Chicktionary is a word game

Word game

Word games and puzzles are spoken or board games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.Word games are generally engaged as a source of entertainment, but have been found to serve an educational purpose as well...

 available on the Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 Internet search

Search engine

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...

 page. Chicktionary was developed by Blockdot

Blockdot

Blockdot is a branded entertainment and game studio based in Dallas, Texas, that builds many of the games for Microsoft's Club Bing. The company was founded in March 2001 by Michael Bielinski, Dan Ferguson, and Jason McMinn....

, a Dallas, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 based developer of game

Game

A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

s and branded entertainment

Branded entertainment

Branded entertainment, also known as branded content or advertainment, is an entertainment-based vehicle that is funded by and complementary to a brand's marketing strategy. The purpose of a branded entertainment program is to give a brand the opportunity to communicate its image to its target...

 applications. The game was originally developed as "Fowl Words" but later changed after it was concluded that the play on words "fowl

Fowl

Fowl is a word for birds in general but usually refers to birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl and the waterfowl...

" would be confused with "foul

Foul

-In sports:*Foul , an unfair or illegal sports act, including:**Foul , in football , an unfair act by a player as deemed by the referee...

" and alienate potential players.

The game is a variation on the game of Anagrams

Anagrams

Anagrams, Pirate Scrabble, Anagram, Snatch, or Grabscrab is a board-free word game that involves rearranging letter tiles to form words....

. It features an egg rack, replete with three-letter, four-letter, five-letter, six-letter and seven-letter sequences of egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

s. Seven chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

s appear at the bottom, each bearing a letter. When the player clicks on a hen, its letter is dropped into a box. Clicking on three or more hens in sequence can create a word. If it is a valid word, a sequence of eggs of the appropriate length will be filled up with the word.

The goal is to fill the quotas of 11 three-letter words, 10 four-letter words, 10 five-letter words, 3 six-letter words and 1 seven letter-word. Once a player finishes a round by filling up all the sequences of eggs, he or she gets 20 points.

Points are redeemable for real prizes—someone getting 20,000 points in Chicktionary could redeem a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium.

Fox News reported that the popularity of this search engine vis-à-vis Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 and Yahoo increased due to the introduction of this game. Microsoft's share of the search market increased by 13.2% in June 2007.

A problem that has arisen with this game is the creation of bot

Bot

Bot or BOT may refer to:-Computing:* Bot, another also name for a Web crawler* Bots , an open-source EDI software* BOTS, a computer game* Internet bot, a computer program that does automated tasks...

s to play and win these games and gain prizes for human bot programmers. Microsoft, however, says it detects and catches bots and nullifies their points and winnings.

Chicktionary was released on the iPhone in November 2008. It was released on Android phones in August 2009.