

Ask HN: Review my startup - www.triviatise.com - triviatise

Would like some review of the site, elevator pitch and suggestion of features. Also, please dont mind the design we are focusing on functionality right now. If you are a designer, we would definitely considering hiring you on a contract basis to fix up the site.<p>Elevator pitch
triviatise helps advertisers get consumers to remember their message. In return for learning and answering questions about the advertisers' product, consumers get a chance to win a prize. Answering questions has been proven to create a much stronger retention of information.<p>Consumers can improve their chance to win by referring their friends and having them take the triviatisement<p>Here are some features we are working on:
1) leaderboards that give you extra chances to win
2) tasks that give you extra chances to win
3) the more triviatisements you take, the more chances you get to win
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chad_oliver
I was initially skeptical, but I found myself sucked in - I've completed the
quiz for the ipad. Furthermore, I now know a lot more about your product,
because I had to look up the answers.

I think a major challenge will be, how do you keep people returning to the
site? Once they apply for a few promotions and don't win any, what's stopping
them giving up? Perhaps you could feature short (believable) interviews with
the people who won, or for a short time after a prize was won you could have a
banner on the site saying, "Mr Smith Won an iPad!". Something that will make
people feel close to the winner, and make them think, "It could have been me".

I noticed that you must be over 18 to win the prize, but you also seem to be
planning to spread primarily through social media. These two factors are
opposed to some degree: the target audience that would be most excited about
this site, and the most willing to share on facebook, are the younger
teenagers. Personally, I didn't share on facebook because it wasn't something
I wanted to be associated with. Would it be possible to say, you can enter but
you can only receive a prize with your parent's permission?

Also, when I submitted the quiz, chrome brought up the red 'malicious webpage'
screen, because content was coming from heroku not triviatise.com.

~~~
triviatise
thanks for trying it out. The biggest barrier is perception of a scam. This is
why we show what your probability to win is as well as the current leaders and
your current # of entries. After the triviatisement closes an email goes out
to all winners and losers with the winners listed.

We feel like the target audience is stay at home moms and college students

Finally to keep people coming back we are working on 1) a metagame 2) trivia
that is fun that helps you stay engaged, get status and get more entries to
win via levels.

The idea is that people might check once a day to see if anything they want
has come up.

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HardyLeung
I tried it but frankly I am not a fan of this. Experience-wise it reminds me
of those "Enter to Win a Prius" box in the mall where you fill out your
information in hope of winning something which even you realize will not
happen. In the meantime your personal information got sold to various mailing
list...

I know you are not like that but that's my first impression. Your site is too
showsman-esque (even the logo, and your _NAME_ ) and in this age of privacy
(or lack thereof) I think many would be turned off. Try to think of some other
ways to come across as less slick-oily.

For example, you may want to do this in a way that participants _always_ win
(instead of entering for a _chance_ to win). Give smaller prize that doesn't
cost your advertiser much. Hammer the fact that participants not giving away
any personal information -- I think you said it in the website but the message
was not strong enough.

~~~
triviatise
The snake oil perception is a huge barrier. But we also think it will become a
barrier to competition once we become legit. (people probably thought groupon
was a scam at some point).

The triviatisements can be embedded in advertisers websites so that is how we
will get our initial traffic. The branding and the trust will come from the
advertisers. We have 4 advertisers lined up (and did 5 at SXSW) with a total
mailing list size of about 200K users.

We are trying to avoid the snake oil perception by having transparency in the
process. At all times you can go to the site to see what your probability is
to win. You can also see which of your referred friends took the
triviatisement so you know exactly how your entries are calculated. finally at
the end all entrants are notified of the winners (and advertisers have the
option to give coupons for the product)

The theory is that it will increase conversions

------
jefflinwood
Hi Tony!

I've got to agree with the other people here that it feels a little too much
like those scammy "You have won a free iPad" banner ads all over the place or
those weird, "where does my info actually go" Facebook quizzes.

I like the idea of using trivia as another social media outlet. Is there some
way to combine the social/group aspect of groupon and living social with your
trivia game? For instance - 300 people got the trivia quiz correct, so now
everybody gets 20% off coupons for the product - 500 correct, everyone gets
30% off and so forth? Give people some incentive to spread the trivia quizzes
around.

~~~
triviatise
yeah most of the time the stuff will not be us giving away ipad 2's. Most of
the stuff will be advertisers giving away stuff using triviatisements embedded
on their website. So the credibility comes from them. Then after it is over,
they will generally give out a coupon. Our theory is that their conversion
rate will be higher than with normal coupons.

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mapster
I think this could be a good service. But possibly Flash or something more
polished and less spammy. Possibly the tradeoff would be 'Hey, what do you
know about us? Pass the test and take 15% off your next order."

------
iworkforthem
easy to click: <http://www.triviatise.com>

