Interactive Live Streaming…

Content is king. It’s been king and reality TV was essentially created as a cost effective way for networks to keep up with the increasingly voracious content appetites of their audiences. Beginning with The Price is Right in 1972, it’s still true today as Netflix and others seek to outpace each other in the never ending race for more content. Viewers simply can’t get enough.

As a result, creators and corporations alike are turning more frequently to streaming to source this content. Facebook and Instagram aggressively promote their live-streamed content with nonstop notifications. Some sites like Twitch crowd source their streaming while others are taking a more novel approach. One such portal is the new HQ trivia app. Brought to us by the creators of Vine, this trivia show is looking like the future of original content. The gamified streams occur only in-app and twice a day during the week, once on weekends. And, they pay you for winning.

So how does it work? Users can chose to watch or participate in the sessions that run about 15 minutes per stream. The streams run either 3pm or 9pm EST and have a two minute countdown to login for participation. Essentially, HQ is like Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, but the audience is both the contestant and the viewer. Saturday night the prize was $500 and of the 18.3k users who were in the game playing on the first question only eleven survived all twelve questions and they were each awarded $46 for their 15 minute time investment.

$46 in 15 minutes is $184/hr, do you make $184/hr at your job? Maybe, but not many do. The next night the prize was $1500 and 30,000 users tuned in! HQ is fuzing engaging short-form original content with robust incentivization to cultivate a highly engaged audience. It’s the proverbial golden carrot, except now it’s just dangled in front of us through an app with the classic game show format. We’ve been paying attention to its growth as well and so far users have grown about 10,000 in just the last week. It all feels like an episode of Black Mirror, or that one movie Nerve.

People love game shows because it feels like they can be a part of it. That’s why the game show has survived for four and a half decades. Live streaming is the most recent iteration of the always cherished live experience. Where people have always played along and shouted answers from their sofas, HQ is giving them the ability to actually participate in the event. Now you aren’t just watching and cheering for the everyday man or woman, you’re in the fray competing for the coin. HQ is a very unique and interesting game. There’s something alluring and exciting about it that we just can’t put our thumb on. Download it from the app store immediately here and give it a whirl. We’re sure it’ll keep you coming back to play for cash everyday. It’s exciting to see a company build a product that weaves in so many compelling aspects, leaving us wondering, “Why didn’t we think of this?”

Written by Nathan Raffel

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