A pair of Ypsilanti men are using the Internet to profit from the dangerously addictive product they’ve created—yet it’s perfectly legal and fun for all.

Bill Brauer and Dave Halliwill are the brains behind PeopleQuiz, the web site that lets computer users test their knowledge of trivia by taking entertaining quizzes online.

The majority among the PeopleQuiz site’s 1700 quizzes emphasize individual persons such as presidents, athletes or celebrities.(You can take one yourself at the end of this article.)

“We’re trying to accentuate personality quizzes because that’s where we really stand out,” says Brauer, who was an avid participant in trivia contests on the TV Land web site before co-founding PeopleQuiz.

A unique aspect of PeopleQuiz is that many of the players also write quizzes, concentrating on their own areas of expertise.

“We’re trying to get (them) to write about influential people,” he says, noting that such content has “enduring value.”

PeopleQuiz launched in June 2006 after 9 months of development. Brauer has written many of the quizzes himself, specializing in history, old movies and TV. He also handles marketing and customer service, while Halliwill programs the site.

Both men have kept their full-time jobs. Brauer works as an in-house sales representative for ProQuest, which provides information products and services to libraries. Halliwill is a computer engineer at Ford Motor Company.

They say 1300 individual players trafficked their site on a recent day, and monthly totals now routinely exceed 30,000 unique visitors. Between 60 and 70 percent of individuals are from the United States, with large numbers of English, Germans and Canadians also visiting. One Sri Lankan regularly logs in.

The average player is middle-aged, with women predominating over men. Halliwill says an interesting exception to the rule goes by the screen name of Bubbly Jolie. This teenage bookworm has written quizzes on the TV show “Bones” and the “Twilight” literary phenomenon.

Quizzes adhere to a 10-question, multiple-choice format, with scores and correct answers shown instantly upon completion. Anyone can play for free, and registration isn’t required.

Ads provide enough support to allow not only for Internet hosting for the site, but also the purchase of caps, T-shirts and iPods. The prizes are awarded monthly to those of the 800 registered players who score the most points by taking existing quizzes and writing new ones of their own. Cash prizes are presented annually to the three top players.

“We like the fact that we can give personal customer service, and we like the fact that we get to know our users,” says Brauer.

Halliwill refers to “the urge to professionalize” and make the pages look glitzier. But this urge is counterbalanced, he says, by awareness of the need for players to know “who’s behind the mask.”

The partners’ goal for 2010 is to improve the site’s social networking component, which would enable registered users to identify common interests.

They hope eventually to add audio and video components as rising revenues make it possible to pay for additional server memory.

This would happen “when we get to where we can afford the bandwidth for a 30-second clip instead of a 5-second clip,” Halliwill says.

Ronald Ahrens is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com. Reach the entertainment desk at entertainment@annarbor.com or 734-623-2540.