garnered over 100,000 plays. However, the problem was that Ramme was a one man show and updating results across various sports leagues week over week was a tedious process. For example, Ramme had to update Sporcle to reflect the NHL playoffs while on vacation in Europe during the spring of 2007. In early 2008, Ramme was having lunch with Derek Pharr, a friend and former colleague who was a project manager at Adobe Systems Inc. By late 2008, it was clear that the demand for quiz creation was exceeding their ability to create content.

On September 23rd, 2009 anyone could come to Sporcle to create an account of their own.

People Also Search

Sporcle Isn’t Just A Website, Or An App, Or An

Sporcle isn’t just a website, or an app, or an entertaining evening in a bar at night. Sporcle is a company dedicated to trivia and the all important mentally stimulating diversion. Here is its story. In late 2006 and early 2007 after leaving a company he helped found, Matt Ramme was looking for something new. Ramme had an entrepreneurial spirit and was looking for a way to combine his love of spo...

He Created A Site That Allowed Anyone To Be An

He created a site that allowed anyone to be an oracle with a sporting chance and called the site Sporcle. Ramme asked a graphic designer friend create a logo for him that incorporated a fun-looking crystal ball to help round out the idea. He chose the color orange as the color scheme because it was associated with joy and represented enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, and determination. With the h...

However, The Problem Was That Ramme Was A One Man

However, the problem was that Ramme was a one man show and updating results across various sports leagues week over week was a tedious process. For example, Ramme had to update Sporcle to reflect the NHL playoffs while on vacation in Europe during the spring of 2007. The other problem – he didn’t really like what he had created. With Sporcle up and running Ramme was busy but still had time for sid...

It Helped To Know The US Presidents, State Capitals, Periodical

It helped to know the US Presidents, state capitals, periodical table of elements, and other subjects one often learned in middle and high school. Initially, Ramme made a series of flash cards to quiz himself, but soon took to the internet to see if there was a easier way to test himself on more topics. The problem was there weren’t many online sites in place that helped people (re)learn these top...

What Started As A Better Way To Remember The U.S.

What started as a better way to remember the U.S. Presidents has become a totally new way to play trivia on the web. In the process, it has spawned the collective creativity of millions of people all around the world. So today we have reached a billion games played. Since we know the average game takes about 3 1/2 minutes to play, that means Sporclers have spent nearly 3 million days playing Sporc...