Guidelines

Where can I sign up for the contest?

Go to developer.jamendo.com/contest/register to register you or your team for our contest.

What are the contest categories?

There will be two categories:

The Jamendo Innovation Award.
The Community Award for the best app, sponsored by GitHub and 3scale.

What does "innovative" mean?

“Innovative” means that the app should bring something new to the Jamendo experience. Basically, it should be more forward-thinking than just a simple player, for example. Also, Jamendo is currently working on a new Android and iPhone app. Creating a similar app won’t be considered innovative. Here are a few examples of what would be considered innovative:

An app that mixes the Jamendo API with the Google Maps API to geolocalize and view artists near you.
An app that mixes the Jamendo API with the Google Maps API to geolocalize and view artists near you.
An app that helps to discover new Jamendo music.
A game that renders the world/levels based on songs from Jamendo.

Just be creative! ;)

Can we participate as a team?

Yes. We will not consider whether an app is created by a single developer or a group. Developers might also want to use one or more already existing open source libraries they find on GitHub. It is up to you if you want to build everything alone from scratch, do it with friends or even use some third party code.

What prizes can I win?

The Jamendo Innovation Award offers two prizes:

$1,000 for the winner.
$500 for the runner-up.

The Community Award also offers two prizes:

The GitHub prize + $500: Our sponsor GitHub will award a single winner with a 2 year Medium plan or a 1 year Silver account if the winner is a team. An additional $500 will also awarded by Jamendo.
The 3scale prize + $500: Our sponsor 3scale will award a Sonos Play:3 Wireless HiFi Player. An additional $500 will also be awarded by Jamendo.

Which version of the API do I have to use?

You must use the new Jamendo API v3.0 (https://api.jamendo.com/v3.0) to create your app. This contest is to promote out new API v3.0, a requirement is that your app uses the new Jamendo API v3.0 not the v2.x version of the API.

Where can I find the API documentation?

This is our new https://developer.jamendo.com/v3.0 Jamendo API v3.0 documentation page.

Can I submit an app I had previously created some time ago and participate?

Yes. We do not verify if submitted code is radically new or might have already existed before the start of the contest. However, we do encourage participants to create something exciting and new! Remember, one of the two categories will reward innovative apps, meaning existing apps will have almost no chance of winning that category. Do your best to build something that will impress everyone and increase your chances of winning in both categories!

Which programming languages can I use to create the app?

That’s up to you. Do you like Javascript, enjoy Ruby, love Python or prefer PHP? Maybe this is the moment you were waiting for to experiment with a programming language you have always wanted to try. You could create a native iOS or Android app, an HTML5 web-app or even an app powered by a proxy server like Nginx or Node.js.

What can I develop an app for?

It’s also up to you. It can be an OS: iOS (iTunes), Android (Play Store), Mac (OS X Store), Linux, Windows 8, etc. It can be a web browser: Chrome Web Store, Firefox marketplace, etc. Of course you can also create add-ons/plugins for tools like VLC Player, Winamp, XBMC Media Center, etc.

Does my app have to be open source?

Yes, this is obligatory. Contest participants must code their app entirely in open source. Also, if your app connects to a server, that server software must be open source as well.

You can use any open source licenses listed on the Open Source Initiative website.

Where do I have to publish my app source code to be eligible?

Individuals must open a GitHub account and host their app source code there before the contest ends. Groups have to open an organization account on GitHub and all members of the group must be part of that organization.

The Jamendo developers have created a repository on GitHub for the contest. Participants must fork the Jamendo app contest repository and put their code in it before the end of the contest. The same rules apply for groups/organizations as for individuals.

As soon as you have a final version of your app or at least before the end of the contest, create a tag called “final” and put your final source into that tag. The version tagged “final” will be the version we and the community will rate to decide who wins the contest.

If you are a developer, you probably already have a GitHub account. If not, here is the help page that clearly explains how to get started.

Does my app have to be bug-free?

Yes and no. The goal of this contest is not to create a full app with tons of features. A prototype with only a few features and few bugs might be more interesting than a bigger app with lots of features but also lots of bugs.

Your best shot would be to create a prototype of an app that shows an exciting new way to enjoy Jamendo content. Don't try to implement too many features, as you will increase the risk of bugs that you might not have the time to test and fix by the end of the contest.
It’s not the app with the most features that wins but the app with the most innovative ones.

Of course an app has to run and be functional, but if there are some bugs left you didn't find by the end of the contest, it’s OK. It doesn’t mean that you should have bugs keeping the app from actually starting at all, or crashing after a few seconds.

Do I have to publish my app in an app store before the end of the contest?

No, it is not mandatory. Of course, if your app is ready to be published, don’t hesitate to do so. Then the community will be able to test the app by downloading it from the app store. Keep in mind that this might increase your chances to win: already published and testable apps will probably get more votes than apps that only exist as source code in your repository.

Can I publish more than one app or be part of more than one group?

Yes. You can participate with several different apps if you think it is better than putting all your efforts into one. You can also participate as member of a team and at the same time submit another app as individual, for example.

When does the contest start?

The contest starts on Thursday, April 11th, 2013 at 12:00 PM

When does the contest end?

The contest ends on Sunday, June 9th, 2013 at midnight (UTC+2).
Be sure to publish your app on GitHub before that time.

Where can I find news and information about the contest?

Be sure to check out the jamendo-dev google group.
Visit our contest page at developer.jamendo.com/contest.
Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook, you won’t miss any announcements.

You might also want to check out the websites of our partners: GitHub and 3scale.
Follow GitHub on Twitter
Follow 3scale on Twitter

When will the community start voting?

Everyone can start voting for your app on Wednesday, June 12th, 2013. Check back at the contest page on that date, as that’s where it will happen.

When will the community voting end?

The voting ends on Sunday, June 23rd, 2013 at midnight (UTC+2).

Can I vote multiple times for an app?

No, but every Jamendo user will be able to give one single vote to more than one app.

When will the winners be announced?

We will announce the winners shortly after the voting period has ended.

Can i use SaaS providers like Appcelerator or Parse?

It is important that all the code you wrote is opensource and can be redistributed, if your code accesses an SDK that is proprietary, then this is ok, but remember that your code used to access that SDK must be opensource. So if somebody downloads your code, creates a parse or appcelerator account, he should be able to launch the app after he changed the values of the configuration file with his own SAAS credentials.