Roku To Award Developers $35,000

While the Roku channels keep flowing, the company has launched a competition to stimulate and reward the developer community. The winner of each category (above, click to enlarge) wins a cool $5,000. Plus, the grand champion will receive an additional $5k.

Potential entrants have about two months to produce their app(s), followed by a period of Roku customer/user review. The top candidates in each category, as voted by those owners, head to a panel of judges. And yours truly will be picking the winner of the Photo category. Some of my counterparts… ZNF patron saint and friend Harry McCracken (Technologizer) helms Screensavers, while LeVar Burton beams up Social Media.

Here’s a breakdown of the contest milestones:

• June 30, 2010 – Contest begins at 12:01AM PDT
• Sept 7, 2010 – Final submissions due no later than 12:00AM PDT
• Sept 9, 2010 – Qualifying Channels published to the Channel Store by 12:00AM PDT, end user voting begins
• Oct 8, 2010 – End user voting ends at 12:00AM PDT
• October 9, 2010 — Finalists announced
• Oct 15, 2010 – Winners announced on the Roku website, and by email

Hit the general contest page for a competition overview accompanied by vanity shots of the judges. Complete contest rules are posted here and you can learn more about developing for Roku here.