Author: Jason Hoyt

Winners of the first Binary Battle Apps for Science Contest

Jason Hoyt2 Comments

We, along with PLoS, have been overwhelmed by the huge response that academics and the developer community have given to open up science. When we announced this contest to develop science applications on top of the Mendeley and PLoS platforms last March, we were not totally sure that anyone would even be interested. Boy, were we wrong!

Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media and one of five all-star judges, said this about the Binary Battle –

“I always tell developers to work on stuff that matters. It’s time to stretch beyond the consumer internet, and what better place to focus than on furthering the cutting edges of science?”

Mendeley launched the API platform in April of 2010 with the hope that it would 1) spur innovation in the science ecosystem and 2) send a signal to others that opening up data benefits everyone. To date, more than 1000 developers have applied for API keys to build on top of that data. With the Binary Battle announcement, we hoped to carry open science further and by all accounts we did.

Today we announce the winners of the 2011 Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle. We narrowed the Binary Battle entries down to the Top 10+1, and then handed the voting over to our list of expert judges (Werner Vogels, Juan Enriquez, Tim O’Reilly, James Powell, and John Wilbanks. We also opened the vote up to the public to count as 1/6 and combined with the judges. It was great to see that both the public voting and the judges voting correlated very well. It was so close for many of the apps, but one stood out to both the judges and the public….Read More »

Your chance to decide the Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle winner

Jason Hoyt

We now have our Top 10+1 Binary Battle apps. We are sending those on to our panel of expert judges: Werner Vogels (Amazon CTO), John Wilbanks (VP for Science at Creative Commons), James Powell (Thomson Reuters CTO), Juan Enriquez (Managing Directo of Excel Venture Management), and Tim O’Reilly (Founder of O’Reilly Media).

Now though is your opportunity to voice who should win the battle. We’ll take the aggregate total decided by the public and add that to the judges’ votes to determine the overall winner and runner-up.

You’ll have until 11:59 PM Pacific time on Monday, November 28th, 2011 to get your vote in.

Go to the public vote now

The Top 10+1 apps in the Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle!

Jason Hoyt

The results are in! Mendeley and PLoS staff both voted on which apps could have the greatest impact on science. We actually had a tie and decided to keep the binary going and include 11 apps to make it a Top 10+1. These apps will now be presented to our worthy judges to determine the overall winner, to be announced November 30th. Our expert judges are: Werner Vogels (Amazon CTO), John Wilbanks (VP for Science at Creative Commons), James Powell (Thomson Reuters CTO), Juan Enriquez (Managing Directo of Excel Venture Management), and Tim O’Reilly (Founder of O’Reilly Media).

There were so many great apps, that we also decided to throw in three honorable mentions, who didn’t quite make it into the Top 10+1, but were crowd pleasers. See below the Top 10+1 to find out who made it to the honorable mention list.

More details on the Top 10+1 apps and the Binary Battle are up on our API developer portal, so check that out. And without further ado, here are the Top 10+1 apps… Read More »

Day 4: Binary Battle Contest App Entries

Jason Hoyt

This is the fourth and final part announcing the top 40-ish Apps entered into the Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle. To see the first batch of apps, check out Day One. And Day Two with the second batch is here. And Day Three is here.

As a reminder, the top 10 apps will be announced in two weeks and the overall winners will be announced November 30th

Now, in order of entry received date, the final batch of apps to benefit science: Read More »

Day 3: Top 40 Apps in Binary Battle to benefit science

Jason Hoyt

This is the third of four parts announcing the top 40-ish Apps entered into the Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle. To see the first batch of apps, check out Day One. And Day Two with the second batch is here. Check back tomorrow for the final batch of apps.

As a reminder, the top 10 apps will be announced in two weeks and the overall winners will be announced November 30th

Now, in order of entry received date, the third batch of apps to benefit science: Read More »

Day 2: Binary Battle Top 40 Apps benefiting science

Jason Hoyt

This is the second of four parts announcing the top 40-ish Apps entered into the Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle. To see the first batch of ten apps, check out Day One. Check back tomorrow for the next batch of 10 apps.

As a reminder, the top 10 apps will be announced in two weeks and the overall winners will be announced November 30th

Now, in order of entry received date, the second batch of 10 out of 40 apps to benefit science: Read More »

Binary Battle Top 40 Applications – Part 1 of 4

Jason Hoyt3 Comments

The Mendeley-PLoS Binary Battle to create applications that benefit science is now 30 days in. While more than 1000 developers are now using Mendeley’s APIs, we’re going to mention the 40-or-so official entries into the Binary Battle. This will be a four part series, in which about 10 apps are revealed in each segment. Check back tomorrow for the next 10 apps.

We’ll reveal the Top 10 apps in two weeks. The Top 10 apps will go on to be judged by a panel of experts: Werner Vogels (Amazon CTO), John Wilbanks (VP for Science at Creative Commons), James Powell (Thomson Reuters CTO), Juan Enriquez (Managing Directo of Excel Venture Management), and Tim O’Reilly (Founder of O’Reilly Media).

Winners announced November 30th!

Now, in order of entry received date along with the developer descriptions, here are the first 10 of 40-ish: Read More »

Mendeley on Android – An app guide

Jason Hoyt14 Comments

One of the big reasons we created the Open APIs into Mendeley data was because we knew we’d never have the time or resources to create everything that you want and we want. Having Mendeley on mobile devices is obviously a big need. That’s why it is great to see third party developers take our APIs and build either full out Mendeley clients, or tiny apps that perform a specific task on a mobile device. Some developers have also tapped into the local storage to build apps. In no particular order then, here are several apps that you can start using on Android enabled devices: Read More »

Last Call Mendeley/PLoS App Contest Sep 30th

Jason Hoyt4 Comments

 

The deadline to enter your application to the Binary Battle is September 30th, 2011. Go here for the official entry form.

Hopefully you were already aware of the Binary Battle, but if not, here’s a brief rundown….

We, Mendeley, teamed up with the world’s largest Open Access publisher PLoS, to create a call for apps that help researchers. To sweeten the incentive, we also put up some nice cash prizes and the opportunity for the top 10 apps to be judged by some high profile names. 

Great Prizes

The overall grand prize is worth $10,001 and $1,000 of AWS credits donated by the great folks at Amazon. Huge runner up prizes are up for grabs and anyone who officially enters the contest will get $50 of AWS credits from Amazon just for entering! 

Read More »

Why We Publish

Jason Hoyt2 Comments

It isn’t to obtain tenure. And it isn’t for money. Although to some, that is what publishing has become. The rationale for why we publish is (should be) to communicate results to as great an audience as possible and advance our understanding of the world around us. At Mendeley, we started to wonder how we could help communicate results and bring new models to the publication ecosystem. We think that Open Access content, where the full-text is readily accessible to all, will be the standard communication model in the future. And as such, we are rethinking how we shape our discovery algorithms. Read More »