And the winner is...music trivia!

Thanks everyone for the awesome suggestions - both for a game idea for The Social and for other requests (you can continue to submit other requests in the Wishlist forums!).

Based on the poll and your comments, music trivia seems to have risen to the top. So let's go with that. Our next step is to figure out what exactly music trivia means.

Questions to answer:

• Can users submit questions?
• Do we need editors to approve them?
• Should we do genre- or decade-based quizzes?
• Are there different types of questions - for example, ones where you listen to a song clip, view an album cover, or is it just trivia (i.e. what is the best-selling album of all time?)
• Are questions multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, a combination of all of them?
• Is there a hierarchy of quizzes - for example, I may be a specialist in electronica only, and not know a thing about rock. So we could have genre-based quizzes and then general quizzes, and the more you complete the higher level you attain?
• How many questions should be in a quiz? How often do we need to add new questions? Who adds them?
• Can users create their own quizzes on their own profile pages about whatever they want?

I'm sure there are more questions to discuss; let's start with these and let you guys imagine what music trivia ought to be like. Remember that music trivia is available all over the web at various sites; we're looking for unique angles on the concept.

And finally, don't forget the legal stuff:

-- You must abide by our Code of Conduct.

-- Any ideas you submit are fair game for Zune to use, per our Terms of Use.

So, keep those ideas and comments coming!

Oh, and btw: I've locked the older threads to keep the comments in here; please stay on topic. Your ideas about things other than music trivia belong here, in the wishlist forums for software, device, marketplace, and social.

Jessica Zahn, Zune Social Program Manager ~ This posting is provided as-is with no warranties, and confers no rights.

• Can users submit questions?
• Do we need editors to approve them?
• Should we do genre- or decade-based quizzes?
• Are there different types of questions - for example, ones where you listen to a song clip, view an album cover, or is it just trivia (i.e. what is the best-selling album of all time?)
• Are questions multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, a combination of all of them?
• Is there a hierarchy of quizzes - for example, I may be a specialist in electronica only, and not know a thing about rock. So we could have genre-based quizzes and then general quizzes, and the more you complete the higher level you attain?
• How many questions should be in a quiz? How often do we need to add new questions? Who adds them?
• Can users create their own quizzes on their own profile pages about whatever they want?
  
  
  1. Yes, I believe that would be enjoyable
  2. Possibly. If we have a lot of moderators, that might be easiest.
  3. All of them!!
  4. I think that a "choose type of game" kind of deal would be cool. Kinda like a Step 1. Go Into Game, Step 2. Go To Question Select, Step 3. Start Game
  5.Yeah, that sounds good.
  6. I think it should be a sort of never-ending quiz, with each time you complete a question another random one of that genre is selected and you have to answer it. Whether right or wrong, you'll hopefully never get two of the same questions.
  7. Answered Above
  8. Yeah, that would be awesome!
  
  
  

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. I think that more people need to get a Zune o_o

• Can users submit questions? - Sure, but probably best if the editorial staff weeds through them. Might be a nice touch to show who submitted a question, if it is a user-submitted one. The one problem here would be if there are real prizes that can be earned (Marketplace credits, etc.) then user submitted questions provide a strong temptation for cheating the system. The flipside would be that editor-only questions would require a pretty deep staff out there in Redmond... I hope you have a large contingent of Zune staff with knowledge of bluegrass, electronica, country (and western!), swing, hair metal, death metal, prog rock... blah blah blah!
  
• Do we need editors to approve them? - Yes, both to screen out inappropriate questions, as well as inappropriately lame questions.
  
• Should we do genre- or decade-based quizzes? - Both. Genre should probably be extended to themes, kind of game-show Jeopardy-esque categories with cheesy names. Maybe one quiz would have remote getaways as a theme, and an answer might be something like Islands in the Stream.
  
• Are there different types of questions - for example, ones where you listen to a song clip, view an album cover, or is it just trivia (i.e. what is the best-selling album of all time?) - I think it probably needs to be as little of the plain-ol trivia as possible, since that is a little overdone and answers are just too easy to find on the Internet. If it's regular trivia, you're going to need some mighty cryptic questions. I like the album art idea, I doubt there is an online repository of all the details in every album cover and even a dedicated searcher is not going to look at every album cover... you need to know your covers to get that one!
  
• Are questions multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, a combination of all of them? - Combination of all
  
• Is there a hierarchy of quizzes - for example, I may be a specialist in electronica only, and not know a thing about rock. So we could have genre-based quizzes and then general quizzes, and the more you complete the higher level you attain?
  
• How many questions should be in a quiz? How often do we need to add new questions? Who adds them? - 10 is a nice round number. Maybe weekly updates? I think an endless stream of quizzes would be cool, but damn, that's a lot of clever questions somebody has to create! I think it makes the most sense for the editorial staff to update the quizzes, with the possibility of picking from user-submitted questions.
  
• Can users create their own quizzes on their own profile pages about whatever they want? - Sure, but will these count into our score if quiz results translate into some kind of ranking? I can envision some lame quizzes (but also some good ones!)

1. Can users submit questions?

A) How about a mix. Give users some questions as template and let them add too. Also keep adding to template from the questions the users have submitted. End result will be that the question bank will keep on increasing.

2. Do we need editors to approve them?

A) Unfortunately yes!

3. Should we do genre- or decade-based quizzes?

A) This should be an option. Let the user decide. He/She might pick one or decide to have a mix of 2 or 3 genres.

4. Are there different types of questions - for example, ones where you listen to a song clip, view an album cover, or is it just trivia (i.e. what is the best-selling album of all time?)

A) Got to give them all the option. It will be nice to have a mix.

5. Are questions multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, a combination of all of them?

A) Combination

6. Is there a hierarchy of quizzes - for example, I may be a specialist in electronica only, and not know a thing about rock. So we could have genre-based quizzes and then general quizzes, and the more you complete the higher level you attain?

A) Again let the user decide. Lets grade the quiz as easy, difficult and hardcore. User can select any which they want.

7. How many questions should be in a quiz? How often do we need to add new questions? Who adds them?

A) Keep a limit for Max and Min. Within that let user decide

8. Can users create their own quizzes on their own profile pages about whatever they want?

A) Well the quiz related to music should be created and the user should be able to post it to profile. Definitely!! I can see myself creating a quizzing and leaving it at my profile for others to try out

That was the existing question. Next time I will post my suggestion.

Well, we're very early in development - still determining what it would be. Based on our concepts, we'll put together a schedule.

But to tell the truth, I'm not getting the level of feedback I had hoped for. I had hoped to have at least 10 people or so actively contributing to the ideas...so where are you people? :-)

Jessica Zahn, Zune Social Program Manager ~ This posting is provided as-is with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 jetherealz wrote:

• Can users submit questions?  Sure, make it as interactive as possible. But moderate the questions.
• Do we need editors to approve them? See above
• Should we do genre- or decade-based quizzes? Do you want "Yes/No" to this question or do you want us to pick one? Its a bit ambiguous. :)  I say "Yes". 
• Are there different types of questions - for example, ones where you listen to a song clip, view an album cover, or is it just trivia (i.e. what is the best-selling album of all time?) I think there was a lot of support in the earlier threads for being able to listen to song clips and identify them. I love pub quizzes that do that and I'd love it here too.
• Are questions multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, a combination of all of them? Definitely a combination. All multiple-choice makes it too easy! You should have "rounds" i.e. A song clip round, a multiple choice round. Another one I like (again from pub quiz era) is trying to identify semi-famous people from their photos (or parts of photos).
• Is there a hierarchy of quizzes - for example, I may be a specialist in electronica only, and not know a thing about rock. So we could have genre-based quizzes and then general quizzes, and the more you complete the higher level you attain? Yes, I agree with that. And how about having a chart per genre and an overall chart? Charts enforce competition and that makes it viral.
• How many questions should be in a quiz? How often do we need to add new questions? Who adds them? Err...dunno!
• Can users create their own quizzes on their own profile pages about whatever they want? That would be fun. I think you'd have to keep them seperate from the "proper" one though (i.e. not make them eligible for the chart)

I'm trying to think of a unique angle on this but am having difficulty. Obviously you should have some sort of Facebook application that enables people to answer the questions on Facebook instead of on Zune Social, but of course they'd have to be registered with Zune Social and would have to come here to view the charts and stuff. Making it Facebook-able would definitely make it viral.

As you might know I'm a big fan of all-things-Windows Live so I'm wondering how that could be incorporated:

• Perhaps if you do the "photos round" as I suggest above where you only show them part of a picture, after they answer the question you could drive them to the real picture on search.live.com/images
• Show a VE map with a pushpin for the top 20 people or something. Say "Which is the music brain state" in order to drive competition
• For every quiz, show who has gotten the most points. This would be particularly useful in the genre-based quizzes because it could help you find friends with similar interests
• As I mentioned above for Facebook, do the same for Windows Live Spaces
• Can we answer quizzes using a Windows Live Messenger bot? Thus opening it up to the 300m+ users of WL Messenger. That way you could automatically register them on Zune Social when they begin a quiz - that's a much better user experience than having to fill out a boring web form. The quizzes could be shown in the activity window in WL Messenger and we could engage our messenger contacts to help us with the answers.   (actually - this isn't a good idea, its a GREAT idea. You should definitely do this.)

That'll do for now.

-Jamie

<a href="http://tinyurl.com/5nqozw">My Zune blog</a>

the music trivia is a great idea and all i can say is to allow plenty of interactivity.

also, provide the option to create and save a custom game.

will you also add new features?

like custom background sounds, a detailed battery indicator, and will there be messaging to one another?

an alarm clock would be nice with a song to choose.

if its possible, internet connectivity at any wi-fi hot spot.

i know it might be a bit early but, the 80GB could be a little thinner and still have the control pad while allowing the option to touch the screen.

SoHereWeAre

 SoHereWeAre wrote:

will you also add new features?

like custom background sounds, a detailed battery indicator, and will there be messaging to one another?

an alarm clock would be nice with a song to choose.

if its possible, internet connectivity at any wi-fi hot spot.

i know it might be a bit early but, the 80GB could be a little thinner and still have the control pad while allowing the option to touch the screen.

What's that got to do with this thread? Or even this particular forum? Can I politely ask that you keep your comments on topic?

If you've got ideas for the device (and those look like good ideas) then they should go here: http://forums.zune.net/36/ShowForum.aspx. I think you'll find (if you search) that a lot of these things have been asked for before as well so you should add your comments to those threads.

cheers

<a href="http://tinyurl.com/5nqozw">My Zune blog</a>

• Can users submit questions?
Definitely!

• Do we need editors to approve them?
Yes, to make sure only good questions are submitted.

• Should we do genre- or decade-based quizzes?
Both.

• Are there different types of questions - for example, ones where you listen to a song clip, view an album cover, or is it just trivia (i.e. what is the best-selling album of all time?)
All three sound good. Yeah, we need different questions.

• Are questions multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, a combination of all of them?
A combination.

• Is there a hierarchy of quizzes - for example, I may be a specialist in electronica only, and not know a thing about rock. So we could have genre-based quizzes and then general quizzes, and the more you complete the higher level you attain?
I don't understand.

• How many questions should be in a quiz? How often do we need to add new questions? Who adds them?
Not too many to annoy someone, but not too little to bore that person either. I'day say anywhere from 10-25 questions.

• Can users create their own quizzes on their own profile pages about whatever they want?
• That sounds awesome. But they shouldn't be included in the list of music quizzes (unless, you know, you introduce a rating system or something, and the highest rated quizzes get to be on the list).
  

I've been thinking about categories of quizzes - like this:

About Me: I can create my own "About Jessica" music quiz. My friends can take it to see how well they know me, and other people can take it to get to know me. This is totally personal and never becomes part of any other quiz.

About Electronica (or another genre): This would be an editorially-driven electronica quiz - the more I know about electronica, the better I do! I can try to be the electronica expert on the Zune Social.

About the '80s (or another year): Editorially-driven questions about the 80s (or whatever other year).

Music Generalist: Questions from all the quizzes except for the "About Me" quiz - this would be a HUGE quiz, like hundreds or thousands of questions, and very few people would get a majority right and those people would get badges or something like in Xbox Live.

I also think that while our editorial team can create the quizzes, it would be better if they did some and we allowed users to do some. So I could create my own "Electronica" quiz, and then if other people voted on my questions, maybe my questions could be included in the overall quiz?

What do you think of that?

Jessica Zahn, Zune Social Program Manager ~ This posting is provided as-is with no warranties, and confers no rights.