News

Join the Sporcle Underground

  •  Posted by Sporcle  •  1 Comment

TODAY, Sporcle can be found at:  http://bit.ly/O5H0tn

Is Sporcle blocked?!?

Stop fighting the filters. Stop trying to fill the Sporcle-sized hole left in your work day. Follow us to Sporcle’s newest internet location: Sporcle Underground.

Sporcle Underground is the same site you know and love, except that we’re mirrored…somewhere. No more blocks, no more frustration, no more sadness. Keep updated to our latest location by following us @sporcleundrgrnd.

To maintain a low profile, we’ll periodically change location. So, if you show up one day and we’re not there, check back in to stay on our tracks. Tell your friends, spread the word, and bookmark this post for more info.

Can I get Sporcle Unblocked?

While many companies, schools, and organizations use blocking technology to restrict who can access certain sites – all is not lost. Often these filters can be appealed. Lobby your IT department, School Board, or even find an agent of the filtering company and request a review of Sporcle.com.

Sporcle is often misclassified as a “Social site” when in fact most of the quizzes are educational. In many cases, blocks can be lifted once Sporcle is reclassified.

Welcome to Sporcle University

  •  Posted by mselby  •  1 Comment

Over time, we’ve had many requests for a Sporcle forum where users can post messages to each other to discuss issues of the site at large, or just learn how to make better quizzes. We looked at our options and now we’ve created a Google group called Sporcle University.

Sporcle University is an open forum where anyone can post questions or comments and talk about just about any Sporcle-related thing they want. Things are just getting started, but if you have any thoughts or questions, post them on the forum, or contact us directly from our Feedback page.

Brooklyn Nets Have Arrived on Sporcle

  •  Posted by mselby  •  Comments Off

It always causes a bit of a stir at Sporcle HQ when major sports teams change their name or move to a different city. In the last year alone, we’ve had the Atlanta Thrashers morph into the Winnipeg Jets and the Florida Marlins become the Miami Marlins. These small name changes can wreak havok on Sporcle, as many of our quizzes include specific questions about where teams are from or the first letter of their name. The latest in this long saga is the New Jersey Nets, who have now become the Brooklyn Nets.

As for how this effects the site, it primarily changes quizzes where you need to name the ‘Big 4′  or NBA teams that fit the specified criteria. Earlier stat quizzes where a player may have a record acquired with the New Jersey Nets, will still display the old team name. If you happen to see a quiz that needs to be updated from New Jersey to Brooklyn, please submit a quiz report using the ‘Report a Quiz’ link or send us a note at our Feedback page.

Friday the 13th on Sporcle

  •  Posted by Rachel  •  Comments Off

If you’re reading this blog post and you’ve been on edge today, you might be one of the many people with paraskevidekatriaphobia, or rather, an unnatural fear or phobia of Friday the 13th.  Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Friday the 13th is a day that captivates many imaginations and locks into our superstitious fears, no matter who you are or where you are in the world. While its origins remain unclear, and a quick Google search will pull up millions of theories, one thing is sure: more people are superstitious towards this day than any other. It might have something to do with the unfortunate combination of the unlucky number 13 and the unlucky day of Friday (just a hunch),or the fact that we tend to pay more attention to misfortune on this day more than any other. Spilled coffee on Tuesday the 10th is just inconvenient, but spilled coffee on Friday the 13th carries the inevitable foreshadowing of doom and misfortune.

Read more

800 Million Plays and Counting…

  •  Posted by Sporcle  •  3 Comments

Earlier today we crossed the 800 million game play mark. That’s an incredible number, and we want to thank all of our users for getting us here. In fact to adequately explain just how incredible it is, Hejman, a Sporcle moderator, emailed us the following facts to mark the occasion:

800 Million plays comes out to:

  • 2.56 plays for every American
  • 12.85 plays for every Briton
  • 34.87 plays for every Australian
  • 22.97 plays for every Canadian
  • 146.05 plays for every citizen of Kyrgyzstan
  • Each game on Sporcle has been played an average of 2,806 times. (Thanks to Bazmerelda for this one)
  • Since Sporcle’s inception in July 2007, there have been an average of 18,200+ quizzes played per hour, which is equivalent to just over 300 quizzes per minute or 5 quizzes every second. In the time it just took you to read this comment, there have been 50 quizzes completed. (Thanks to Brandon Anderson in the comments)

If you happen to find any more amazing facts about this impressive Sporcle achievement, please add them in the comments. Thanks again everyone, we’re extremely proud and humbled by just how many diversions we’ve caused.

Flerovium, Livermorium and You

  •  Posted by Sporcle  •  1 Comment

The time has finally come. Sporcle has updated all of our science quizzes, including the classic Periodic Table, to honor and welcome two new elemental friends. Elements 114 and 116 have officially become flerovium and livermorium. The symbols for the new elements are Fl and Lv. Flerovium is named after the Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov, for whom the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions is named. On the other hand, Livermorium is named after the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where much of this research is done. The Lawrence Livermore national lab already has the element lawrencium named after it, whereas Livermore is actually the name of the town. This is the first time in a long time that there has been a gap in the periodic table, as neither elements 113 nor 115 have yet been synthesized and reconfirmed. Of course, this just means we could yet have a Sporclium in the periodic table.

For those of you who are wondering just how an element is names, it goes like this: First a set of researchers (either in Germany, the US or Russia) creates a new element. Then, another set of researchers must recreate this experiment to confirm the results. The original group then has the right to name the element. They suggest a name to IUPAC (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) who meets to see if they agree with the suggestions. Then after a period of 6 months, if no one has any complaints, the names are officially adopted. For even more info, here’s the official press release.

 

Quizzes You Might Have Missed (May 2012)

  •  Posted by mselby  •  Comments Off

It was a busy month here at Sporcle, and if you skipped a few days of Sporcling, you might just have missed one of the best quizzes of the month. Instead of just feeling bad about it, we thought we’d put together a monthly recap of all the most interesting games on Sporcle in May.

Take a look at our full list of top games below, and let us know about your favorites in the comments.

Top Featured Quizzes

Fun Non-Featured Gems

Top Blog Posts

 

The Retirement of the Mixed Word

  •  Posted by stadlera  •  4 Comments

It’s the end of an era on Sporcle. As many of you may have noticed, we’ve removed Mixed Word quizzes form the Sporcle’s Daily Dose. On Sporcle, Mixed Word became a daily Sporcle feature (and soon thereafter its own IOS app) in Fall 2010. Since then it has been featured every day, amounting to a genre of hundreds of quizzes. Sadly, all good things must come to an end (we still miss Arrested Development). While we realize some of you loved the Mixed Word, there weren’t enough people with an interest in playing them daily to warrant the amount of time and effort that went into creating them every day.

The good news is that there are still 11 game packs for the Sporcle app, and hundreds of Mixed Word quizzes on Sporcle.com (http://www.sporcle.com/games/subcategory/mixedword). So if you love Mixed Words, there still are lots and lots of games to play. Also, users are still free to make more Mixed Words on their own for other Mixed Word devotees on the site. We know Sporcle users are phenomenally creative, and if you really don’t want to see Mixed Words decline then make some on your own, or encourage others who’ve made really great ones to make more!

As a parting gift, we have updated the app with a no-timer option, so you can take your time when playing through the hundreds of Mixed Words you have yet to go through!

As Sporcle changes and develops, we’ll always try and provide relevant and fun content for the Sporcle community. While some things are left behind as we move into the future, we’ll always strive to keep the site informative, fresh, and entertaining.

Sporcle Social Sites

  •  Posted by mselby  •  Comments Off

We know it’s hard out there on the Internet to easily be alerted of all the latest Sporcle news & developments. To make things easier, we’ve compiled a handy guide to all our social media sites below.

Facebook

Like our Sporcle Facebook page (with nearly 100,000 followers). We feature fun quizzes every day, as well as polls, pics and more.

 

Twitter

You can follow us on Twitter @Sporcle. We post new quizzes every day, plus other fascinating facts and trivia.

 

Google +

Diehard Google fans should check our page on Google+. Don’t forget to give Sporcle a +1!

 

Tumblr

If you’re big on Tumblr, you can follow all the latest and greatest Sporcle Blog action and sporcle quizzes. Check out the Sporcle Tumblr.

 

Pinterest

If you’re a Pinterest addict like we are, check out Sporcle’s official Pinterest Boards.

 

 

iOS

Get Sporcle on the go with our iOS Apps. Check out our mobile page for more details.

 

Android

Sporcle’s on Android too. Get all the fun features you’d expect on your Android Device.

Quizzes You Might Have Missed (March 2012)

  •  Posted by mselby  •  1 Comment

It was a busy month here at Sporcle, and if you skipped a few days of Sporcling, you might just have missed one of the best quizzes of the month. Instead of just feeling bad about it, we thought we’d put together a monthly recap of all the most interesting games on Sporcle in March.

Take a look at our full list of top games below, and let us know about your favorites in the comments.

Top Featured Quizzes

Fun Non-Featured Gems

Top Blog Posts