So the Silverlight Control Builder Contest is now over and after all that excitement and anticipation from the community we got, a single, solitary entry. One person took the time to build a Silverlight control and submit it to our contest. I have to admit that we were expecting a little more of a response than that. We actually received more unique vendor contributions than we did contestants. To compound the disappointment, the contest site accumulated over 2,300 unique visitors with a total of about 9,500 page views throughout the duration of the contest, so it wasn't like nobody knew about the contest.
So, I'm trying to learn from this experience and I want to know why we didn't receive any entries. If you were thinking about entering the contest, but didn't, I would be very interested to know why. I really want to know your honest opinion of what was wrong. Here are a few questions I have for the Silverlight Community:
- Was the contest object unclear?
- Were the rules too confusing?
- Did the "US-Entries Only" requirement stop you?
- Was the contest intimidating?
- Was the contest too difficult?
- Was the contest simply not interesting?
- Were the prizes not worth the effort?
- Was there not enough time?
- What would it take for you to enter the contest?
- Is everyone just simply too busy to commit to something like this?
As Dave Campbell mentioned, I do consider the contest a failure, but I'm trying to make the best of the experience. I really want to try the contest again and make right the things that were wrong in the first attempt.
I know Silverlight is new (especially version 2), but the community is growing fast and I really expected a better response from the community. I really care about the success of Silverlight and community is a big part of that.