The popularity of Frienduel app has increased significantly in the recent times in conjunction with the Presidential Election excitement in the United States. While nobody is certain whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will emerge as the next president, many factors can be considered to predict the outcome such as popularity among women or different generational views on the presidential candidates. This has drawn thousands of users towards the app to predict who will emerge victorious in the election given these different factors. While simply predicting who will win the election is a relatively unexciting thought experiment, the gamification of this process through awarding points to those who are right make the interactions much more interesting and competitive.
http://www.facebook.com/frienduel/videos/1172462402822435/
The social aspect of Frienduel given the ability to hold prediction battles with friends offers an incentive to better utilize facts to make educated guesses on outcomes of events while simultaneously making the act of predicting the future more competitive and interesting. This scoring mechanism awards points for correct predictions which can be utilized to reach the top of the leaderboard where those at the top have frequently predicted the outcome of future events correctly. Beyond just the election, the app can be utilized for several other events such as sports, politics, current events, movies, and nearly every event where the outcome is unknown. With automatic updates, the app is able to report the prediction events so that users know the status of their predictions.
In order to get to the top of the leaderboards, users must be able to correctly predict outcomes more times than their rival friends. A caveat to this however is that users who make more predictions are likely to earn more points as they are more likely to be correct on more events. As a result, points are awarded for the number correct outcomes as opposed to the ratio of right outcomes over total predictions. This is done in order to draw users to make more predictions and use the app more but poses a disadvantage for those who do not want to make many predictions. Simply put, this is a case of quality vs. quantity as some players will strive for a greater percentage of accurate predictions as opposed to having more guesses to gain more points.
Additionally, the competitive nature of the app is addicting for many players. Since the app is updated with new events on a daily basis, Frienduel keeps the users engaged and able to make predictions that are highly current as opposed to older, less exciting events. Although interesting and engaging for those who are competitive at first, the app is based on a simplistic principle which may appear repetitive as as all that is required is to predict an outcome of a particular event in a competitive environment.
While the app may appear to be repetitive in nature after many predictions, Frienduel keeps users interested and returning through using very new and current material. This ensures that the predictions are made of events which are highly relevant and popular. On the other hand, users would be more inclined to try their best to predict the outcome of more and more events and reach the top of the leaderboard. Frienduel is compatible with many other applications that people use in their day to day life as well. For example, the users can send GIFs or well timed smack talks to their friends using Twitter, WhatsApp and, Facebook Messenger when the answer for a specific prediction is revealed, invoking friendly competition among friends and the global community as a whole.
The Frienduel app has been provided with a user friendly interface for the convenience of users. As a result, users can simply predict the outcome of an event very quickly without much time investments to navigate and learn how to use the app. Available for both the App Store and Google Play Store, the app is one which turns basic hypothetical guesses into a competitive game among friends. For those who are often betting or are competitive with others regarding the outcome of future events, Frienduel gives way to a point system in order to obtain an international presence for those who are most accurate in their predictions.
