Interview: The Keynote Bingo Team

The WWDC Keynote came and went last week, and like a lot of other folks, I was sitting at home (im)patiently refreshing the updates while playing Keynote Bingo at the same time. Wanting to know more about the guys behind Keynote Bingo, I managed to get hold of Sippan and the other crazy Swedes for an informal chat.

Here’s what he had to say.

Marvin: Hi Sippan, tell us more about yourself and the team behind Keynote Bingo.

Sippan: I’m a crazy Swede with a passion for languages. And for some reason I tend to attract Followers. When I grow up I’m going to be a cult leader. The rest of the team are crazy Swedes with a passion for other important Bingo related things, like Apple and programming. They do all the work, and then I do the interviews and steal their glory.

Marvin: What inspired you to create Keynote Bingo?

Sippan: Henrik and I are writers for a Swedish Mac news site/community called MacNytt. When John Siracusa blogged Ars Technica’s Keynote Bingo in 2006, Henrik wanted to bring the fun to our Swedish readers, so he made a similar Bingo in Swedish. Then one of our readers, HannesP, decided it would be more interesting if it was interactive and randomised, so he sat down and programmed it.

Some people have been complaining about how our Keynote Bingo is just a ripoff of Siracusa, but we think they’re so different in nature (static PDF vs randomised and fun) that it doesn’t matter if he did it before us. It’s not like he was the first person to make a Bingo out of something other than a bingo hall, either. Haha.

Marvin: Did you play along? I chose #8, but didn’t hit Bingo.

Sippan: Yeah, I had #64123, but I didn’t get anything either… It was close on a few rows though. But I think more people won this year than any of the previous keynotes, it felt like for the first five minutes of the keynote, they were just ticking off things straight out of our events list.

I suspect Steve may have planned the keynote around his own Bingo template so he would win.

Sippan: At the time, I loved it like everyone else, but now that the RDF effect is wearing off, I have to admit there weren’t a lot of dramatic news announced or dramatic new features demonstrated. Also I was really hoping I’d get to click the “Steve mentions Keynote Bingo” square. Maybe next year.

Marvin: Will you be creating any future apps that we can look forward to?

Sippan: Yeah, the Bingo team is hoping to put some more work into the next version of Keynote Bingo and put in some new cool features and things. And the members are doing stuff individually; I think Tomasf is rising to fame with his SiteCrawler application, and I’m always making little games.

Marvin: Sippan, thank you so much for joining me. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you.

Sippan: Hooray! And it was fun to rant. Now I’m going to have breakfast. HejdÃ¥! (it means ‘bye’ in Swedish)

Well that’s it, look forward to Keynote Bingo at MacWorld 2008! Oh and are there any other Mac developers that we should interview? Let us know.