Recap of Add-on-Con

We’ve just returned from Add-on-Con, an annual conference for browser add-on developers held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California. The add-on development community is an entrepreneurial bunch of people and it’s exciting to hear about what they’re working on. Herman Ng, Christopher Griffin, and I were there to present and chat with people. Matt Crowley was also in town so he was able to stop by for part of the day.

Herman spoke about best practices to improve reliability and performance. This topic really resonated with the audience. It’s clear developers want to deliver a great experience to customers by building cool features, having great reliability and performance, and getting exposure in the IE Add-on gallery. Based on the amount of interest we saw, Herman will be reworking his presentation into a series of blog posts starting early next year. So you don’t have to wait, I’ll give you two of Herman’s quick tips for add-on developers now.

1. Get crash reports for your add-on from Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual). This is a great resource for discovering and debugging crashes in your product.
2. Post your add-on to the IE Add-on gallery. Developers click “join” and then click on your username to upload add-ons.

My presentation covered how to build Webslices (msdn), Accelerators (msdn), and Search Providers (msdn). These extensions are a great way to connect your customers with your services without the risk of introducing performance or reliability problems. You can also build and deliver them with a little bit of XML and markup so you can connect users with your site or service in hours rather than weeks.

Thanks to everyone at OneRiot, GetGlue, and YooNo for organizing such a great event!

Paul Cutsinger
Principal Program Manager
Internet Explorer

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jimbo45 said:

Hi all

suggest the Titling of this is a bit confusing.
When I read the word "Con" I Immediately thought of a SCAM or a CON-TRICK -- and read this to see what was the problem of "Browsers" and Add-Ons.

Couldn't find any "Scam". --Bit disappointed.

Shows when using abbreviations how the meaning can be totally different to different people.

Cheers
jimbo

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jimbo45 said:

Hi Zidane24
remember that if the Title doesn't seem appropriate to what the reader wants then it might not get read - so the title should always be clear, concise and to the point.

Remember this is like the cover of a book -- no good and the reader won't pick it up however good the contents.

Cheers
jimbo

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