Vital Statistics, publisher of not-so-trivial anecdotes, stories, facts and minutiae contacted NHaK to develop a not-so-trivial website.

Vital Statistics started as founder Paul Grobman’s hobby, as he ripped interesting anecdotes and bits of trivia from various newspapers and sources. His decidedly offline storage methods included the typical shoe boxes and scrapbooks. These “systems” began to fail Vital Statistics as they began to publish books and license their library for games, cards, shirts and other merchandise.

As NHaK began developing a new website, this decentralized storage system became an issue. NHaK proposed a custom centralized Content Management System (CMS) underlying the public website, which worked with “Wiki” style editing to allow a large community of Vital Statistics employees come together to contribute, edit and publish new Vital Statistics.

This custom CMS was developed as a MS-SQL database in conjunction with the public front end website. NHaK web designers and programmers worked hand in hand to create a pleasing, easy to navigate website which pulls 100% of the Vital Statistic data from the underlying database.

When a Vital Statistics employee decides to make an individual trivia story in the database “public”, it is converted into an XML snippet. These XML files are used for publishing online trivia games, quizzes, and “Statistic of the Day” features.

Using this XML data, NHaK developed a completely administration free trivia game. This game automatically assembles itself each week, pulling from a series of questions in the database. Players from around the world compete against the clock to win books and other prizes. Vital Statistics employees simply monitor the game on a weekly basis, without need to micro manage the game system.

Vital Statistics now adds to their continually growing library of “Vital Statistics” entirely through the online CMS. This allows their library to remain timely, and to have a ripped from the headlines feel. Major news events are covered in the unique Vital Statistics way, allowing their community of growing readers to learn the story behind the story each and every day.