Connect with your friends on HQ Trivia (Update: US feature rolling out now!)

Update 4/17/2018 at 3:00 P.M. EST: The social aspect of HQ Trivia — known as Friends on HQ — hit U.K. users last week. An HQ Trivia rep informed us that the U.S. rollout is happening now! If you are a United States HQ Trivia player, update your app to the latest version to access the new Friends on HQ social features.

As usual, rollouts happen at different rates for different devices, so give it a while if you don’t see the update immediately.

Original Article: HQ Trivia got so popular so fast, it’s hard to believe that there isn’t already a social networking aspect to the app. But for the longest time that was true; until now, anyway.

Starting today in the U.K., via TechCrunch, a new feature in HQ Trivia will be available: Friends on HQ. This new feature enables users to search for people they know in the app, add them as friends, and see their scores and whether or not they are participating in the current game.

The feature is launching in the U.K. now, but HQ Trivia says a U.S. launch will follow soon after.

This new social aspect to the quiz game is just the beginning. Over time, HQ Trivia plans to launch many new features that leverage friends’ connections. One could extrapolate developing your own HQ Trivia-style game to be played only by your friends, or sharing photos in the app of your disappointed face when you get knocked out of a game.

The startup’s fast popularity has it scrambling to monetize the app and its user base. Reportedly, representatives of HQ Trivia are pursuing sponsorship deals with major brands like Warner Bros. and Nike.

HQ Trivia is a quiz game where contestants around the world compete for real cash prizes. The amount of money you can win depends on how many people join a game and how many are left at the end of the match. Hypothetically, if you are the sole winner of a match, you could win anywhere from $2,000 to $250,000. Winnings are automatically deposited into your PayPal account.

The game became incredibly popular on iOS devices and was finally officially ported to Android early this year.