MyDreamApp aims to bring ideas to fruition
Marshall Kirkpatrick
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MyDreamApp, a much buzzed about contest for Mac application ideas, launching this morning. Started by Phil Ryu, a Dartmouth College student and Mac developer, MyDreamApp has brought together a team of all-star advisers to shepherd software ideas submitted by non-developers, developers or anyone else with a vision of an application they’d like to see made available. Contest winners will see their applications actually developed as shareware and receive royalties, though MyDreamApp will retain the rights.
The advisory team includes Kevin Rose, Guy Kawasaki, David Pogue, Steve Wozniak and many more. Technical judges that will narrow down the submissions are Austin Sarner (AppZapper), Jason Harris (ShapeShifter), Martin Ott (SubEthaEdit) and John Casasanta (iClip).
I expect we’ll see at least a few interesting, useful applications come out of this. There’s allready no shortage of cool Mac apps, but the number of nondeveloper users with innovative ideas is probably huge as well. Since the software will be shareware and heavily vetted, the end result will probably be software that doesn’t look like it went through the last service Mike profiled.
The developer judges will determine the 24 best ideas out of the submissions, focusing on innovation, marketability, and feasibility of development. Then the advisers will give feedback and help ideas develop over a five week period in which readers of the site MyDreamApp are voting on the best three ideas. Those three ideas will be created as shareware with royalties going to the idea submitter. Submissions are due no later than the first of September.
Winners will recieve Mac Powerbooks and 15% royalties on sale of the products. MyDreamApp appears to retain the rights to the ideas once they are selected as winners. This will probably mitigate the seriousness of many of the submissions, but if it’s primarily nondevelopers then doing the submitting - then 15% is a whole lot better than nothing, the most likely result of not participating.
An ongoing, for profit version of this sort of thing is underway at Cambrian House, a “crowd sourced” software development company. The differences are many, but both projects are heavy on hype; Cambrian house recently delivered 1000 pizzas to the Google Complex in a move that was pretty widely mocked. It will be interesting to see MyDreamApp focus on a smaller number of projects with a focused group of experts.
You say that these apps will be sold as shareware.. by who? I guess its safe to assume that if its going to be a shareware app, then it isnt open source… so who is the owner of the IP?
I guess its a good idea, but seems like sombody is trying to make some money off of someone elses good idea.
Maybe I should patent an idea, then submit it, and then sue them for patent infringement.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of pickup this gets. I hung with Phil and some of the folks behind the contest at WWDC and while I love the notion, it’s hard to say whether this kind of contest is what independent developers and thinkers need given what I perceive as sweatshop labor masquerading as crowd sourcing.
15% is better than nothing certainly, but having developers build out the basics of idea and open source it (like we do at Mash Pits) might lead to 4 or 5 variations on a theme which could all make some money in the end.
In any case, I’ll be watching this one closely (ironically more closely than Google’s Summer of Code initiative).
What’s interesting about this concept (MyDreamApp) is that most people don’t realize the marketing is one of the toughtest parts of the equation for most projects. In a see of apps that don’t have the finished look, feel, and feature set, it might do very well to get 15% of a professionally developed app rather than 50 or 100% of an app you try to bring to market on your own.From that point, the winner would have some seed money to partner with others on great ideas if the winner is fortunate enough to have more than one marketable idea.I’ve talked to so many Mac developers with finished products that just don’t know how to sell. Phill is simply bringing his skill for marketing and collaboration to the market by generating IP in the way he can.And on a final note, I think just being able to see all the ideas up for a vote will bring many of the ideas to the market through the efforts of quick developers who have talent but just need a good idea for the next project.An excellent idea that will only get better with community support.
I’m not sure that this project will find success. No doubt the winner will not be happy with 15% (net!) of the product on only a single platform, mac. (no royalties are offered for the product ported to other platforms)
The basic idea of bring developers together with product ideas is sound though. I think developers are always looking for projects. A site that allows people that to happen in a more open way might be better.
I think we may see some interesting concepts from non-developers out there. Brian Ball is definitely right about the marketing aspect of new products. There are plenty of people with great ideas, but have no idea how to really even use a computer for more than surfing and email. This can end up being a trend setting concept, especially with the increase in social networking and 2.0 start-ups. This is one to watch.
I see Messina’s point having participated in MashPit and CocoaDevHouse but MyDreamApp is likely to attract ideas from non-developers. If this exercise can draw great ideas out for public iteration and validation then we’ve made progress imo.
@Brian, Revenue splits are never going to appease are parties.
Surely, the spotlight will be on the 3 app ideas chosen for development but I believe there will be equal or greater excitement around the 21 other finalists. Maybe we’ll see some virtual mashing of ideas and partnerships formed to bring those ideas to market too. Isn’t this what Apple and we, as OS X users, should desire?
Until Obj-C and Xcode are as innate to me as speaking English, I’m betting on MyDreamApp to expand the Mac market and to deliver apps that will make Leopard rock.
[Disclaimer: I am producing the MyDreamApp podcast]
I havent read up on the MyDreamApp site, and I have no desire to do so, but I do have one question. Is the site going to announce which idea they will pick to develop before the development starts? If so, it will be a race to the finish becuase I am sure that the open source crowd will jump to beat the developers to get the product in to the wild … and for free.
The majority of the apps that made it into the final 24 were pre existing apps just with the words “beutiful interface” added.
I was a little disappointed that most of the apps chosen were not revolutionary nor did they take advantage of Leopard as the contest requested.
It certainly was fun to see all the submissions and there are 3 or 4 really good ideas.
Interesting note about the “open source” community rushing to beat them.