There are some points in life where you experience something that makes you step back and say, “Wow, I am living in the future.” It is like when Facetime first launched which was reminiscent of Kim Possible’s video communicator or the launch of the self-driving car (which honestly still scares me). This was going on in my head when I first got wind of HQ Trivia. For those that aren’t familiar, let me break down what HQ Trivia is.

HQ Trivia is a live game show app that broadcasts to over half a million players every single day and twice a day during the week. Each game lasts an average of 20 minutes where players can win real money by making it through 12 trivia questions without being eliminated. That’s right, only 12 questions and you could win real money transferred to you via Paypal. With a soft launch in August, the app has quickly gone viral boasting over 1 million players on New Year’s day with a grand prize of $18,000. The app was created by Intermedia Labs, a startup formed by Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll. You are most likely familiar with their recently deceased, viral app Vine. These two seem to have a knack for popularity because HQ Trivia has reached it’s users purely by word of mouth.

So what’s the catch? Well, that’s the thing, I haven’t been able to find one. Yet.

When I first heard about it I had a handful of immediate questions: Where is the money coming from, why are they handing it out, and what does this mean for the future?

HQ Trivia is currently free to download and is now available for iPhone and Android devices. The app currently has not implemented advertisements or paid promotion outside of the occasional celebrity guest host, which may or may not have included the paid promotion of other network TV shows. When asked how HQ Trivia’s creators planned to make money they responded in saying that monetization was not currently the company’s focus and that so far all of the cash prizes have been provided by fundraising. So they are being given money with no real incentive for investors.

Now hear me out, I am an active HQ Trivia player and I am not necessarily pushing for a brand-saturated gameplay, that would turn users away and the creators are aware of this. However, I am concerned about the longevity of the app without a steady flow of money coming into the app while thousands of dollars a week funnel out. Yusupov was quoted as saying that the focus of brand integrations would be on making them “enhance the gameplay. For a user, the worst thing is feeling like, ‘I’m being optimized — I’m the product now.'” So, we do know the creators, at least right now, are focused on making a really likable thing over a really profitable thing.

Here are some predictions of how I think they will combine likable and profitable.

Kroll and Yusupov have said they have been approached by ad agencies and brands already, which is to be expected given their success and the plethora of strategists in the world whose job it is to discover the next best thing before people call it the next best thing. The company’s issue is figuring out how to implement it without angering their current audience, a tale as old as advertising time. There are a few ways they could accomplish this with their current game format.

HQ Trivia could take advantage of the charismatic daily host Scott Rogowsky who is beloved by fans of the app. Rogowsky is known for his ability to talk continuously through the length of the game and still be entertaining. While a lot of his banter seems like the first thing that comes to his head I could easily see HQ Trivia implementing bits or jokes that discuss a specific brand or product. However, the issue is that companies might not necessarily be interested in a 10-second audio spot that runs and then is quickly moved on from.

Another option would be implementing brand-themed questions. On the Christmas Eve game, one question read “Which beverage company was first associated with Santa Clause?” The answer choices were White Rock, RC, and Coca-Cola. Naturally many players were eliminated for choosing Coca-Cola when the real answer was White Rock. This kind of brand question could easily be reorganized to be specific to a specific brand for example, “Which animal is associated with the delicious Coca-Cola Company?” Notice the addition of the word "delicious."

HQ Trivia could even take it a step further and sell question spots for data mining. While the results would not be as specific as a mass survey, how often do you have the opportunity to instantly ask 1 million people the same question and get their instinctual responses? However, for something like this to be worked into the format of the game, the questions would have to have a “right” answer. So the nature of the questions as far as data mining goes could be something that tests the general publics’ associations of certain things with other things.

For example, “Which of these products is not sold by Adidas?” with the answers being Phone Cases, Sunglasses, and Fashion Necklaces. The instant results to a question like this could potentially tell the brand a lot of things like the fact no one knows they sell Adidas brand iPhone cases if there was an overwhelming amount of players who chose that answer.

I don’t think it would be as hard as HQ Trivia creators are making it seem in their public statements to incorporate brands in an attractive way. If anything they have an incredible opportunity to set a new precedent of what ads could be to consumers and end the negative stigma around brands communicating a message.

Regardless of what HQ trivia’s next steps will be, I will be keeping a close eye on all of their brand-related questions.