Addressing Questions about the Salesforce $1 Million Hackathon | Hacker News Reader

Addressing Questions about the Salesforce $1 Million Hackathon

blogs.developerforce.com

79 pointsminimaxir37 comments

"We expected and encouraged teams to take advantage of existing APIs and services they’ve written to create a great mobile app. "

That line upsets me. They absolutely did not encourage teams to take advantage of existing services that they have previously written and pointing to one random post on the developer forum as evidence of this is terrible. My team and I read the official rules together several times before deciding that we could not in good faith incorporate our existing product (including using our own API to integrate features) into the mobile app we built for the hackathon. The line "built from scratch" in the rules seemed clear to us but apparently we were mistaken.

I would like to see people banding together to get refunds. It appears that the competition was a sham.

The prize was a lot of money as well. That should set some alarms off when you enter a 3 day competition.

Yeah! "We demand nothing back!" [1]

[1] Tickets were free.

I had a simpler idea. What if Microsoft or oracle just took over to finish this thug. Most developers just want to show off what they did. Sales force never even created a gallery for that

There's no incentive for them to do that. Why would another corp want to go sticking their hands in this massive mess, possibly getting blowback from either Salesforce or the hacking masses?

are you kidding? There could be no better roi. I don't even think a prize would be necessary. People are angry for many reasons, not the least of which is that no one got to see what they created. That just reduces everyone to a seat filler for the promo videos

I was REALLY excited to see other people's hacks too!

This is the blandest non-statement filled with lies:

- "...any Salesforce customer or developer is likely to have a whole set of existing customizations and logic that can be exposed to their mobile app via REST API." - Customization and Logic... can mean almost anything. How does that reconcile with "from Scratch" as stated else where?

- "Every eligible app entry was reviewed at least twice." Many Apps videos have zero views & zero installs so this twice thing is a provable lie

- "Once we complete our review of the final entries, we will post our findings here"

Will you revoke the 1 Million prize given to an Ex-Salesforce architect who had Demoed this app at a Meet-up 2 weeks before the Open of the Hackathon?

The real horror is that they are trying to run another sham next year....

the whole event was sh- none of the employees knew solid information to tell the hackers, sign-in deadlines were extended, etc etc. good lord, even the food at the hackathon was appalling; i'm not a picky eater but i wouldn't even give that food to a homeless person outside.

This makes it sound like they're just straight up lying. It's been pointed out several times that upshot was developed before the announcement of the competition and multiple developers have analytics to prove their video/app wasn't viewed once, let alone twice. They ignored all the questions/concerns people had. I'm incredibly disappointed with this announcement and I did not even participate in the hackathon.

This isn't the final call; it sounds like they are still investigating the top 5.

I didn't get that impression, "all of the final 5 teams met the eligibility requirements specified in the Official Rules". They did mention that they are doing a more "in-depth" review, but they should have been immediately disqualified by the fact that it's clearly stated you must start after October 25th.

They're stuck in a hard place and an internal investigation is probably happening. This story will get worse before it gets better. I have a feeling that the story that they gave their partners a pass on the rules has credibility. Which means if they retract the 1st place, they get sued by them. and they get sued for essentially fixing the competition. The easiest out they didn't take. And it begs the question as to why

It got worse. healthcare.love was in the salesforce pocket too. Patrick Hoge reported. He's doing a great job and is going to run down finding all entrants. also, it's worth looking into 3rd 4th and 5th now.

Who were the developers that have proof their app was never reviewed? I'd like to talk to them and see the proof.

they are lying obviously

As I watched Upshot's demo at Dreamforce it seemed hard to imagine that it was something built in 3 days. The judges pointed out that the guys who presented 3rd and 5th (Upshot was 4th) had been there night and day, not sleeping. Turian talked about how they had spent time walking around talking to people. It seems that they likely had a complete or near-complete application before they got to Dreamforce. Considering the news coming out now, it is a shame that the guys who built great apps from start to finish this week didn't win.

You were allowed to start working oct 25

They Demoed on October 5th. That is before the 25th. #notadoctorwhoepisode

I was replying to the parent comment's: "hard to imagine that it was something built in 3 days"

==> You weeks to work on the entry.

The fact that Upshot's Team did theirs outside of the competition period longer is a different issue.

Which questions did they address? Doesn't seem like they said anything.

The comment that teams could use existing code, but not use products that were already released or in development seems in conflict with the allegation that the winning team demoed the product weeks before the contest started.

"Once we complete our review of the final entries, we will post our findings here. " Is in conflict with the title... More like "Sometime when everyone has forgotten we WILL BE addressing questions"

-Not a Dreamforce Participant.

What is the difference between existing code and an existing product made of code, for the purpose of reusing code? The distinction (which I understand is not your own creation) seems forced, if not ambiguous.

Code doesn't come with a business model. A product does. Code doesn't come with User Feedback and refinements based on real world testing. A Product does.

Plenty of "products" also do not have a business model. So code posted on Github that gets comments would be a product? Really sounds like you are quibbling.

The statement about "existing code" was ambiguous for a reason...

unfortunately, they are also in a bind by stating that only the new work would be judged. @aliciatweet cites that it looks like they webview'd their existing site (would have to be verified). so, that means they judged using a webview as a million dollar contribution? my guess is that the call happened in which partners were allowed in with existing tech. and that information was never passed to the judging team with specific reference as to work accomplished within the hack period. possibly an innocent mistake or specifically designed to pass people through.

My only surprise is that the winning team didn't keep their product quiet beforehand and do a good acting job on how hard they had to work to get it done within the deadline. A million dollar prize is very likely to create controversy when there are loop holes and ambiguity in the rules and even if I did get a head start, I would have wanted to avoid the chance of this type of blowback.

The winners cheated and the business didn't follow their own rules. Sounds like enterprise to me.

I'm establishing a fact timeline in a google doc. There is a first hand account of a call between salesforce and partners that allowed them to bring premade apps with the instructions that only contributions during the hack would be considered. That info was not made public. It altered the rules materially. Moreover that info was probably not disclosed to judges or the initial team as it would have reduced the upshot app to a text field with Siri to translate. Can someone else confirm?

Does not sound convincing, given the gravity of the allegations made.

This is ridiculous -- many of my friends booked flights out just to compete in this competition. Super disappointed in how it was run.

do you think you can ask your friends to add their videos to this list. we're assembling all entries. this story isn't finished yet. http://list.ly/list/BOb-salesforce-1m-hackathon-the-real-win...

Not sure where the controversy is coming from, given that admin clarification from 11-14-2013 said, "You could modify an existing product to integrate with Salesforce and submit that, however you'd be judged on just that component, not the pre-existing product."

There are a lot of things wrong with that, not the least of which being that you can't modify rules in obscure places. That changed participation. Why not modify and notify the official rules. If they stuck in an obscure forum post an hour before deadline that the winner had to sell their code to salesforce for a dollar, would that still be a legal modification? That aside, they knowingly or unknowingly did not pass the modification rule to the judges.

can anyone who entered the contest put their video here? besides just being an awesome way for us to finally see the outcome of people's efforts, it's a real practical way to keep track (since salesforce won't open the curtain).

http://list.ly/list/BOb-salesforce-1m-hackathon-the-real-win...

All of the submissions are posted publicly here http://salesforce1million.challengepost.com/submissions

Random fact: you may know Turian, part of the winning team, by being the man who used to have this impressive moustache: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1206193071/turian-profi...

I remember his writings or events that he was involved in have popped up on HN several times in the past.

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