Man, these hackers in Hollywood sure know a good API when they see one (*cough*, OpenTok, *cough*). I’m kidding, but I am genuinely thrilled about the uptake of OpenTok at this weekend’s Hollywood Hack Day.
I arrived Saturday Morning at Ashton Kutcher’s office in West Hollywood for day one of the hackathon. I was pleased to see that there were lots of developers and chocolate chip muffins. I spent the first couple hours getting acquainted with both.
I had come to the event thinking I was going to hack on a jeopardy game. Janine Yoong, who was attending Music Hack Day in Boston, was conspiring with me to build a jeopardy game that would mash up APIs from both events, and that way we could submit the same app for two different hackathons, and win all sorts of prizes. It was a genius evil plot.
However, most evil plots collapse along the way. This one was no different.
The problem was, there were way too many darn teams that were using OpenTok. And when that happens, I actually have to do my job.
Again, I’m kidding. Sarcasm is hard to communicate through text (but not video!).
Truthfully, I had a fantastic time hackin’ with all the teams this weekend. Nothing makes me happier than helping people build stuff, especially when that stuff turns out to be as awesome as it did.
Here are the hacks from the event that used OpenTok:
- AuditionRocket by @webdevgirl @rdegges @pydanny @audreyr
Audition Rocket makes casting easy. Casting directors can create online casting calls and host video auditions through our site. They pay 25 cents per audition slot. Watch the demo
- Karaoke Royale by @NightTap @kennykadar @vaughnblake
Hot or Not meets chat roulette for karaoke. Watch the demo - PartyGames by @jrozner @itsrobertn @vahe_m
Game platform to build multiplayer games involving video and music (sorry I accidentally deleted this recording). - Music Room
A buzzword-free shared listening experience. No gamification, no dancing avatars, just listening to music and talking about it with your friends. Watch the demo
- Call Me! by @thinkingserious
Add tags to images which allow you to call via phone or leave a video message which is then emailed to the owner of the image. Watch the demo
- DDance by @coldangelfire311Choose your favorite song, and dance away! See recordings of others dancing to the same song. Watch the demo
I hadn’t been to a hackathon in LA prior to this, and it’s a shame, because the scene here is full of friendly, creative, and talented hackers. And best of all, they seem to like OpenTok 
.
Thanks to Rahim and everybody else who helped organize. Genuinely, this was the best hackathon TokBox has ever been a part of.