Scoople Lets You “Ask Your Friends” About The News

I recently wrote about news gamification app Scoople, and today, the company is releasing a new version with improved social interaction.

When you use Scoople, you read news stories (usually aggregated by Scoople from multiple articles) then fill out an associated poll. You can enter your own opinion and also predict the opinion of the larger community — people who do the best are recognized on Scoople’s leaderboard. (Currently you need to be accurate 70 percent of the time to get on the leaderboard.) The model seems to be really addictive for some people — the company says the average Scoople user has now filled out 45 surveys. However, with a new “Ask Your Friends” feature, the company is hoping to broaden its reach beyond the serious news junkies.

As the name implies, if you run across a poll that your friend would be particularly well-suited for, or where you’re just curious about their opinion, you can now send them a message in Scoople or (if they don’t have a Scoople account) in Facebook. As with any social app, this could become annoying quickly if you have the friends who don’t know when to stop. The good thing is, these requests are tied to a very clear purpose. It’s not about, “Hey, you should play this game that I’m playing,” but rather, “I want to know your answer on this specific question.” Over time, you accumulate a record of all the questions that you’ve answered for each other. (I also thought it’d be nice to include a way to argue and talk trash about those answers, and the Scoople team says it’s thinking about it.)

Scoople is also announcing a deal with Fans of Apple, a Facebook fan page that’s been Liked by more than 775,00 people. Sometime in the next month, Fans of Apple should gain the capability to poll its members, courtesy of Scoople. This also a taste of one of Scoople’s next big goals — to expand its platform into Facebook.

You can download the app here.