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How did it all begin?
Though MindFun.com served at its height 10 million page impressions per month and is one of the most successful online game sites in the world, the site began simply as a hobby of webmaster and Jeopardy Champion of Champions Michael Dupée. After his successful appearances on the American quiz show Jeopardy! in 1996, Mike set a new goal for himself: to design and build the world's best online mind games site. MindFun.com is the result. Mike, who has programmed interactive brain games since the advent of the programmable microchip when he was nine, launched his first two games in 1996 (Quick QuizTM and Knowledge ChamberTM), along with the Unofficial Jeopardy Fan ClubTM.
Popularity Growth
Through word of mouth and effective placement in search engines by MindFun.com V.P. Zana Holley, the site immediately began to attract attention. The site was reviewed by Excite.com and given a 4 Star "Must See" rating. Later, the site was featured on WebTV's start page as a recommended site, on Virgin.net's best of the internet list and has won numerous other "Best of the Web" awards.
Content Expansion and Syndication
As MindFun began adding more original games (using a variety of advanced formats, including Java, Javascript, PHP, and DHTML), other companies like Miller Brewing Company, Delta Airlines, Gamegate.com, and others began to notice the great content and approached MindFun.com to syndicate the trivia and games. Now, if you fly Delta Airlines across the Atlantic or around the world, you can play MindFun.com produced questions translated into 5 different languages. When you log onto Gamegate.com to play their graphically beautiful trivia games, you are enjoying our top-notch content. And now in stores, when you read the Publications International book, "How to be a TV Quiz Show Millionaire: 100s of Practice Questions", you are playing sets of progressively challenging questions written by MindFun.com. MindFun.com is currently writing the sequel, "All New How to be a TV Quiz Show Millionaire: 100s of Practice Questions." Recently, MindFun.com has begun supplying the Trivia Question of the Day for iWon.com, and making strategic partnerships with other high-quality trivia sites to syndicate the Cerebral Vortex and Word Webs Trivia Chat Rooms.
A "Sticky" site
MindFun.com is one of the fastest-growing online brain game sites on the
internet. In fact, in October, 1999, MindFun.com was the 7th busiest site
out of the 2,800 sites on the ContentZone, which itself is part of the second largest Internet advertising agency, 24/7 Media. In our busiest month, 209,000 unique visitors played our games, and the average user spends 14.6 minutes per visit on our site, which is one of the top figures for "stickiness" on the Internet. In fact, 30% of our users spend at least an hour a day playing our games, and over half of the users return at least twice per week. The number of unique users on our site grows at an astonishing 20% per month, and once these new users try our games, they get addicted and keep coming back for more.
Why do people like MindFun.com so much?
At MindFun.com, we strive to build a
wholesome, challenging, fun and easy-to-use site where everyone who likes to have fun with his or her mind can
come and play. Our vision of the site includes the following guarantees:
- Every game is free: This site makes its money only from those who choose to support MindFun with their donations.
- Quick fun: Every game will load in less than 20 seconds on an average computer and will be capable of delivering hundreds of questions or puzzle items per hour.
- Everyone plays: Anybody with any computer can have hours of fun here. There will always be non-Java games that are just as fun as
the high-tech Java ones. So whether your using WEB-TV, AOL, Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer, there is a ton of content for you.
- Instant feedback: Every game will give you instant feedback about how you did and what the answer is (We love it when people learn stuff here)
- We care about content: We will never insult you or your intelligence. Different playing levels insure that every question will not only test your skill but teach you even more cool trivia
- We listen: We will listen to your feedback and put it in action to make this place the best place to have fun with your mind on the internet!
Who did this?
Content: The trivia content at MindFun.com is the responsibility of
trivia master Michael Dupée. In fact, many of the original questions for the site were written by Mike as preparation for his successful appearances on Jeopardy!, where he won the
 1996 Jeopardy! Tournament
of Champions. Mike graduated with a degree in Physics from Emory University in 1988 and The University of Florida College of Law in 1992.
He is an attorney, physicist, computer programmer and author who now lives in Gainesville, Florida
with his wife Zana, daughter Zadia, son Spencer, Misha his cat, and Peter Pan, his
dog. He has had a lifelong love of trivia and games, and has won championships in Quiz Bowl, Brain bowl, Scrabble,
and College Bowl. He is also the
author of "How
to Get on Jeopardy! ... and Win!"
from Citadel Publishing, as well as several articles
in various legal periodicals. Mike and Zana Holley co-authored a book that has recently been released called, "How to be a TV Quiz Show Millionaire: 100s of Practice Questions"
Marketing: The business development, marketing, search engine positioning, public relations, and accounting on this site are performed by Zana Holley. Zana graduated at the top of her class from both the University of Florida and the University of Florida College of Law.
How'd they do that?
The original games that are featured at MindFun.com utilize a combination of the best features of HTML, Java, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL programming. The questions which provide the content for the games
were prepared and converted to the proper format using Visual Basic 5.0 and WordPerfect PerfectScript
macro language.
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