I bet that you have heard, that Polish student developers (which by some blogs have been changed into just 'polish developers') are third largest active group in Windows Marketplace counting by number of applications. If you wonder, how it could be, let me introduce you how such numbers are created.
There is .Net developers portal (called CodeGuru), which is filled with marketing, but along with that, there are developer articles, tutorials and all this stuff, which beginners found useful. This portal is active in academic environment, create conferences, pushes students to it's own platform. Raising developers from students.
Some day, they found that it will be a good idea, to make contest. It was called: get a windows phone in geek club. What is a geek club? This is developer activity promotion, where you get paid in points for various platform related actions, blog posts, applications, comments. Media relationship of our times. What was the contest rules? Create five different applications, let them be judged by jury, each of them will give you one hundred points. Five hundred points can be exchanged to a new Windows Phone. Clear? Where is a catch? Contest is active until phones are available, nobody said how many phones there was, and when they will run out.
Well, that's almost all. When there is first in - first out queue to phones, with time passing your chances to get one of them are eroding very fast. Some of developers have gave up, some have lost faith. Contest end time have been extended to end of January, additionally to stimulate movement and flow of applications, one of the contest attendee (signed as Microsoft itself) have made comments on the contest forum. One of them was "do not worry, every valid application which will be sent to contest before 31st of January will be granted with Windows Phone", second one was "do not hurry, put your effort to quality of application" (this is not word-by-word Polish to English translation - you can find those comments cited in this forum post).
This was the steam which was needed, application stream have flooded.Applications have been sent to judgment and big waiting for phones have started.
How this story ends? This is not fairy tale, there is no 'happy end'. Phones have run out very fast and contest have been closed, comments have been edited out and there was almost no trace of them. Only in few repeated questions in following comments. Simple calculations made by forum users showed that there was no phones left when contest end time was extended, there was also no phones left when this contest was promoted on one of the conferences.
I've talked with one of the developers, which was taking part in this event, there was few more which he was knowing personally. Guess what, none of them have got their phones. They made their five applications, which were judged as correct from rules point of few (technically speaking they won), they have their five hundreds points but they have nothing.
How to f**k enthusiastic developers? Make contest without prizes, change rules during play, and ignore their questions.
Microsoft ended up with lots of shitty applications in the Marketplace and even more angry developers. Nicely done!
Some day, they found that it will be a good idea, to make contest. It was called: get a windows phone in geek club. What is a geek club? This is developer activity promotion, where you get paid in points for various platform related actions, blog posts, applications, comments. Media relationship of our times. What was the contest rules? Create five different applications, let them be judged by jury, each of them will give you one hundred points. Five hundred points can be exchanged to a new Windows Phone. Clear? Where is a catch? Contest is active until phones are available, nobody said how many phones there was, and when they will run out.
Well, that's almost all. When there is first in - first out queue to phones, with time passing your chances to get one of them are eroding very fast. Some of developers have gave up, some have lost faith. Contest end time have been extended to end of January, additionally to stimulate movement and flow of applications, one of the contest attendee (signed as Microsoft itself) have made comments on the contest forum. One of them was "do not worry, every valid application which will be sent to contest before 31st of January will be granted with Windows Phone", second one was "do not hurry, put your effort to quality of application" (this is not word-by-word Polish to English translation - you can find those comments cited in this forum post).
This was the steam which was needed, application stream have flooded.Applications have been sent to judgment and big waiting for phones have started.
How this story ends? This is not fairy tale, there is no 'happy end'. Phones have run out very fast and contest have been closed, comments have been edited out and there was almost no trace of them. Only in few repeated questions in following comments. Simple calculations made by forum users showed that there was no phones left when contest end time was extended, there was also no phones left when this contest was promoted on one of the conferences.
I've talked with one of the developers, which was taking part in this event, there was few more which he was knowing personally. Guess what, none of them have got their phones. They made their five applications, which were judged as correct from rules point of few (technically speaking they won), they have their five hundreds points but they have nothing.
How to f**k enthusiastic developers? Make contest without prizes, change rules during play, and ignore their questions.
Microsoft ended up with lots of shitty applications in the Marketplace and even more angry developers. Nicely done!