Ever wanted to play a good version of Quiznation with more entertaining hosts?  Look no further than PlayCafe.  We have been doing things with them for a few months now, and they are all fantastic, as is the program.  It’s definitely worth checking out on their website.  We’ve had an interview with them due for a while and now is as good of a time as any to post it.  The interview with creator Mark Goldenson is found under the break.

What inspired you to create play-along internet game show PlayCafe?
We love game shows but they are just too passive on TV. You can play along in your head but you usually can’t play for prizes or socialize with friends.

With our games, you can influence the outcome and chat with friends, which we think is how games should be. It’s much like what you would do if you were holding a game night with friends. That’s how we like to think of PlayCafe: the world’s largest game night.

What are you bringing to the table that’s different than everyone else?

Regarding the site, we’re letting you influence the game in a deeper way than most other shows. “Interactive” has been a buzzword in TV for decades but the interaction on TV is fairly weak: SMS, one viewer calling a TV host a time, two-screen games where you have to watch both the TV and your computer. There’s so much more possible on the internet.

Regarding the team, this is the third startup for me and my co-founder Dev. I think we bring a lot of best practices from PayPal and Google that will help us with the challenges of internet TV. There are good reasons this hasn’t been done before and we’re testing whether this is the right time for it.

How difficult was it to prepare this?

It has not been easy. There are still a lot of challenges around scaling internet TV. Gathering answers from tens of thousands of players, tracking the time they submitted, ensuring points are credited correctly, handling legal issues, preventing cheating, letting everyone chat in real-time - it’s manageable at 50 simultaneous players but very hard at 10,000+.

However, I think we have the experience to make it work. The YouTube founders were colleagues from PayPal and knew little about online video, but they knew how to build a solid web application, get viral distribution, and make it scale at high volumes. Many teams from the TV world have had trouble with that.

What future plans do you have for it?

We have a lot in the works. We’re expanding our number of shows, raising funds, and looking for web engineers and an executive producer.

Overall, PlayCafe is a tough challenge. It’s always hard when you’re trying something on the envelope, but we’re having a ton of fun and we hope our players are, too.