The Annual Review: 2015 / 2016
Happy New Year to all our quiz hosts and quiz players. 2015 was an exciting year for SpeedQuizzing and a great year for new quizzes. We saw a bigger growth in US hosts and witnessed brand new European countries sign up to start hosting using the software. We speak to SpeedQuizzing creators Alan and John Leach to find out their thoughts on 2015 and what to expect in 2016.
Happy New Year to you both, trust you both had a great Christmas too. How was the end of 2015 for you both?
Alan: Boozy, messy, un-dignified, with unpleasant knock-on consequences. Spent with John and other family and friends acting like we were still youngsters.
John: Christmas was going quite splendidly until boxing day when the floods hit. This did do some serious Christmas spoiling for a lot of people in York, including my wife’s parents, whose house was right in the flood zone. However, we ploughed on though to new year with lots of kids Christmas movies and some great parties!
Last year saw the a bigger growth of SpeedQuizzing USA, new countries in Europe popping up, the testing of 64 device software, Handset Buzzer Selection, another successful stand at BPM a long with many other great new features. How was 2015 in your opinion?
Alan: Great in terms of growth. A bit frustrating at our end in terms of things taking longer to develop than expected and then I went off playing silly buggers for a month at the end of the year which mean’s I’ve some catching up to do, but we hope to have some exciting new stuff to show in the first Q of this year.
John: SpeedQuizzing 4.0 began in 2015 but is still in production now as there has been quite a lot of trial and error involved in getting it properly on track. There are so many improvements which I am sure all hosts will love.
Is there anything last year you with you could have done more of or differently?
Alan: Neither myself or John are from a business background so it can be hard making some of the serious decisions. We have a new business manager starting at the end of the month who I’m hoping is going to steer us in some good directions.
John: Lessons learned in 2015 have got me back working on SpeedQuizzing 4.0 full-time. I had various freelance developers working on it be found them all disappointing regarding both how long things take and also the quality of their work. Does anyone know a good HTML5/Javascript developer?
John Leach
What was the highlight(s) of SpeedQuizzing in 2015 for you?
Alan: It’s hard to say. BPM was a success again, the Handset Buzzer ID Selection was a challenge and was great to see it working and people appreciating it.
John: BPM was fun. It does definitely stimulate some company growth, but it is an expensive old do. There is talk of approaching the whole BPM thing next year from a different angle. Watch this space ;).
If you could describe 2015 for SpeedQuizzing in 3 words what would they be?
Alan: Pretty good really.
John: SpeedQuizzing Four.. Whoop!
What sort of things can we look forward to seeing for both quiz hosts and quiz players in 2016?
Alan: I think if there’s one thing we need to do is stop promising things before we’ve really considered how long they take to create, develop, test etc. A new look, 64 version with some nice new touches is in the making and hopefully there is a light at the end of the tunnel but it has taken a lot longer than we thought it would so I’m not going to promise anything right now.
The website also needs a bit of a re-think which is also on the to-doodly do list, as is adding other languages in the software to allow us to expand in other countries.
John: By the end of 2016 (probably much earlier) SpeedQuizzing should provide most of these, Brand new user interface, 60+ connections, Advanced options for excluding/filtering teams in play, Five new languages, Sound Clips game with extensive new features, No longer requires Adobe Air, Drag and drop slide editors to control both Live Screen slides and handset adverts. Notification system allowing hosts to contact players though their SpeedQuizzing app.
Can we look forward to seeing SpeedQuizzing at BPM again? Are there any plans to showcase the software anywhere else?
Alan: We did some pub roadshows as well as BPM last year but in all honesty, it is still only a small handful of maverick landlords who don’t look at you like you’re mad when you demo it in front of them, so won’t be in a rush to do any more of this just yet. BPM is fun but it’s not a cheap weekend away so we’ll have to wait and see about that.
John: I’ve have already covered BPM above. Regarding other places to exhibit, this will be something our new business manager can look into. Just as Alan says in his responses, it is possible to invest a lot of time and energy into taking SpeedQuizzing to an exhibition, only to find, once there, that no one has gives two hoots about it.
What are we likely to see first this year?
Alan: There was talk of a bug towards the end of last year where some teams answers occasionally weren’t getting through. Everything else is kind of on hold for a few days whilst this gets looked at and hopefully there will be an update in a few days.
John: A beta version of SpeedQuizzing 4.0 (with limited features) will be out soon!
