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360iDev 2011 – Not too late to Volunteer

August 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

Can’t quite cover the cost of travel, hotel and conference ticket? Well we can’t help too much on travel and hotel (Though there’s plenty of folks looking for roommates) but we can give you a free ticket. All we ask is that you volunteer to help make 360|iDev rock!

 

We need folks to help work the registration table, handing out shirts, and badges, as well as attend sessions to record the session videos.

 

Yup that means you still get to attend the conference, go to sessions, hit up the parties at night, all that good stuff.

You actually get all the benefits of an attendee, so you don’t miss out, we just assign you sessions to record. We do our best to make sure the sessions you’re recording are ones you want to attend as well.

We need a small army of volunteers, so don’t be shy. Check out this page for more information on submitting to volunteer. Hurry up, 360|iDev is almost here! Spread the word

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Geeking Out, Networking, Parties, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 – Just 39 Days to go!

August 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you a game developer? Want to be? Maybe just want to brush up on your dev skills with a little out of the box development.

 

The Game Jam is for you. And as it turns out, by you. The 360|iDev 2011 Game Jam will take place Tuesday night, sponsored by the iOS community!

The Game Jam is a great place to build your first game, or your tenth. To share what you know and learn new things.

Check out the official page, managed by our pal (and speaker) Mike Berg.

The first time Noel Llopis suggested the Game Jam to us, we loved it. Ever since then we’ve been more than happy to have one take place.

The Game Jam starts around 7pm, and goes until around 8. It’s fully hands on, bring your laptop, we’ll supply the red bull, coffee and snacks.

Then if you like, you can show off your hard work during lunch on Wednesday at the Game Jam Review.

 

See you there! Make sure you register before we sell out!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Gaming, Geeking Out, Hands-On, Networking, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 – Just 58 days to go!

July 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You know what’s in 58 days? 360|iDev 2011. The only 360|iDev this year.

Space at the hotel is almost gone, staying elsewhere is always an option, but we’ve got a good rate with the hotel might as well save some money… Don’t ya think?

This post is the beginning of a series of posts I’m gonna write counting down to the conference. Not daily or anything, but often. Each will have things you should know about the conference.

 

The first and most important thing you should know about 360|iDev is why we do it. We do it because back in 2009 we recognized that the iOS developer community had no central event to come together around. We launched 360|iDev to offer that. We found speakers via forums like Touch Arcade, and the Apple Dev forums. We reached out to people we knew or had heard of via twitter.

We didn’t make any money, but we didn’t expect to either. Making money is a huge plus and we wouldn’t have been upset if we had, but it wasn’t the goal. Nor was filling a conference center with 600 people.

 

In fact the first 360|iDev in 2009 only had 166 attendees, some 30 of which were speakers. We jumped to 222 in Denver in 2009. Our return to San Jose in 2010 brought 301 attendees. Our most recent 360|iDev in Austin TX saw a slight decline in numbers, 235.

We never wanted to be a 600+ person conference. The community can surely support that, and based on the popularity of iOS conferences this and last year, surely there’s interest in events. But what we always thought was special about 360|iDev and our other events was that we don’t want to be the biggest conference ever. We want to be the one where you can walk the halls and say hi other developers and know that those people know the pains of Cocoas2D, or Gamekit, etc.

We wanted to be the conference where rockstars in the community are eating lunch with a developer who’s just getting started, maybe he’s just decided to go indie and live his dream. The conference where the speaker from the session you were just in is sitting next you in this session, because while she’s a bad ass at OpenGL ES maybe she’s still wrapping her head around something else.

 

From the start we believed that providing an event that brought the community together was reward enough, we still do.

 

Filed Under: Community, Content, Denver, Gaming, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come, speakers Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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360idev 2011 Labs

July 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Having trouble with your code? Maybe need some design feedback?

This year we’re launching the 360|iDev labs. Labs work like at WWDC and other events, our awesome speakers have agreed to hang out in the new lab area and help our attendees.

The lab schedule is below the regular schedule. Take a look.

We left a few spots open for drop in lab help.

We how the labs will be a great way for the community to grow and he each other.

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Denver, Geeking Out, Hands-On, Networking, Pricing, Reasons to Come, The Speakers Tagged With: , , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 – WWDC Recap

June 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Well another WWDC has come and gone, my liver survived, mostly. Hope yours did :)

As always WWDC is a week of crazy parties, sessions, more parties, sessions, a beer bash, and a few more parties. And thrown in in-between, meeting new folks, and re-meeting folks you already know.

Of course the nights were packed with parties, some open to all, others not so much. I can’t say what those parties are like, but this post seems to sum up who was at those parties and what they were like. I attended awesome parties aimed at developers and open to all, like the really really fun push.io party! and others by folks like Mobclix, iPhone Alliance, SFMacIndie, and more. WWDC Parties are a ton of fun, and a valuable experience in and of themselves, I wish I had more of me to attend the ones I missed!

This year like last, i opted to not buy a WWDC ticket and simply attend parties and be around all week. I don’t write much code now, so why take a ticket from a dev who really wants to be there for sessions? Didn’t make much sense.

Being outside also gave me time to hide USB drives around for our annual (3rd annual if you can believe that!) WWDC USBHunt. All but 1 drive was found/claimed. The last drive was found or at least moved, but not claimed. Seems to happen to 1 drive a year. Odd.

Other than the missing drive, the USBHunt was a huge hit, no drive was in the wild for more than about 30 minutes, not bad! Having $600 worth of software from awesome indie devs doesn’t hurt one bit! Congrats to everyone who found the drive, and hope to see you in September!

I’ve got to come up with something bigger for next year!

If you haven’t booked your trip to denver this September you should probably get on it. We’re still about 4ish months out, but have already sold more than 50% of our tickets. This is shaping up to be the biggest 360|iDev ever.

 

See you there!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Denver, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 – WWDC USB Drive Scavenger Hunt is on!

May 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Of course it’s on! I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with getting 360|iDev going, so this is a late start, but it’s definitely happening!

Going to WWDC this year? I’ll be hiding a few (Probably 4) USB drives packed with promo codes (Devs, if you have some codes you’d like to share, see below) and a free pass code to 360|iDev 2011 this September.

Last year all but one drive were found and claimed. I think a hobo picked up the missing one. We’ve done this a few years now, and it’s always fun, and there’s always a great turn out of folks trying to find the drives.

I’m trying to think up a few more things to put on the drive to make it even more interesting, but more on that later.

 

Supporting Indie Devs

Every year we do the scavenger hunt, we ask the indie dev community to throw in some promo codes. Not only does it make finding the drives a bit more interesting, but it helps give a little promotional boost to indie devs, which is a huge thing for us, we want to help in any way we can with getting the indie community more exposed. If you’ve got an app in the app store and want to contribute a few codes, let us know. The more the better. Just before WWDC we do a post outlining what’s on the drives, so it’s a great bit of exposure.

 

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Geeking Out, Parties, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 – Cocoaheads get free passes

May 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Do you go to a local cocoaheads meetup? If not you should, they’re a great way to meet up with other developers. Maybe in your neck of the woods it’s NSCoderNight, or come other variation, but if you’re not meeting up with and sharing a drink (beer, soda, even water if that’s your thing) and talking about code, you should be.

As if hanging out with other devs wasn’t enough, you also have a chance at winning a free pass to 360|iDev 2011. We’re more than happy to offer all cocoaheads and other user group type meetups two passes to 360|iDev 2011. All we need is an email from the organizer with what city the group is in.

If your group hasn’t done this, email us and we’ll get you set up. All we ask in turn is help spread the word about how awesome 360|iDev is. There’s always a catch, and as far as catches go, that’s not too bad, right?

 

Don’t miss out, get your cocoaheads meeting hooked up with 2 passes to give away, raffle, sell at auction, whatever. Of course we also have a 15% discount for all other members to use if they want.

 

We’ll see you in September!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 Schedule is almost done!

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We’re hard at work on the schedule. In fact the first draft is about half done. Once we get it filled, we’ll have a few folks take a look at it, then it’ll be posted!

As we’ve been going through the submissions we’ve noticed a few things about 360|iDev 2011:

  • Lots more developer content. In the past we’ve easily seen a more equal split between, design, development and business. But this time it’s easily 80% development topics. Not sure what that means, are more indies merging and so there’s less business topics of interest? Are indies doing well enough that there’s less interest in business topics and more in development?
  • A lot of newer speakers submitted topics. That’s awesome. There’s definitely the typical list of rock stars who’ve become staples of 360|iDev, but also a lot of newer folks. New to the community, or new to speaking.
  • As the call for papers opened and closed, tickets sold like hot cakes. We’re already about 1/3 sold out. That means in the next few months leading up to WWDC and then 360|iDev we expect this 360|iDev to sell out.
  • This 360|iDev will be heavily focused on developers, and the iOS community, so whether you made the WWDC cut or not, you’re not going to want to miss this (only one this year!) 360|iDev.

We ‘re handling the selection differently this time too. Since we had so many submissions (over 100) we decided to  try a bit more objective selection process.

 

We made two columns in the spreadsheet, and hid the name, email and twitterID of the submitter. The first round was based just on the title and description.

It was a simple 3 way vote. “Yes”, “No”, and “Maybe”

After that, we unhid the identifying information and went thru again, same 3 options. The “yes-yes” sessions are currently being dropped into the schedule. Then we’ll look to the “yes-maybe” and “Maybe-yes” sessions. Lastly if there’s room, the “Maybe-maybe” sessions.

 

We decided to try this option to be objective as possible and select sessions that were the most interesting based on just the subject matter.

 

So… all that said, we’re close to announcing the schedule and it’s the agenda of the week, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, register now! Save a few bucks!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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360iDev 2011 – Dates and Location Announcement!

February 7, 2011 By 1 Comment

See you in Denver, in September!

We’ve been working on finding the right place to hold 360|iDev here in Denver and think we found it. The Crowne Plaza Downtown. Yeah, DOWNTOWN.

We know the Austin location was not right downtown, so getting around was a cab or shuttle ride, and a kind of pain in the ass. SO we’re right downtown. 2 blocks off the 16th St Mall, tons or bars and restaurants, and lots to do!

We’ll be updating the Hotel page with details and the room booking link today or tomorrow, but the dates (September 11-14) and location (The Crowne Plaza Downtown) are 100% locked in!

What’s next?

  1. Hotel page. As soon as we have the booking information we’ll update the page. We got an awesome room rate for attendees, that INCLUDES in room internet!
  2. Call for papers (I’d suggest you check this site Wednesday morning, just sayin’)
  3. Creative junk! We’ll be coming up with the (actual) logo, sticker, etc so stay tuned, it’s gonna be sweet! Don’t think the shirts won’t rock this time!

What’s this mean to you?

Well mostly it means, if you didn’t buy the faithul ticket already, it’s gone. Sorry we told you, the moment we lock in the details that ticket goes away. Starting now, and for the next 3 weeks, the early bird ticket is on sale. This ticket will be the last chance to save some coin. If you’re not sure it’s gonna be worth it, ask around.

If you’re wondering why September, I’ll tell ya. We’re only doing 1 360|iDev this year. That’s it, just the one. We’ll be packing the awesome of 2 into 1 bad ass event. We’re waiting until after WWDC so that we can all talk about the awesome stuff we’re working on, that’s likely to be NDA until then. Plus early September in Denver is awesome. Great weather, great time of year.

See you in Denver!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Reasons to Come Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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360iDev – Community goodie give away!

January 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As we approach 360|iDev 2011, we’re cleaning house. Literally, it’s my house and all the conference ‘stuff’ is in the garage. You may or may not know we’ve had the shirts from Austin available for purchase since we got back, they’re an awesome deal, and a great wa to get a one of a kind shirt even if you missed the conference.
BUT we’ve got a lot of them. Oh and we’ve got 360|MacDev shirts too (You can buy one here if you’re so inclined) in case you weren’t able to make it. Both shirts are one of a kind, and other than the ones I’ve got in my garage, won’t be made again.
So…
If you run a cocoaheads, or other NSsomething group, and want some give aways for your members, and have about $11.00 to spend, we’ll stuff as much as we can in a USPS flat rate box and ship you shirts and maybe a koozie or two, and whatever else we’ve still got laying around that is 360|iDev. Even some books.
Why $11? well shipping ain’t cheap, and while we love and support the iOS community, 360|conferences doesn’t make enough money yet to pay my salary, so shipping boxes around the country just ain’t in the budget I’m afraid.
However the Flat rate USPS boxes are a great way to cram as much as i can into an affordable package for User Groups. If you want 2 boxes, it’s $22, etc, etc.
No strings, we just don’t want the shirts, etc to go to waste, and figured it’d be a cool way for User Groups to have more raffle goodies and giveaways.
All we need is an email with the following information.
Group Name:
Shipping Address:
Attention:
Paypal Email address:
How many boxes:
Send that to. info AT 360idev DOT com.
When we get the email we’ll send a paypal request and the box will be on it’s way.
We’ll do a random sampling of sizes and qty in each box, sorry it’d be too much overhead to allow groups to customize the order.
Of course if  you want a specific size, you can still order one :) At least until we’ve shipped them all out.
Please spread the word. We hope to get rid of all the shirts and make room for new ones :) We like having them around, but they take up space, and we figure it’s better to give them to anyone who wants them. Plus I won’t lie, better on the backs of iOS developers than in boxes in my garage!

Don’t forget too! You can register now for 360|iDev 2011 in Denver, CO. The price will never be lower than right now. The moment we lock in the exact dates, the price goes up. Don’t worry, tickets are completely refundable if the dates don’t work for you once we announce them.

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Geeking Out Tagged With: , , ,