Is HQ the Next 'Jeopardy'?

If you are of a certain age, you grew up with Jeopardy. In fact, you would be one of around 11 million viewers that regularly watch Alex Trebek each night as he lightly condescends clues to hopeful contestants. It is the second most popular game after Wheel of Fortune in the Western world.

Mr. Trebek has been casting a royal blue gleam into our homes since 1984 and the premise has not changed since. The only real excitement for the show was mustache-gate, when Alex's upper lip made its first clean-shaven appearance to viewers in 2001, after 30 years of being covered by his trademark mustache.

So why would anyone deign to disrupt a very successful model of a game show?

Enter HQ. Its premise is so incredibly simple: a twice-daily live quiz show hosted by a cheerful, modern-day hipster-Trebek. Host Scott Rogowsky introduces the game in the first few minutes and he does it with a sort of free-style mania of a modern beat poet in order to entertain over a million ravenous quiz junkies. There is a scrolling comments feed that can range from exultation of love for Scott to the always present stop talking demand. The accessibility of the game is a large part of its appeal. Just open the app and boom, you are in an exciting, heart-racing quiz world. Oh, and then there is the fact that you can win real money. Right away.

Everyone thinks they are smart. I don't know a single person who doesn't like to test those smarts either. And no matter how many times you may fail at getting past question six out of 12 questions (speaking for a friend), you can't help but try again. Maybe this time you won't panic about what colour blue and yellow make (so embarrassing for my friend). Questions start very, very easy. The first two are basically giveaways for you to acclimatize to the game. After that it's time to swallow your pride.

The catch of course, is that there are a lot of people playing and most of them are smarter than you. So if you do manage to make it to the end, you may be splitting that cash with hundreds of others. It's the tease of maybe this time that keeps you invested. Over this past Christmas, two people shared a $12,000 pot, so why not you?

The game went big this Super Bowl Sunday by hosting a live quiz during Justin Timberlake's half-time show. It was a huge gamble to host a live webcast to millions (around 2 million people tuned in to the game) but like any Silicon Valley veteran knows, success is about trying, and if you fail, fail fast and move on. HQ faced a glitch during the cast, and Scott had to freestyle his way through the delay. But because the app has already set the tone of something that is new and not afraid to work out the glitches live, this lag didn't take away from the game's charm. Actually, the fact that they own up to their tech issues and take you along for the ride makes it feel all the more like a personal community that you are part of. In the end around 160 people (who are either geniuses or lucky) split $20,000.

So is it the next champ? Is this the future of game shows? Will it eventually usurp Jeopardy? Over 1 million people open the app twice daily. Its fans are young and its popularity is growing exponentially along with an ever-increasing winning pot. HQ feels like a significant disruptor in how we interact with our entertainment. We all love immediate satisfaction, and add to that the possibility of cash and bragging rights, it's a definite contender to usher in a new era of gaming.

Can a trustworthy dinosaur like Jeopardy outlast this new take on quizzing? Or do we live in a world where both can exist? Like six out of 12 questions on HQ, I definitely don't have the answer.

But this woman gets it: