For Future Contests

If there are going to be future contests like this (and there should, as they rock!), please consider the following remarks/suggestions :)

- Teams: Some people like to work in teams, and this usually gets quite nice results too. However, with the current prize set-up, it's rather difficult to work in teams because who gets the prize I suggest you either give out money (:P) or split it up in multiple prizes per app (have like something slightly bigger for the team leader, and 5 smaller items for the other members, take a look at counterstrike clan contests, I believe they have a system like that)
- Examples: Have some example code or links for people that aren't that good with DHTML ;)
(more to be added (a))

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For Future Contests

Christan
Its also worth mentioning that, although there isn't a fully documented API for it, the Spaces BlogIt function is quite handy too (and there is a Spaces BlogIt link in my Connect Four app).

Although don't seem to be any docs on the BlogIt button/page Scott's SiteExperts page has a bit on it here and its worth bearing in mind that you can put any HTML (url encoded and up to a certain length) in the description area.
Mirsad

    Hi!!!

    I agree with J-Thread: from what I've read, a game requires way much more design than coding (almost twice), which includes graphics, style, sounds, and possibly some animations or visual effects to provide flow and presentation. If I have had the chance, I would have done my project with at least one designer.

    Also, a team member for testing & debugging is definitelly an asset.

    On the other hand, for normal application, the more sober it is, the more professional it looks :p

    About the prices, well, let's face it, we're here because we like the challenge, the new technologies, being on the "center of the stage", and brag about it. The prize is just the "cherry over the ice cream". In my case, if I win any of the 31 prizes, I'm going to put it in my curriculum, send it to a head hunter and I'm going to get a decent job. After all, it is rather impressive to a human resources guy to say that I participated in a contest organized by Microsoft ;)
Daya Anand

Search
Virtual Earth (Local) or ViaVirtualEarth (Local)
Spaces
Alerts
jb_cipher

Search
Virtual Earth (Local)
Spaces
Alerts
friend_friend
CodeTalk uses MSN Search web service...
Sergey_12345
About the prizes, I think you're right about that. Most people do not participate because of the prizes, but just because they want to share their programs with the public, or to make their names famous. It is really cool to show your program or game (that is downloaded thousands of times) to your friends!

Of course it is nice to win prizes, and if there weren't prizes there would be not so much participants I guess... So the prizes should still exist, but the main reason to participate (for me at least) is not to win prizes. For example, I was chatting with TheBlasphemer and I told him I already had my drivers licence (he doesn't ) and he answered: So what I'm making better games for MSN!

About the curriculum, I'm one of the happy guyes that already won money that was paid by MSN. Ok, it was only 33 dollar but well, I won something and I was paid by MSN!
Premspace
How about a list of MSN services The website says:

- Best Use of Other MSN Services (30%)

But I cannot find a proper list of those services. May be my mistake of course, but it looks like nobody really used the other features...

About the teams, think it is a good idea to stimulate teams, there are of course already some people that worked together, but sharing 1 pc isn't really usefull... If you make teams (for example teams of 3 people) the apps will be better and more interesting then they already are! But a price that you can share will be nice then!

I'm also hoping there will be more contests in the future, because I heard about this 2,5 week ago, I couldn't really participate... And I've got more ideas!!
Ramazan Acar
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msn/
vibha g panse
About the MSN services, that's a nice list, I could have implemented some if I knew it before, but well, too bad. No big deal, I now know I can use those services in the future maybe.

About the teams... I haven't got an example project what could have made by teams, but I'm sure there could have been made bigger and nicer programs. For example, I am a programmer but not a designer, so my app's don't look really cool or so, it's just a basic and simple design. If I would have worked together with a designer (I know a few) the app would look better.

There's also the fact that more people know more, and they have more time together. For example TB's app (Messenger-Quest) is now very small because TB didn't have more time. If he would have worked together with some other people (2 or 3 maybe) there would have been a lot more levels, and maybe more features etc. Of course we can already work together and just say it's made by one person, but because only one person can keep the price, the other ones will not work very hard on it I think!

The best way to do it in my opinion is to accept teams in the following way: You can enter all the team members (with a maximum of 3 or 4 for example) and if you win, you may even win more prizes that somebody who did it alone (so the team can share it). Or there is just money being paid, and all the members get the same amount. BUT, when there are more then one team members (so when you have a team), you get 10% lesser score then somebody who did it alone. For example:

score = oldscore * (1 - ((teammembers - 1) / 10))

So if you are alone you get all the points, with 2 persons you only get 90% of the old score, etc.

With this construction, you can choose to make a team, but you have to make a really nice app to win. On the other hand, I think it is better for MSN that people make teams, because there will be better apps then.

The only problem is indeed, what prizes should there be. The most easy one is to just give people money, that can be shared. But I personally like prizes like computers and software more.

It is (as I already said) an option to give every member of the team the prize. The problem is, if there are a lot of good teams, MSN has to pay a lot of money to all those teams. Of course I don't really care about that, but well...

Maybe other people have a better idea for this Or MSN does
Jym
I'm implementing Local in my game now, it's going to be quite nice I think.

@Todd: I sent you an email a few days ago
. Did you reply It could be I missed it, because I changed my (mail)servers.
mici

I am using VE, Search and Spaces (not 3 on one app, but maximum 2).

http://www.tud.ttu.ee/~t990896/msn/sharedpad/preview.jpg
Anr
We appreciate the feedback on the current contest and how we could improve it if we have more in the future. I can see how more sample code would have been helpful. I'm curious about a couple of comments in this thread, so have the following questions for you:

1. What types of projects could have been undertaken by teams that weren't during this contest
2. What did people think of the prizes for this contest
3. What would be the most appropriate prizes for team projects

As for what MSN services could be integrated with applications that were a part of of this contest, we did leave it open since new (Live) services were being added, but here's the list of candidates:

Search
Virtual Earth (Local) more info on ViaVirtualEarth (Local)
Spaces
Alerts

I don't think we ever expected them all to be combined in a single app, but we certainly have seen people using Virtual Earth (Local) and Search. I'm not sure what an app combining all of these services would look like, perhaps an Activity that randomly pulled and displayed images from Search based on text in the conversation stream (search), blogged the conversation stream (Spaces), notified people subscribed to the blog (Alerts), and then somehow mapped the image within the activity (Local).
For Future Contests

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