Answer.com's New Blufr Game: Enough to Jump-Start Traffic? (ANSW)

Try your wits against Answers.com's (ANSW) new game called Blufr. Blufr is a cute and cool addictive trivia game with rapid response time for instant satisfaction. This seems to be an attempt by Answers.com to use games to boost traffic to their site.

All of the "interesting" words in Blufr's answers are linked back to the encyclopedia/definition entries on Answers.com. Given that Answer's traffic has not grown much recently according Alexa (see chart below) and its stock has been under some pressure recently, launching Blufr is an interesting move by the company.

They are clearly trying to ride some of the gaming wave and introduce interactivity that is lacking from the reference nature of the Answers.com site (see the sample search for tuban) in order to liven up the user engagement, the traffic and the stock price.

I kind of like the game (full disclosure: I love trivia) but am somewhat dubious as to whether it can truly drive meaningful traffic to Answers.com. I played for about 10 minutes and did not click on any of the links back to Answers.com. But I will definitely be back to play the game again.

I also think that the company needs to do something more fundamental to its main site to increase monetization and drive traffic up. Having said that, the game is a show of creativity and maybe a sign that ingenuity is Flickring at Answers. That is, ingenuity is flickring in the business and not in the naming (what is it with all these companies that end in 'R'???).

Full disclosure: I was a board member at Answers.com up until July 2005.

FYI: Fidel Castro never had a major league tryout. Don't get Bluf'd on that one!