Update: the contest is officially over, and the results are in! Congratulations to all. Browse the Apps and Libraries Late last week we announced the public beta of the Stack Exchange API — a way to write apps that work with Stack Overflow, Server Fault, Super User, Meta Stack Overflow — and any future Stack…

Update: the contest is officially over, and the results are in! Congratulations to all.

Late last week we announced the public beta of the Stack Exchange API — a way to write apps that work with Stack Overflow, Server Fault, Super User, Meta Stack Overflow — and any future Stack Exchange 2.0 sites we launch together as a community.

To ensure that we get lots of feedback on our public API beta, and produce some quality apps that fully exercise the API, we’ve decided to have a little contest. With some totally awesome prizes!

First Prize

top of the line 30″ LCD monitor (either Dell 3008WFP or Apple Cinema HD — whichever we can get to you easiest)

Second Prize

Herman Miller Mirra chair

Third Prize

Intel CULV Netbook, similar to Acer Aspire 1410.

Special Prize (for best library / wrapper)

Adjustable height, motorized GeekDesk

The contest will run for the duration of the public API beta, which we expect to be about 8 weeks, roughly. The winners will be announced when version 1.0 of the API is formally released.

If that sounds appealing to you …

visit stackapps.com and start building awesome stuff with our API!

To make sure we’re all roughly on the same page for this contest, let’s set some ground rules:

Contest open to every man, woman, and child on planet Earth, except those men, women, or children living in places where contests like this are somehow illegal.

Only applications and libraries/wrappers listed on the apps tab of stackapps.com are eligible for consideration.

The application or library/wrapper must be written using our API, and work universally against all of our sites — at least those sites we have made public and have an active API at the time the contest ends.

While we do have a special prize to recognize the best library/wrapper, to be eligible for the first 3 prizes you must build an application.

If you live in an area of the world where it is logistically impossible for us to get your prize to you — like, say, because your nearest Herman Miller dealer is 3000 nautical miles away — email us when you win and we’ll make something work.

Your app must work against the final, 1.0 released version of the API. We’ll give you at least week’s notice here on the blog when that’s closer to happening.

A few notes on how we’ll be judging this contest:

The entire Stack Overflow, Inc team will ultimately decide the winners based on order of awesomeness . And lest you think we don’t know awesome when we see it, we built Stack Overflow. I’m just sayin’. (But seriously, please understand that our decisions will be based on a variety of factors, some of which may be entirely subjective.)

We will look at the number of votes your app or library/wrapper gets on the apps tab of stackapps.com. Doesn’t have to be a zillion votes, but we’d definitely like to see you convince your peers that your app deserves to be in the top (n) of stackapps by popular vote.

We will look at the number of requests for your API key. Was your application used by a lot of people? Or at least a reasonable amount?

We will look at your application itself. Does it look cool? Does it work? Is it reasonably documented and understandable? Can other people find it?

We will look at your application’s code. Is this app a reasonable example of how to write clean code against our API? Is it open source so other programmers can learn from it? Does it accept outside contributions? Being open source isn’t required, but it does get you some extra brownie points.

If you’ve read this far, clearly you’re invested, and you deserve one of those totally awesome prizes. Now go build yourself some apps!

Update: the contest is officially over, and the results are in! Congratulations to all.