

See what apps were built in a day - kineticac
http://browseology.posterous.com/one-day-app-final-results

======
bravura
For a while, I wanted as an exercise to build a minimum viable product
(<http://venturehacks.com/articles/minimum-viable-product>) very quickly. I
also wanted to round out my web development experience, and take a project
from start to completion (at least, deployed). So I participated in this
event.

The day of the event, there were a handle of people on the channel who had no
idea what to work on but wanted to hack something. I was amazed to find a
fellow who wanted to work with me, without knowing really anything about each
other. We just sat and coded for the entire day. I have no idea where he even
lives or what he looks like.

But our work dynamic was great. We rarely stepped on each other's toes, we
covered each others weaknesses, and we didn't have any arguments. In sum
total, we sat and developed an MVP and deployed it:

    
    
       http://doubleblind.at
    

The goal is to see if enough people like to take this quiz and give us their
email address, so we can get enough data to do interesting NLP and ML and
bootstrap a collaborative filtering system.

We literally spent the first 6 hours (1/3rd of our entire effort) trying to
get Twitter-Django-Oauth working, because we were convinced it was crucial.
Instead, we should have considered alternatives (e.g. Friendfeed) earlier.

The organizers, who do browseology.com, created a new URL shortening service
<http://kiw.is>. It shortens your URL and it gives your reader a 10 second
personalized message before delivering the final link to them. Cute idea,
right? But it might not get any attention if it was released on its own. So
co-announcing this microapp as part of a one day app event---especially if
only one or two things get built and deployed---will get them more attention
than it would otherwise.

Lessons learned:

1\. Django deployment isn't that difficult.

2\. If you want to find a collaborator who will actually build stuff (instead
of just talking about building stuff), participate in a one-day-app event. It
automatically disqualifies people who cannot or will not actually make the
time to hack. It's also a good way to determine quickly whether you and
someone can work together effectively.

3\. Any time you feel that something is 100% (or very) necessary it for your
success, that should be a red flag. Examine this assumption before investing
too heavily into it.

4\. Twitter-OAuth-Django integration is a PITA, and cost us several hours.
Conversely, simple authentication with Friendfeed was a breeze.

5\. If you want to promote a microapp, organize a hackday and roll your
announcement into the overall press release.

I am also discussing this event in the Eric Ries's lean-startup-circle group
([http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-
circle/browse_th...](http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-
circle/browse_thread/thread/2f934d1137dd9f3)), if you are interested.

~~~
philfreo
If you can, it'd be great to see the lessons you learned (or even some code)
for Twitter-OAuth-Django.

~~~
bravura
I used the directions in this blog for Django-OAuth-Twitter:
[http://agileweb.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/step-by-step-
guide-...](http://agileweb.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/step-by-step-guide-to-use-
sign-in-with-twitter-with-django/)

It took several hours to get us to authenticate. The next several hours we
couldn't get it to serve requests, even ones that required no authentication.
We kept coding hoping that the problem would magically go away, but that never
really happens.

It's conceivable that both of us were both doing something stupid, but it's
also equally likely that the implementation was not simple.

My collaborator, @ricree, has some refinements to these instructions on the
blog post above, following on what he did to get the authentication working. I
am asking him to write those up. But we could _not_ , I stress, make nearly
all subsequent API requests, even ones that didn't require authentication.

------
erikstarck
The 24 hour Business Camp that took place in a Japanese spa in the archipelago
outside Stockholm in January was one of the best, most fun, most inspiring
things I've done:

<http://www.24hourbusinesscamp.com/>

We were 90 people that worked for 24 hours to build 52 "startups". The list is
here: [http://www.24hourbusinesscamp.com/2009/01/vote-for-your-
favo...](http://www.24hourbusinesscamp.com/2009/01/vote-for-your-favourite-
start-up.html) (Some of it in Swedish.)

It was an eye opening experience to build something in such a short timeframe.
To say you have to focus on the essentials is an understatement. I think I
slept for 2 hours before finishing the last touches in the morning. Afterwards
I felt a high that lasted for weeks. This event changed me.

Here's my Flickr-set from Yasuragi where 24hbc took place:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikstarck/sets/721576128250229...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikstarck/sets/72157612825022965/)

Note the Japanese bath robes.

~~~
kineticac
seems much more relaxing than what we did!!! thanks for all the links and the
heads up for other similar events.

~~~
sidmitra
Here are some more programming/app contests that i think are still open, if
anyones interested:

<http://www.twilio.com/contest/netbook/> [Every monday]

<https://www.code7contest.com/Default.aspx> [15 Aug??]

<http://www.componentart.com/community/competition2009/> [Deadline Sep 27]

<http://www.ineta.org/codechallenge/> [Deadline 25th Aug]

\--- <http://www.ideaconnection.com/contests/index-ideas.html>

------
joepestro
This was really fun. I think the time constraint of 1 day allows you to focus
on what really matters and how you can be really efficient with productivity.

Constraints are interesting. Twitter = 140 characters, One Day App = 24 hours.
What seems like a hindrance turns out to be what makes them popular and
engaging. We can show what we can accomplish in 1 day, and it makes the apps
featured here that much more impressive.

I know we learned a lot about what can be optimized and where the time sinks
really are when making apps that appear to be simple at first glance. There
was a pretty lengthy discussion on HN over the past weeks about the perceived
ease of building a site like Stack Overflow. Participating in an event like
this shows you first hand all the edge cases and details that get in your way
when building an app over the course of a weekend (or in this case, 24 hours).
There are always things that come up that you don't think of in the planning
stages. For me, I always remind myself to use less theory and more action.
It's an easy trap to fall into, endlessly planning and trying to figure out
everything in your mind. But in my experience it's often better to work
through a problem rather than guess at how I _would_ work through it. Sounds
like a simple distinction, but it often makes a big difference.

I hope this becomes a recurring event! It was fun to see what we can
accomplish in one day.

~~~
sidmitra
Maybe we could also try a format that involves more people working together on
1-2 things rather than each an individual app. So we learn something from each
other in addition as well.

~~~
kineticac
The next event will definitely be more structured and planned out. thanks for
the feedback!

------
kineticac
Developers put out some awesome apps yesterday! Check out what could be done
in a single day. We had 10 applicants for this spontaneous event, and 4 teams
came together and put together some pretty solid products. From what I can
tell, the applicants were all from our Hacker News community.

Big thanks to Chatterous for fixing up our room, Wufoo for the forms that
helped keep everything in line and organized, Posterous for the sweet blog
platform to help post our announcements, and all the other support we got from
the community. All the participants could not have done it without you!

All the teams will add comments about their story in the blog post. So please
leave us some feedback here.

------
kineticac
It was a fun experience to put this event together. It was very spontaneous
and casual.

We used kiw.is, a domain I had registered a few weeks ago because it was a fun
name, and decided to use it for the web address and name.

We wanted an idea that could have some use to it, and also be done in a day.
The technology used was all very simple, robust, secure, and well supported.
All those factors made it easy. We thought up making a prestitial kind of page
for people to add messages to a link that were completely customizable.
Without needing to rely on messages inline with a link, such as twitter, users
can now attach messages right before the actual page. Not a new idea in
general, but new for this specific application of it.

It's currently in beta invite, and for the Hacker News community we made a few
for you guys to try it out:

Beta Invite Code: hackernews09

~~~
Elepsis
My first reaction to kiw.is was "okay, this is pretty obnoxious for me as the
link-follower," but after a little bit of thought it occurred to me that
something like this would actually be perfect for links to anything that is
potentially NSFW or sensitive. I think if you played up that angle and then
furthermore became known for it, the service might actually be a good "second-
favorite URL shortener."

~~~
kineticac
yeah, the big differentiator here isn't just the short url and name, but that
extra message you can give, either a warning a funny inspirational image, or
your own comment.

I used it recently to link to a photographer's portfolio, noting the pictures
I really enjoyed. I could send this across any medium and know that as it's
shared, people will see this message.

------
JamieLewis
This was great fun to do, and I am planning to keep <http://qitika.com/news>
going, 24 hours is just enough time to build a foundation and get a concept
together...the hardest part of course is keeping the momentum going....

~~~
bravura
I am not sure the voting is working for me. Could you maybe also write an
About page, describing your site and its goal?

~~~
JamieLewis
As a note You must be logged in to vote. And yes, an about page is a good
idea, I will get right on that. Thanks for the feedback...

~~~
kineticac
Hey Jamie, something might be wrong with my key, but the vote page gives me an
internal error. I will check it a bit later and try to see if there's a
pattern.

------
Tichy
Related: next ludum dare contest takes place end of August (48h game
programming competition).

[http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/07/23/ludum-
dare-15-augu...](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/07/23/ludum-
dare-15-august-28th-30th-weekend/)

~~~
sidmitra
Cool, I'll probably participate in this one too.

~~~
Tichy
I think you can already submit ideas for the theme. Ludum Dare is great fun.

