• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 27, 2013

Some start-ups appear to have struck gold by combining trivia games with simple social features.
 
Take QuizUp, a socially savvy trivia app developed by Plain Vanilla Games, which just surpassed 5 million players in about five weeks. QuizUp players are spending an average of 30 minutes using the app every day, while more than 11 million messages have already been exchanged through the app.
 
Investors are taking notice. Led by Tencent Holdings and Sequoia Capital, the Icelandic-based started just closed its second round of financing to the tune of $22 million.
 
Viewing a vibrant crowdsourcing community as a clear sign of health, investors are also impressed with the fact that more than 22,000 users have applied to contributor to QuizUp’s topic forums.
 
“We’ve been blown away by the number of people who are already creating communities in QuizUp to discuss and debate their passions,” founder and CEO Thor Fridriksson stated.
 
To date, the start-up has now raised $27 million.
 
Worldwide, the mobile app market will grow 85% to $27 billion in 2013, London-based ABI Research predicted earlier this year.
 
Edging out tablets for the time being, smartphones have generated the vast majority of apps, ABI reported. However, tablets are gaining ground and are expected to account for 36% of apps this year and surpass smartphone app revenue by 2017, according to ABI.