Yesterday I had a call with Jake Ward to understand the detail behind the recent announcement of the Application Developers Alliance which I covered in this blog post.

Jake clarified the purpose and mission of the organisation, and answered a few of the questions I posed.

Firstly, and importantly, it is a not for profit organisation. The idea came from the lack of representation of developers in the industry. Research was conducted before setting it up, “We have talked to a lot of developers” Jake confirmed.

Individual membership is free at the moment, and when fees are introduced it will be a nominal amount ~$25 > $50. 

They are looking to attract developers of all platforms, and Jake told me they have already signed up 2,300 members in the first three weeks, with 500 – 700 of these being outside of the USA. Reporting a really positive reaction, largely due to being a not for profit, it is clear they are not trying to make money off developers.

These interest levels have promoted the Application Developers Alliance to undertake international activity sooner than planned. Their first non-US foray will be at the upcoming Blackberry DevCon in Amsterdam.

Clearly this answers one of the key questions from my original post - this will be an international organisation, and the discounts on services (like Rackspace hosting) will apply to any member regardless of location.

Jake seemed especially excited by the networking tool within the Alliance, describing it as “a LinkedIn for Developers” This will allow members to find skills to hire into their projects, and connect them with clients.

We discussed at length the “herding cats” metaphor, and Jake agreed that there is no one size fits all solution to address the developer community, emphasising they want the organisation to be open and collaborative to ensure it serves member needs. 

This is re-enforced by the decision that the board will have developers sitting directly on it.

So, things look to be off to a fast start. I’ll keep you updated on further developments.