Appmaker goes to MozFest

A love story

Last week I went to MozFest in London and fell in love.

MozFest is put on by Mozilla and is a kind of Woodstock for tinkerers and people dedicated to a more open and collaborative web. Thousands of people cram into Ravensbourne College to share projects, discuss issues related to privacy, hack on new ideas, and revel in a shared sense of nerdom.

I came to share Appmaker, a project we are working on at Mozilla Labs. Appmaker is a new tool that allows anyone to make useful, fun mobile apps. We are still very earlier in the process and the product looks and acts a bit like a newborn before it is cute and can hold up its own head. MozFest was our chance to get early feedback from a forgiving audience.

It turned out to be a lot more than that. We demoed Appmaker to teachers, programmers, middle schoolers, and pretty much anyone who made the mistake of making eye contact with us. People were kind and insightful and we got tons of good feedback: People really liked it :) but we have a lot of work to do, especially regarding forms and data. (Side note: you can read about our current efforts regarding forms here)

We also found a community of allies — people who wanted us to succeed and were willing to help. Teachers invited us into their classrooms, coders contributed code, and hundreds of people engaged in discussions with us about visual programming.

I met wonderfully creative grownups who still believe in play and the importance of making things. People like @maxogden who makes dat but took time out do dis:

Made with Voxel, sofware that lets anyone design and edit 3D cube models, which you can then print and build. Photo Courtesy of Avinash

MozFest gave me a chance to reconnect with my ten-year-old self — that cool kid who used to make air planes, popcorn-powered cars, and forts. I left the weekend feeling exhausted, inspired and so lucky to be part of such a cool maker community.

Thanks and keep blogging!