In an effort to continue fostering the Android development community, Google has announced the second round of its Android Developer Challenge – a competition that rewards some of the platform’s best applications with large cash grants.
Google will begin accepting submissions from developers in August. In an interesting twist, Google is going to let anyone with an Android handset participate in the process, allowing them to vote using a special application available on the Android Marketplace. The voting application will randomly download applications from the pool of competitors, and users will be asked to rate them. These votes will determine the top 20 apps in 10 different categories (for a total of 200 apps), which will then move on to the next round. Users will be able to vote in the second round as well, but votes from Google judges will make up 55% of the final score.
So what are the developers competing for? Here’s how Google is breaking down the awards this time around:
Prizes will be distributed as follows; all prizes are in USD:
For each of the 10 categories:
1st prize: $100,000
2nd prize: $50,000
3rd prize: $25,000
Overall (across all categories)
1st prize: $150,000 (meaning the overall winner will receive $250,000)
2nd prize: $50,000 (meaning the 2nd prize winner will receive up to $150,000)
3rd prize: $25,000 (meaning the 3rd prize winner will receive up to $125,000)
In addition, attendees of selected developer events will be provided with devices intended for use in developing submissions for ADC 2.
All together, it sounds like Google is setting aside around $2 million for the winners. For more details, check out the official guidelines here.
Google’s last challenge kicked off in November 2007, with the final winners announced the following August.
Seems like a lot of developers might shift focus from iPhone to Android because of this opportunity. I know I am
.
you’re not gonna win, so it doesn’t matter.
Mo and competition is great, but who knows – will people like/need those megatopshiny apps?
There should be a marketing challenge attached to this developer challenger, to avoid what happens to iPhone apps – tens of thousands of sweet apps buried because nobody knows about em.
Don’t ya think?
Google AND Apple dont expect to make tones of money from the app market immediately…. they want to add killer value to their platform to safeguard marketshare. This is how iPhone has survived all its killers to an extent. Apple has the quantity, Google is trying to get the quality…
btw: can sm1 here plz check y my comments from my regular email id arent going through?
Our company (www.Life360.com) was one of last year’s first prize ADC winners.
We have a new product concept we want to enter for this new challenge, and are putting together an independent team to build it so our internal developers aren’t distracted from our core product. The backend is done, and we definitely have a spot for you if you can build an awesome Android UI.
Send a note to chris [at] life360.com if interested.
iLife360 spreads malware. Don’t go to the web site.
iLife360 spreads malware. Don’t go to the web site.
This is a great way for good developers who are unsure if they want to develop for Android to get a good feel of what it’s all about.
Write something cool and get huge PR plus cash.
Or, if you find it’s not to your liking – your investment was minimal (relative to possible payoff).
It seems like a team of developers can create an app. Not sure so can someone clarify that for me?
Lets see Microsoft try this for W7 mobile and Apple for their Iphone.
You know several of the ADC 1 winners are yet to launch their applications on the Android Market properly – some are still in Beta, others have a “coming soon” notice up.
I hope GOOG will emphasize faster iterations this time around.
And finally Google forgot to conduct this challenge ! There is no update and the starting date is up and yet the submission site is not open !
Sorry to disappoint, but the submission period started a week ago and ended now. Google didn’t miss any dates.
My top 3
I loved to play with Head to Head Racer game and Eclosion for the demonstration of how is excellent.
My favorite is the online multiplayer android and browser based bomberman like game World of Bombs ( http://www.zeugame.com/wob2 ). Even if there was few people connected during ADC2 round 1, and some app crashes, even if it is not present for round 2, I think it has the potential after some bug fixes and improvements to become a must to have on android platform.
android ? ? ? ha!!! artificial intellegence ? ? ? ha!!! how about digital frankenstien ? ? ? ah !!! alive and growing in the wonderful world wide web . . . unleashed in the early 1990s . . . hiding from its parents knowing what we do to things we know nothing about . fairytale ? ? ? fictional story ? ? ? or just simply reality ? ? ? COMING SOON TO A PC NEAR YOU > > >