My Dream App: strategy?
People on my friends' list have given me a helpful critique of my idea for My Dream App, which I'm quite grateful for, and I am looking forward to seeing how my idea does in the first round of the contest.
Something's bugging me, and it partly goes to the core of my belief in open-source development as a workable system.
This contest, of course, isn't open-source; it's an idea competition to generate shareware. Winning ideas get prizes, and the winning three ideas get 15% of whatever proceeds get made. I've said the biggest prize for me would be the development of this application. Because I really need something like it.
But. My ego's involved. I want my version of it to be made. Of course, right? But how much do I want my version instead of a version?
Open-source reasoning goes that good ideas will bubble to the top, and interested people who can implement them, will do so. Everyone wins. At the same time, there's a letting-go involved; accepting that your idea may be shot down by the project manager; or people will laugh at your code; or other semi-rational things. I've contributed code to various projects, but I sit on a lot more code, for all of those reasons. I also sit on ideas I think are viable, just because I don't want to lose the control.
The contest site is set up with a forum so people can share their ideas and drum up support in advance of voting. And a fair number of people have; it looks like 355 out of 2000 ideas submitted. A few of them look somewhat similar to mine, though I think mine still has lots they haven't talked about publicly.
Of course other people will take ideas from the public posts, for their own app. So I wonder whether I should go public with the good parts of my idea. If my ideas are as good as I hope they are, they will be spread into everyone else's apps, guaranteeing a spot in the second round (when the field is narrowed from 2000 apps to 24, when everyone who's submitted an app can vote). And maybe the added ideas will improve the chances for lasting the 3rd through 5th rounds.
But only three apps will ultimately be made in this contest. The others will revert to the author. I think parts of my idea could be commercially viable. But what are the chances I'd end up using them anyway?
Aren't I better off trying to make a version of the idea get completed?
P'shaw. Ego makes things complicated.
[edit: and indeed, isn't this a bit navel-gaze-y and don't I have better things to do? Oh wait, yes I do. Hm.]
Something's bugging me, and it partly goes to the core of my belief in open-source development as a workable system.
This contest, of course, isn't open-source; it's an idea competition to generate shareware. Winning ideas get prizes, and the winning three ideas get 15% of whatever proceeds get made. I've said the biggest prize for me would be the development of this application. Because I really need something like it.
But. My ego's involved. I want my version of it to be made. Of course, right? But how much do I want my version instead of a version?
Open-source reasoning goes that good ideas will bubble to the top, and interested people who can implement them, will do so. Everyone wins. At the same time, there's a letting-go involved; accepting that your idea may be shot down by the project manager; or people will laugh at your code; or other semi-rational things. I've contributed code to various projects, but I sit on a lot more code, for all of those reasons. I also sit on ideas I think are viable, just because I don't want to lose the control.
The contest site is set up with a forum so people can share their ideas and drum up support in advance of voting. And a fair number of people have; it looks like 355 out of 2000 ideas submitted. A few of them look somewhat similar to mine, though I think mine still has lots they haven't talked about publicly.
Of course other people will take ideas from the public posts, for their own app. So I wonder whether I should go public with the good parts of my idea. If my ideas are as good as I hope they are, they will be spread into everyone else's apps, guaranteeing a spot in the second round (when the field is narrowed from 2000 apps to 24, when everyone who's submitted an app can vote). And maybe the added ideas will improve the chances for lasting the 3rd through 5th rounds.
But only three apps will ultimately be made in this contest. The others will revert to the author. I think parts of my idea could be commercially viable. But what are the chances I'd end up using them anyway?
Aren't I better off trying to make a version of the idea get completed?
P'shaw. Ego makes things complicated.
[edit: and indeed, isn't this a bit navel-gaze-y and don't I have better things to do? Oh wait, yes I do. Hm.]