Last week, we filed the provisional patent for the technology in KlickFu, so now we can gradually start coming out of stealth mode (finally!). One of the ways we are doing that is by running a KlickFu development contest with the UCLA ACM computer science student group. Last night was the kick-off meeting for the contest, in which UCLA CS students will create apps for KlickFu, then next month, we will bundle all the approved apps together in a special KlickFu UCLA version the developers can send to their friends at school. There was a great turn-out at the event last night and we are looking forward to seeing what types of apps the students come up with! (Btw, we have already gotten requests to do a similar contest at USC, which we may do as soon as this one is fully launched.)
We are very excited to be working with students as some of the early developers for KlickFu. Because it enables developers to make small, instant games and apps (as well as more complex ones), we believe KlickFu is an excellent platform for students to build their skills in window management, graphics, and user experience. For the participants, we hope this will be a fun opportunity to build legit shrink-wrapped software they can share with their friends. For KlickFu, we are going to get some excellent feedback on the new (and improved) SDK, as well as some interesting apps to distribute with the free version of the program.
Special thanks to our friends at Microsoft for contributing some great prizes for the developers–an XBox 360 and a Zune HD–we appreciate it! Stay tuned in about 5 weeks to see the Bruin apps.
Mark – you should talk about the details of your programming contest. Is it something that other folks can/should leverage?
Tony, Without going into too much specifics, the contest is going to run about 7 weeks. The developers have 4 weeks to design, build, and test their apps–then we will take the approved apps and combine them into a single downloadable for the contest. The developers who get the most users to download the combined version and then get the most usage for their individual “mini-apps” will win the prizes. We may also award a special judges’ prize for the most creative/innovative app.
As far as something other folks can leverage, do you mean for their own products? If so, I would say yes as long as the product is a good fit for students or other developers to build their skills, and also create something fun or useful in the process.