Come and Hack with Facebook at the Sprint Developer Program Hackathon!
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The Sprint Developer Program Hackathon is shaping up to be a great event. We've got tons of big prizes (over $20,000 total) and lots of great partners and sponsors there, including Facebook. If you're interested in using Facebook in your apps -- or making better use of it -- come out to the event in San Jose on October 23 and 24, where you can get direct support from Facebook's developer team, and maybe pick up some cash, devices or other prizes in the meantime! Facebook's Prashant Sridharan is here to tell us a bit more about what they'll be doing at the hackathon.
1. Hello! Please introduce yourself and your company.
Prashant Sridharan is a Developer Advocate at Facebook, where he helps developers around the world learn how to build great apps using the Facebook platform. Prior to Facebook, Prashant was the Director of Marketing for Amazon Web Services, the chief Product Manager for Microsoft Visual Studio, a product manager at various startups, and a software developer at Sun Microsystems. He is well past the "yucky" phase with Objective C and LOVES to build iOS apps, adores Ruby on Rails, and spends every moment of his free time either snowboarding or training for snowboarding season.
Founded in February 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. With a global community of over 901 million people, Facebook offers individuals and businesses a way to express their identities, tell their stories and build meaningful connections with one another. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment.
2. You are awarding a prize to the app with the best use of Facebook at the upcoming Sprint Developer Program Hackathon. Tell us a little bit about it and what you’re looking for.
We’ll be awarding a prize for the best use of Facebook in a mobile application. We’re looking for apps that are social by design, that offer a compelling social user experience and allow users to tell interesting stories. We’re interested in seeing apps that use Open Graph to good effect as well.
3. What should developers do to prepare for your category at the hackathon? Are there SDKs they should download, places they need to register or documentation to take a look at?
Visit developers.facebook.com for information about our platform, documentation, and how-tos. Our SDKs are available for download on GitHub at github.com/facebook, and we have lots of sample code available at github.com/fbsamples.
Create your first Facebook app by visiting developers.facebook.com/apps!
4. What’s your advice for developers in a hackathon, both to win your category and in general?
Personalize a user’s experience by reading information about them from the social graph; give users the ability to tell stories about their lives and what they’re doing by posting back to Facebook. Allowing users to share drives distribution for your app—and will make you eligible for the Facebook prize.