Widget Idol

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It's a fact: we want widgets. 500 of them to be precise. So tell your friends, lovers and enemies to get ready, cause we want to find the best widget and will go to great lengths to get it.

During the next three months, we're giving away a total of 13 prizes to the developers who create the most impressive widgets. Widgets that excite the imagination with fresh ideas. Widgets that show off cool features. Or widgets that are so much fun, you forget to shower.

Our friends at ThinkGeek are offering a grab bag of awesome toys and gadgets to the best widget each week. Just look at their site and tell me there aren't 10 things that would instantly make your life cooler. But we don't stop there, folks. We're giving away Nokia 770s - the portable Internet tablet - to the best widget for each month. And then...the Grand Prize awarded to the Widget Idol as voted on by our judges.

At The Gathering, we gave away the ultimate high performance computer built by the experts at Digital Impuls. That baby was a monster. For this competition we're giving away...

Wait! That surprise needs its own post.

So run through our tutorials, read the documentation and get coding. The first week's prize will be awarded on the 16th.


The Small Print

Criteria
We kept it the same as the Gathering. Our panel of expert judges will determine the winner based on the following:

Your widget should:
be very easy to use
have a well defined purpose
comply with standards
look good!

Your widget should not:
have bugs
waste resources
have ugly code

Each of these will be ranked from 0 to 100 (and 0 to -100 for the 'should not' list), and then added. The highest scoring widget each week will win that week's prize by ThinkGeek. The top scoring widget of the month will win the Nokia 770. The overall highest scoring widget will win the mysterious Grand Prize...

To enter
Simply upload a widget from http://my.opera.com/community/customize/widgets/submit/
if it gets posted on our 'New Widgets' Page withing a few days after submission it means that it has been judged, ranked, scored and entered in the competition

Deadline
Submission deadline for each week is Monday morning 10AM CET. The Widget of the Month will be the best widget submitted in the past four weeks.

More chances to win
You can update your widget and still win. If your widget didn't win the prize for its week, update your widget and send a mail to widgetcomp[at]opera.com telling us what you changed. Your widget will then be re-entered into the competition. Everyone has a chance to win. Everyone except Opera employees.

Disclaimer: Opera disclaims all liabilities and responsibilities regarding the widgets submitted as part of this competition. The participant agrees to bear all liabilities and responsibilites with regard to the widgets he/she submits as part of this competition. The authors retain copyright of submitted widgets, but widgets must either have a BSD-compatible license or be placed in the public domain. All judges' decisions remain final.

Competition?And the winner is...

Comments

Benjamin Joffe Tuesday, May 9, 2006 4:11:35 PM

Goodness gracious me, this is sure to attract some decent competition. I can't wait to find out what the major prize is.

GuillermoGuille Tuesday, May 9, 2006 4:46:40 PM

great news!, I'll have to start coding now!!

I can't wait to see the winners

Matt Coxcoxy Tuesday, May 9, 2006 5:00:42 PM

Hurrah! I'm going to try my hand at one! Expect it to be really pretty, but really poorly coded...

In fact, I might just make it a JPG and pretend it does stuff... it'll be far easier.

Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez Tuesday, May 9, 2006 5:24:37 PM

I'm going to actually try for the -100 score for "should nots"

Matt Coxcoxy Tuesday, May 9, 2006 6:00:46 PM

Hurrah! I think you can do it. Maybe you should make it in MS Paint.

WolfrealGWolf Tuesday, May 9, 2006 7:30:54 PM

interesting idea ..

FataL Tuesday, May 9, 2006 8:34:57 PM

Rodrigo Canalesrocanale Wednesday, May 10, 2006 2:38:46 AM

Nice, with widgets opera market share will be more big.

I want to make widgets, but.. i have Windows Me sad

GuillermoGuille Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:47:38 AM

I got a question: It is possible that one single person win more that one nokia?

Gautam Chandnagautamchandna Wednesday, May 10, 2006 8:46:05 AM

Answering Guille's question:

Yes. Potentially, one person can win:
- the 10 weekly prizes,
- the 2 monthly prizes and
- the final prize
by making 13 amazing widgets!

If the widget deserves it, we dont see why the creator shouldnt be rewarded!

Kyle Bakerkyleabaker Wednesday, May 10, 2006 12:03:22 PM

Good luck all, I submitted my widget about 2 days too early, lol. Atleast it turned out nice tho.

Maybe I'll have to think up another one and join in on this competition. smile

Benjamin Joffe Wednesday, May 10, 2006 1:14:56 PM

@ gautam_chandna:

I would have thought that only 10 widgets would be necessary to win the 13 prizes. Are you saying that if one wins a weekly prize that widget is taken out of the running for the final prize?

Gautam Chandnagautamchandna Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:59:48 PM

Benjamin: Good point. If you dig into the rules, the minimum number of widgets you need to make is 10, one for each week.

You can 'edit and re-enter' 3 of them to win the Monthly and Final prizes.

--
The catch is, that you cannot participate in more than one weekly prize with one widget, so you need atleast 10. And you cannot re-enter a Monthly Prize winning widget, so you need to edit atleast 3.


But 13 would certainly make me smile a little more:)

Debabrata Halderdrdbahalder Friday, May 12, 2006 10:19:20 AM

I want help

Debabrata Halderdrdbahalder Friday, May 12, 2006 10:22:35 AM

I want help

Jadd Friday, May 12, 2006 2:20:48 PM

Great! I'm glad they brought this competition back.

Danielvariatio Sunday, February 4, 2007 11:23:11 PM

Will there be more competitions in the future?

walterbugscout Wednesday, February 6, 2008 11:59:21 PM

hi,

i think some of them don´t run with my 9.5

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johnnysaucepn Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:29:19 AM

@bugscout,

No Unite applications work in 9.5 You'll need to download the latest 10.10 version from http://my.opera.com/desktopteam .

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