Facebook launches contest for Indian developers

Social networking site Facebook has launched Facebook Developer Contest India, a contest for Indian developers to showcase their web development skills by creating Facebook applications and Facebook Connect Integrations. According to Facebook, the three winners will get $4000, $2000 and $1000, in each of the two categories. The contest ends on 11th September and the winners would be announced in the last week of September 2009.

Ruchi Sangvi, engineer and manager, Facebook platform, has said, “India ranks second in the number of software developers with 3.9 million software developers; we are very excited to engage with the developer community. Facebook has experienced a tremendous growth in India. Through the contest, we hope to see many rich experiences that leverage the social graph and empower Facebook users to share and connect.”

According to Facebook, entries will be judged on originality, business potential, social utility, usefulness, expressive features, intuitiveness and potential of the application. To enter the contest, participants are required to create a Facebook platform application for use on the Facebook site or Facebook Connect integrations in English or Hindi and register their application in the contest’s homepage. The contest is open to Indian residents over the age of 16 with a Facebook.com account.