That is my jam!

Puzzles and Pools

I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but Facebook's presenting its users with programming puzzles. Like the development platform they established last summer, these puzzles help Facebook with things like application ideas or optimization enhancements as well as help find good programmers to hire.

No matter their motives, there's something kind of warm and fuzzy about the fact that Facebook is "reaching out" to its members and trusting their abilities. I know plenty of other companies do this (e.g. the NetFlix search optimization problem), but what seems a little different to me is that they're placing their trust in essentially a bunch of college kids, not professionals. Heck, I was intrigued enough to click on the sponsored link even though I knew it would be too much PHP for me to handle.

Also, the March Madness pools came out yesterday. Nice to see this - it has the potential to be really successful. It's leveraging the obvious collegiate ties and the fact that people who would want to join a pool together are already on Facebook.

Now, it's time to get off Facebook's jock and back on some of my own work!

Link.

posted by annie @ 9:46 PM