Hundreds of Web developers, designers, and ordinary geeks gathered this weekend to build usable applications for Apple's iPhone. The barcamp.org event was hosted at Adobe Town Hall and featured dozens of sponsors. The hack-a-thon began on Saturday morning, and wrapped up late Sunday afternoon when each team had a chance to present its app.
Some teams included a group of Yahoo! developers, and others included complete strangers who had just met the day before. I give credit to all teams who participated, but here are the 10 most memorable creations:
10. iPhoneVote This application was the first one presented at the hack-a-thon, and it was used as a voting system for the event. You would tilt your iPhone in portrait mode to vote yay, and tilt it horizontally to give a negative vote. There was a laptop set up in the front of the room, and it was updated in real time. Unfortunately, I don't think the app reset each time a new team would present, so the votes just tallied up into the 80s. Even though it wasn't used for its official purpose, it was a great burst of hope for future apps like this, and boosted the morale of the developers in the room.
9. AppMarks If you have an iPhone, make AppMarks your Safari home page. The interface models the iPhone front door, but instead, each icon links to a Web app or HTML bookmark. I mentioned AppMarks in this blog post a few days ago. AppMarks is cool, but I want to see more functionality. If the AppMarks people want users to add AppMarks as their home page, they need to always be thinking of new features. There are other products, like Mojits, that are right on their heels.
8. PickleView The only sports application presented was called PickleView. Ryan Christianson from the Walt Disney Internet Group explained that in baseball, a pickle is a play in which a base runner is trapped between bases with fielders tossing the ball back and forth and usually ending with the runner being tagged out. Most will remember it well from the 1990s classic,The Sandlot.
Their iPhone app visualizes a box-score view of your favorite teams’s stats, and then displays a mock Twitter feed of PickleView's friends. I am not sure if that's how this app works, but the developers have a cool concept.
... Read MoreMarch Madness finds a way into offices, schools, and between friends faster than most of us can imagine. Nearly everybody knows someone who is either running or a part of a betting pool. Download.com has put together a handy set of March Madness software tools to help you create your own pool or keep track of all the data that will be flowing in during the coming weeks. But what about Web services that can do the same thing? We've put together a roundup of some of the handiest services to keep track of all the money you've lost all things basketball.
Note: Webware does not encourage illegal betting. This guide is purely for entertainment purposes.
Facebook. Last year, Facebook put together a really easy way to create and track your bracket with friends in private pools. This year, things are a whole lot better. While there's not a betting element in place, you can easily keep track of who's doing the best, using statistics and rankings. This year Facebook has added a reason to use the service with a $25,000 grand prize for people who predict the entire tournament correctly. There are also cash and Facebook apparel prizes for people who win in the first four rounds.
CBS Sportsline is laying it on thick this year. Not only does it have the Bracket Manager service, which lets you create and share your bracket in a private pool with forums and customized scoring, you also can watch the actual games (first three rounds only) on your computer with the March Madness On Demand viewer.
Pickspal is a really simple bracket site where you can compete for a variety of prizes, including a Mini Cooper. You also can invite friends and manage private pools like you can with Facebook and Sportsline. Its interface is incredibly simple, with clickable team names and a neat faux-hardwood court. [via TechCrunch]
Yahoo's Tournament Pick'em may be one of the oldest bracket services out there, with some pretty simple group management. What separates Yahoo's prize system from some of the others is that it rewards private group leaders and lets you compete in five different groups with a different bracket for each (you also can reuse the same one in all five). Did I mention there's a cash prize of $1 Million dollars?
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