Should Mayor Ballard offer cash for Apps?

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on November 19, 2009 at 3:35pm

If your blog or Website doesn't get much traffic, you might try posting more content on SI. It really does make people and ideas findable!!

I posted on SI the NYC Big Apps story last night. Today, I search Google for nyc big apps and this forum thread came up 4th out of 62 million results. See results page

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Permalink Reply by Chris Tomlinson on November 20, 2009 at 7:46am

I have a really big problem with the idea of this being a contest and not seeking out actual professional designers and/or firms that can do the work, do it properly and at a fair market price.

I wouldn't have a clue how to build one of these app's or know how long it would take, but let's say it takes 40 hours total to do it all. From preplanning, to document writing, programming, flowcharts, beta testing, so on and so forth. Now if you win and your hourly rate is $90 then you come out ahead if you're the top winner and a slight loss if you come in second. But what if you don't finish in the money at all? That 40 hours worth of work and got nothing for it. Seriously, anyone here willing to work for 40+ hours and HOPE to get paid? I sure as hell don't and neither should these other people.

The big firms might come out 'alright' because they have deeper pockets and can take a slight hit with the risk, but a small 3-5 person team may not.

I think it's great NYC is looking at using technology to mine this data and present it properly and I think other cities should follow suit, but not with a contest.

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on November 20, 2009 at 8:03am

App Dev contests are pretty common, actually.

Here's one for Google Android apps

Here's one run by Cisco
I think the point is to inspire innovation through competition. At the end of the day, it's up to the participants whether or not it's worth the risk...which is also the question for entrepreneurs looking to start new companies.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Tomlinson on November 20, 2009 at 10:24am

Oh yea, I know App Dev contest are pretty common. They're just as common for web design and logo designs. There are sites galore constantly hosting contests filled with hopes and dreams of 'hitting it big' and 'more work in the future' promises.

But again, my point being contests are a lot like the carrot in front of the horse. Only a few figure out how to swing it into their mouth, while others keep walking along trying to reach it.

That being said, will my complaint or a rise in blogs calling for an end to these contests ever come true? Probably not. But how many other industries do this? Would an architect design a house hoping to win a contest? Can someone go out and just build a few unique cars here and there to hopefully win a contest? Sure, I guess they can, but again it goes along with the idea of working for nothing, hoping to get something.

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Permalink Reply by Michael J Dukehart, II on November 20, 2009 at 10:49am

But if the city goes to a development company asking for aps they will probably only get the aps they ask for. Asking from the city they will get ideas for aps from the citizens and users of the city services.

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Permalink Reply by Michael J Dukehart, II on November 20, 2009 at 8:43am

At first I detested this idea of this post but can actually think of some usefull aps. One for the Mayors action center......take a pic and capture the location position and send it on over....the the city knows what it is looking for an an almost exact location and I'm sure it could auto capture contact info to on the send.

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