Congratulations Hack Day Winners!

We had a phenomenal Hack Day event, with 40 participants contributing 25 different ideas.  It took over 2 hours for us to present and demo everyone’s idea, even with a strict 5 minute time limit.  All the ideas were top-notch and you could tell that the teams really embraced this event.  We also had a nice mix of ideas that would grow the business with ideas that would generate developer efficiency.  What a success!

Our judging panel consisted of our two co-CEOs, our VP of Marketing, our Director of Product Management and myself (VP of Engineering).  It was great to have the executive team participate in the judging and reflects how important we consider this event.  After seeing 25 presentations, our judging panel had some difficult decisions to make, but was able to select the following winning ideas:

1st Place:  DateRank – A compelling user promotion, Keith and Ethan
2nd Place:  Test 500, Dan C and Eric N
3rd Place:  Zoosk Windows Phone App, Cameron

Honorable Mentions:
– Idea to improve message quality, Martin P
– Search results design improvements, Beth

We also had one team from our G&A group present an idea, representing the fact that Hack Day participation doesn’t have to be limited to just the Engineering organization.  Congratulations to all participants and thanks to everyone for a great event.  Check out the event’s coverage on Twitter: #ZooskHackDay