A list of swag opportunities for developers | Hacker News Reader

A list of swag opportunities for developers

github.com

130 pointsswapagarwal45 comments

A few years ago, I sent a message to Stripe about a problem with its documentation (they let you switch examples to be in different languages, but at least some Java examples showed up as C++). They not only sent a personal message saying they fixed it, but also offered me a free tshirt. It really sent a message that they cared about documentation.

Yes, I got the same when I pointed out an issue with their dashboard when they announced Bitcoin support

I had some sweet stickers printed by stickermule for whatismybrowser.com which I'm always happy to send to anyone who wants some.

just drop me a line on the contact page with your mailing address

https://www.whatismybrowser.com/about/contact/

You da real MVP!

Thanks for making me aware of stickermule :) Looks great, think I'll order some for my company :)

I like swag with blinking lights. A buddy and I used to go to the big embedded systems conference in San Jose and compete to see who could score the most development kits. You'd have to chat with the reps a bit to show that you knew how to use their gear before they coughed up anything good. We'd walk out with a thousand dollars of free gear on a good year. How loose the reps were depended a lot on the economy that year. It was a lot of fun.

Ah. The Good Ol' Days!

90% of startups will eagerly give you a free tshirt just for asking. They love the free marketing. No need to do stuff like submit builds, etc.

I have gotten free stuff from:

- IFTTT (socks)

- MixPanel

- CloudFlare

- Elastic

- infochimp

- pingdom

- moz

- rethinkdb

That's true. But the value of swag is increased when it's earned! :wink:

How do you contact these places?

just search on Twitter “<company name> tshirt” and you will find the right person to contact.

Won't cut it for RethinkDB though :/

Do people really want to advertise tech companies by using their merchandise? You couldn't pay me enough to even entertain the thought.

Lemme just pull up that poorly sitting abhorrent short sleeved Microsoft Office business shirt real quick and we are off.

> startups

Snarkiness aside, I'd wear Microsoft gear.

More infrastructure than dev, but If you manage to reach the Sage level in Hurricane Electric's free online IPV6 certification program, they send you a T-Shirt: http://blog.he.net/2010/05/28/hurricane-electric-would-like-...

Warning: It is a time consuming course!

I proudly wear mine, though it's getting a bit ragged now

Cheap t-shirts and socks? I'm less than impressed so far. I'm sure corps are still giving out better swag. You who are almost out of runway, salute us! ;-)

Beats having to wash used ones though.

Meh, the only swag I ever got was one of those 3D hand tracking fancy things whose closed-source license wasn't compatible with blender and didn't work all that well on linux.

Wouldn't mind a pair of socks though...

Go for it! :cheers:

Make a google home app and you get a t-shirt and $300 gcloud credit

Nice! Feel free to open an issue, or send a PR. :smile:

Source?

Looks like it is $200 and a t-shirt: https://developers.google.com/actions/community/overview#pub...

Added to the list, by @HarrisJT!

Adobe used to do this. They'd send books on (IIRC) any Adobe product to hackers who got patches accepted into Flex.

Really like the Alexa skill thing, make me want dig into it. An Amazon echo for only 100 downloads seems easy to reach.

Yep, it's a win-win! :smile:

Serious question: are you typing out colon-smile-colon yourself every time, or does HN convert emojis to text automatically?

I've now been accustomed to typing out emojis like this, as it's faster for me.

Are you figuring in the privacy impact of having a hot microphone in your living space listening in 24/7?

You mean like a cell phone?

While I appreciate the wit, no.

More “like” an echo whose sole purpose is to listen to you, at all times.

On a cell phone you can still use the phone without enabling the voice activation for Siri or google.

If you’re implying that the current iOS / Android devices are set to spy without granting additional permissions, I’d like to see some proof.

I don't think that iOS/android devices are spying on us, but I also don't think the Amazon echo is either. In both cases you are trusting a large company to not record you - in one case you trust apple/google to deactivate the mic on your phone when it isn't being used, and in the other case you trust Amazon to only send recordings to their servers when you say the keyword. If anything I would trust Amazon more, since the echo has a physical switch to turn off the mic. So I don't really see the difference between a phone and an echo as far as privacy is concerned.

Two wrongs make a right, etc...

You can just sell the free hardware on ebay.

I'd like to do it, but I'm not sure if I'm eligible if I'm joining their org in a few months :(

Cool, I wonder if sending people shirts increases PR engagement in my FOSS.

We've tried; turns out people are really into dev swag!

Hey, I'm wearing my Hacktoberfest t-shirt right now!

Good for you. I'm still waiting for mine though. :sad:

It seems HN is turning into slack with this colon emojis, you should stop using them! :wink:

Love this idea - it’s upsetting to think how much more time I’m willing to put into pull requests when earning “free” stickers

Can't help it! #JustDeveloperThings

A cool Sammy sticker pack has been added! :D

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