It's like the traditional "pick-the-winners" Oscar pool – with a twist. Rather than simply picking which film you think will win each award, you can spread out your risk by distributing 10 points among the nominees in each award category. (Or, go "all-in" by wagering 10 points on a sure winner.) Your picks are stored online, and as the Oscar winners are announced, you win the points you wagered on the winning nominee and lose the rest of the points from that category.

Return to this site on Oscar Night, and you'll have access to an online scoreboard which will track your progress throughout the entire live ceremony. And if you join or host an Oscar Party, you can also see your friends' scores and compete for bragging rights (or cash – but onebee doesn't condone gambling, shame on you!).

Download the PDF example scoreboard to get an idea of what's in store.

It's not to harvest your e-mail address for spammers nor invade your privacy. (Promise!) Your Oscar pool picks will be associated with your account, enabling you to return and modify them without anyone else having access. If this is your first time playing the onebee.com Oscar pool, you may not think secrecy is all that important. You might even think, "Why would I want to return and modify my picks??" But you'll learn. Oh, you'll learn…

If you have more questions about how onebee.com accounts work, peruse the Privacy Policy or drop us a line.

An Oscar Party is a way to share your Oscar Night scoreboard with a group of others. Whether you watch the show together or separately, everyone who's joined the same Oscar Party will see the same online scoreboard and watch as their points are automatically tallied.

The onebee.com Oscar Pool will track your score whether you join an Oscar Party or not, but it's usually more fun to compete in a group.

You can join as many Oscar Parties as you like, but you'll be asked to choose one as your "primary" party, since realistically you can only view one scoreboard at a time during Oscar Night. You can change your primary party – or any decision about your party membership – as often as you like.

There's an overlong, esoteric, and very silly recap of its history here: Oscar Time. Be prepared for some lengthy tangents that are unnecessarily spiteful toward the Lord of the Rings movies.

More often than you might think. Sometimes I ask them of myself. Life is a journey of constant discovery.

Drop us a line at beehive@onebee.com and we'll answer it lickety-quick.