Amazon "Unlaunches" & Postpones $100,000 Civic Apps Contest For AWS

reifman writes "In an unusual move, Amazon abruptly pulled the plug on its $100,000 Civic Apps contest for AWS, redirecting contestants to the AWS government site. All entrants through October 15th were to receive a $50 AWS credit. Amazon AWS PR says they, '...accidentally pushed this out early, but please stay tuned for more information on this program later this year.' The contest site, rules (pdf) and FAQ (pdf) of the apparently still upcoming contest can be read from the google cache. Contest prize winners would have had to 'spend' their AWS credits by December 2014."

Hey everyone, join *my* contest instead!

[pla]

FTA: "All eligible entrants who submit a qualified Entry will receive an AWS promotional credit (“Promotional Credit”) of $50 USD to be used toward Paid Services (does not include Amazon FPS, reserved instances or support services) by December 31, 2014 in accordance with the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions available at https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/ [amazon.com] (the “Credit T&Cs”). Individual Promotional Credit codes valued at $50 USD will be emailed to such entrants following the announcement of the Grand Prize winner in November, 2013 " (bolding mine).

Now hold on just a sec... So they intend to give participants a $50 AWS credit... But not up-front? So to enter, you need to pay up front for access so you can develop and deploy your app, and then after you lose they'll give you credit to continue using something you no longer have a reason to keep alive?

Wow. Best scam ever! I need to run one of these "contests" myself!

WTF is AWS?!?

[XxtraLarGe]

It would be nice if the first time an acronym is mentioned in an article, it was identified. For those who were as confused as I was, I googled it: Amazon Web Services.

Re:

[Aighearach]

Because we're too old to learn anything new. Now get off my lawn, Sonny!

Re:

[wonkey_monkey]

Because there's no entrance exam. Pardon us for coming here in order to learn new things.

Re:

[HoleShot]

For sure. Acronyms, abreviations, buzzwords, and some brand names should be spelled out the 1st time they are used in an article. If only for us old bastards that have been reading Slashdot from the start, and still don't what AWS is.

Amazon Got Me to Thinking

[LifesABeach]

The Pandorabots vs. the Tax Code? I'd watch that on Pay-Per_View,(and my tax account said she would to).