Are Hackathons Losing their Appeal?

Evans Data Corp Press Release, SANTA CRUZ, CA. April 10th, 2018

The number of developers who attended a hackathon declined significantly in 2017 according to the newly released Evans Data Developer Marketing 2018 survey report. The survey showed that 70% of developers in 2017 had gone to at least one hackathon, which is a significant 19% decrease from the 83% that went to at least one in 2016. At the same time, those who went to only a small number of hackathons increased while those attending many hackathons showed a marked decrease.

Of those who attended hackathons, 46% said they went to one sponsored by a commercial vendor while 42% attended one sponsored by a local developer organization, and 37% went to one sponsored by a school or university. On the other hand, three-quarters of the developers had gone to at least one meetup. As this was a new question, no trending exists for meetup attendance.

“One has to wonder how long the hackathon phenomenon will go on in its current state,” said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp, “Hackathons have become key for many developer marketing professionals but while they are good for getting grass roots support for platforms or tools, they are also labor intensive for marketers, they involve cost, and by their very nature are extremely parochial and thus limited in reach.”

The survey, with a margin of error of 4.2%, examined many factors related to developer marketing. A few other findings: 84% of developers think robots will enhance life for humans in a positive way; 69% of male programmers think there should be more women in the field while 78% of women think this.

The new Developer Marketing 2018 survey is exclusively focused on tactical marketing outreach efforts and understanding developers. The 221 page reference covers topics such as; Demographics, Firmographics, Psychographics, Purchasing Authority, Outreach Vehicles, Motivations, Using Social Media for Recruitment, Training, Conferences and Hackathons, Encouraging Participation in an Online Community, Using Search Engines for Marketing and more. Margin of error is 4.2%.

See the complete Table of Contents and Methodology here: Table of Contents

 

Developer Relations Survey 2018

About Evans Data Corporation

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans’ syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2018 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

Happy New Year 2017 and it’s CES 2017 this Week – Autonomous Cars, IoT, Gadget Apocalypse?

Happy New Year 2017! I hope everyone survived the holidays. I am back in the office and starting off an exciting new year. It’s CES 2017 later this week. I can’t wait to actually hear about the actual announcements (instead of the speculations) of new consumer technologies that will appear this year. At the same time, its exciting to hear that CES will showcase news about AI, Machine Learning, Smart Cars, Autonomous Vehicles, IoT, VR, Personal Robots, 8K displays, Voice Assistants, Home Automation, Drones, and more.

CES 2017 – What to Expect

The top tech news sites have multiple articles with pre-announcements and previews of what to expect this week in Las Vegas. Last year at CES 2016, Faraday Future gave a glimpse at their concept electric car. This year, they will live stream the unveiling of the actual car on Tuesday, January 3 at 6pm PST. They even have a countdown timer on their home page at https://www.ff.com/en/

FaradayFuture-FFZero1 CES 2017

Here are links to a few of the CES 2017 previews and news articles that I’ve been reading.

Home Automation in my Christmas Stocking

My Christmas stocking was filled with home automation IoT devices including an Amazon Echo Dot, Switchmate Smart Light Switch and a Wemo Switch. I’ve set up the Echo Dot to control my Nest Thermostat – “Alexa, set Family Room temperature to 72 degrees”. I am working to get the other devices installed and connected to the Echo Dot and also explore SDKs for building additional integrations. The good news for developers and developer programs, there are lots of Voice Control APIs available to connect different devices together in your home and office.

For connected devices and developer evangelism, Evans Data has its Internet of Things vertical research service and annual Tactical Developer Marketing research report series (Developer Marketing Patterns and Developer Relations Programs).

The Gadget Apocalypse?

Back in early December, Farhad Manjoo wrote an article in the New York Times Personal Tech section, “The Gadget Apocalypse is Upon Us“. In his article he mentions the problems at GoPro and Pebble being acquired by FitBit. He also talks about the fall of other companies, the start/stop of Kickstarter projects and that with SmartPhones and software there may not be a need for as many gadgets and wearables.

VentureBeat has a recent article that mentions Manjoo’s article and points to the CES 2017 show’s vendors announcing and demoing 20,000 consumer products. VentureBeat: CES 2017: 20,000 consumer electronics products will be launched despite “gadget apocalypse”. As always, there are some CES products that never see the light of day or take a few years to appear as products (note by mention of Faraday Future above). I did like how VentureBeat talked with Shawn Dubravac, chief economist of the Consumer Technology Association, to provide some perspective about the CES show and product announcements: “… Dubravac flat-out disagrees… But beyond that, even if software has become more critical, we still have seen major companies like Google and Amazon and Snap pushing into the hardware space. Content and software remain tightly linked to the success of any hardware. It may be true, as Manjoo argues, that it’s hard to be a company whose sole focus is hardware, but that’s always been true, Dubravac points out.”

If your company has CES 2017 announcements, let me know.

I will be watching for CES 2017 announcements, both as a tech fanatic and also as a developer. If you see any news or hear of new developer capabilities in CES 2017 announcements let me know.

David I - Developer Relations Conference

David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99