Phillip Ryu, the man behind the recent My Dream App contest, has started a new effort called MacHeist. It’s a “software event” involving weekly “heists” with rewards of free Macintosh software applications.
Partly a puzzle game, partly an Internet-based scavenger hunt, MacHeist encourages participants to go on a “heist” centering around an infamous unsolved puzzle. Those who participate get free copies of software. This week it’s the personal finance manager Cha-Ching and 1Passwd, a password manager with browser integration. The current heist closes on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006.
MacHeist has already been going on for several weeks, and MacHeist members — initially there by invitation only — have already downloaded more than $500,000 in software, according to Ryu.