Zoosk Labs is trying to build the HQ of dating apps

Good news, trivia buffs who are looking for love: Now you can kill two birds with one stone.

Zoosk Labs – an experimental arm of the OG dating site – is taking inspiration from the HQ playbook to overhaul its existing video dating app, Lively.

While the most recent version of Lively, launched in 2016, focused on connecting random users via live video chat – somewhat similar to Chat Roulette – its newest feature focuses on building interactions through live group trivia. Think HQ, but with randomly selected teams of 2 to 4 strangers communicating over live video chat to determine the correct answer.

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Starting Monday, per a press release, games will happen at 3 PM PST and 7 PM PST, but unlike HQ, users don't have to arrive on time to play. Rather, there's a 30 minute window from game time in which users can open their apps and join in. And since there's no prize element, teams won't get knocked out if they answer one of the 12 questions incorrectly. Once the game's completed, teams have the opportunity to see where they rank in relation to other groups.

But, as Zoosk's Senior Vice President of Product Behzad Behrouzi told us, the key social element comes at the close of the game, when users can continue to chat via video with their teammates or add those players as friends. When games aren't in session, users can continue to use the app's random live video chat element, and can message with added friends.

zoosk labs lively Credit: zoosk labs zoosk labs lively Credit: zoosk labs

So why group trivia? Turns out, users were having trouble making comfortable conversation with other users over randomized video chat.

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"We learned something quite interesting, in that people had a struggle in terms of having an effective conversation," Behrouzi explained. "Not only that – there wasn't scale, so you launched the app and if there weren't hundreds of other users to potentially chat with, that was a poor experience." (A representative from Zoosk could not share Lively's user count.)

Behrouzi says users also ran into issues where "interests weren't always aligned," meaning they couldn't find much to chat about. So, the team at Zoosk Labs started to consider how connections naturally happen in the outside world. (And for what it's worth: they're totally up front about drawing inspiration from HQ.)

"Well, you do things together, you participate in activities together, and this is all happening at the same time where HQ just launched, and it was really blowing up. And light bulbs just popped," he said.

"Let's offer a game in which people can participate in a group video chat setting that allows them to not necessarily focus directly on each other and have to think about what to say, but rather they can participate, and the very act of participating in this activity and achieving something can help you identify compatibility and/or interest."

Credit: zoosk labs

Aside from in-house testing, Monday's launch will be the first time Lively users get to try out the trivia. And since Zoosk Labs often uses its products as a testing ground, Behrouzi says it's possible that if live trivia doesn't work out the way they hope, then they'll try something new in its place.

But for now, Behrouzi's betting on the success of live trivia to help users better connect based off the IRL connection he's seen people make over HQ.

"It was just naturally a very social experience, but you couldn't [play together] on HQ," he said. "You have to play independently within the product, so that was a huge a-ha moment for us."

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