During the last few weeks of the fall semester, Pitt students weren’t just studying or checking Facebook, but also using the Internet quiz site Sporcle to test themselves on everything from movie directors to organic chemistry to the Cathedral of Learning’s Nationality Rooms.
Pitt was ranked in the top 15 schools to use the site for several weeks in a row, finishing at No. 13 for the week of Dec. 12-18, ahead of bigger schools like the University of Minnesota and the University of Massachusetts. To get the scoop on Sporcle and its College Ranking System, we talked to its vice president of products, Derek Pharr from Seattle.
Q: Could you briefly describe how Sporcle came together? What was the creation process?
A: Matt Ramme, in Seattle, started the site in 2007. He’s a big New York Times crossword fan, and he wanted to get better at those. [Also] he’d sit down and watch Jeopardy with his wife and I think she was taking him to town a little bit so he put together a tool that would help him relearn some things that he knew but forgot.
Read the full Q&A at the Pitt News.
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.