Opera Widgets blog

The winner of the Second Weekly X-Challenge Prize is .... (drum rolls please ... ) ... (yes I know, the "Oscar" type effect doesn't work quite perfectly here ... but what the heck) ...

Winner widget: WebChat
Author: Devyatkin Gleb a.k.a. SovGVD
Prize: $300 Amazon gift card and some goodies

Congratulations !! Now we know why you were so nervous all this while Clearly SovGVD has put in some good work into his widget and impressed us enough to grab the prize. You should be getting a mail from us soon as a confirmation, and we'll send across your prize right away. Oh yes, and do remember to send us your t-shirt size

So guys, there's still one week left to go and still quite a few prizes to win. The three mega prizes, a weekly prize and there's still space for the 20 early bird prizes . You can read all about the competition rules here.

So, till next week ... G'luk !!!

Français | Tiếng Việt

Are you up to the challenge?

Opera is challenging developers to create cross-device widgets or “X-Widgets” that can be used on both mobile phones and PC/Mac computers.

An example of an X-Widget might be a shopping list you keep both on your computer and mobile phone. That way you can update it whenever and never lose track of what you need to pick up at the store. Another could be a simple game that you can play on your computer, then pause it, and continue on your mobile phone – perfect when you are going for a high score. One more could be an online auction widget, where you could follow an auction both at home and on the go, and bid right up to the last minute!

Cash prizes galore!

Opera is stepping up and awarding generous cash prizes for the best overall X-Widgets submitted.

• 1st prize: $5000
• 2nd prize $2000
• 3rd prize $1000

In addition you can win t-shirts and $50 Amazon gift cards if you're one of the first 20 qualified entrants. The best weekly widget will be rewarded with a $300 Amazon gift card.

If your X-Widget is among our top picks, we will promote it on widgets.opera.com and you might also find it bundled in our next widget product release!

Yes! How do I get started?

Check out our Opera Widget SDK which has an emulator and access to the Opera Widget manager on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones to help you test and play with your creation.

Rules

Have a read through these rules before you roll up your sleeves:

1. X-Widget submissions must be able to run on both the widget emulator included in the SDK and on your desktop.
2. On the emulator, the submission must support QVGA (portrait and landscape) and desktop.
3. You can upload newer versions of your widget, but remember, only the latest approved version will be judged (be careful when adding or removing features).
4. You are allowed to submit a maximum of 3 widgets, and are encouraged to focus on quality over quantity.
5. Coding standards are to use a separate markup for styling and scripting.

Submitting your X-Widget

To submit and participate in the challenge you have to:

1. Become a registered member of the My Opera community (sign up).
2. Upload your widget to http://widgets.opera.com/.
3. Send us a link to your submission using our contest form.

Judging

All X-Widget entries will be judged by a panel of developers and marketers at Opera. X-Widgets will be judged on:

• Usefulness across mobile and desktop
• Addictiveness
• Coding quality
• Design quality
• Overall quality

Dates to remember

Weekly prize deadlines:

• November 2nd, 2008
• November 9th, 2008
• November 16th, 2008

Final deadline: November 23rd, 2008.

The Final winners will be announced December 15, 2008 in this blog.

Tips and tricks!

• Don’t wait until the last minute to send in your X-Widget.
• You can ask for tips and hints from our developers in forums.

Update: We have extended the deadline for submitting widgets to midnight February 3rd.

This Christmas the Web Applications team would like to bring some music into your lives. What better way to do that than to award the most killer widget with a Wii and Guitar Hero III!

A Nintendo Wii and Guitar Hero III

The Nintendo Wii is a great device, and has been sold out at stores around the globe for a year! Guitar Hero III has
commanded a lot of respect over the home entertainment market. it's a game you will love, just like us here at Opera

And two guitars!

The Web Applications team likes to have competitions. Infact we like to compete (and win ) so much so, that we're giving you two guitars so you can play with a friend! All you have to do to get this grand prize is: Make a killer Opera Widget.

In the past, we've had many people make widgets and our widgets repository now hosts over a thousand of them. Check them out for some inspiration! Think of widgets that you would like to use on your Mobile phone or ones that you would like to have on your TV. Imagine a world of desktop applications, made using Open Web Standards. What would you like to do today, online or offline? it's up to you!

T-Shirts every week!

The Giving season has begun and we are giving away two t-shirts every week to the best widgets for the previous week. When we award our users, we like to go all out.

Bonus points will be awarded for widgets that have a local aspect, e.g. widgets that have more value for someone living in a particular city. A good example are the existing widgets offering public transportation information for Oslo.

Until the 20th of January, we will take each new or updated widget and:

• Measure their coolness
• Observe their usefulness
• Check their Code quality
• Count download numbers
• and finally, look out for innovative developers

All widgets uploaded between the 20th of December 2007 and midnight 3rd of February 2008 will be judged, and the winner will be announced before the 8th of February!

Best of luck! and Godspeed

Our first themed Widget contest is now over. We want to do more contests in the near future, and I'm looking for feedback. What should the theme of our next Widget contest be?

Widgets for
a) sports lovers?
b) people who like to cook?
c) pet owners?
d) photographers?
e) people into personal fitness ?
f) (your suggestion here)

Please leave your comments on Choose Opera, and from the ones that sound good, I'll create a poll we can vote on.

We received a bunch of great early-bird submissions to our Travel Widget competition. I'm pleased to announce johnnysaucepn as the early-bird winner with his watchTheRoad widget.

Other early submissions were fun and useful as well, and the fact that watchTheRoad only covers the UK had us wondering a little bit if we should choose a different winner, but in terms of usefulness, coolness, and pushing the envelope of what you can do with widgets, watchTheRoad is the clear winner of this round.

johnnysaucepn will receive a Nintendo DS Lite and Opera for DS. Congrats!

Thank you to all participants, and tune in next week to see the final winners.

Here is the full list of early-bird submissions:

Danish to English
Find your hotel in Hungary, Budapest
Travel
Sheep Count
Flight Tracker
Free HotSpot Search
Multimap
watchTheRoad
Yahoo! Trips