[LINK] Code Year

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Code Year 

 http://codeyear.com

223,278 people have decided to learn to code in 2012. 

Why not you? Make your New Year's resolution learning to code. 

Sign up on Code Year to get a new interactive programming lesson sent to 
you each week and you'll be building apps & web sites before you know it."
--

Carl Franzen, January 6, 2012

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been increasingly vocal about 
his love for all things tech over the past few years, but now he’s taking 
it a whole new level. 

On Thursday, Bloomberg tweeted that his new year’s resolution was to 
learn how to write code using the handy, free, game-like online courses 
offered by New York’s own Codecademy. 

“My New Year’s resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy in 2012! 
Join me. http://codeyear.com " Bloomberg tweeted, instantly moving the 
hashtag #Codeyear into the top trending terms on Twitter in the New York 
City area.

Codecademy quickly responded, thanking the Mayor for his free PR boost 
and making him a generous special offer: “Thanks - we’d love for you to 
come stop by and we can help out in person!” the Codecademy account 
tweeted back.

The move even prompted London Mayor, Boris Johnson, to state he was 
in “awe” of Bloomberg and would consider joining him on the quest to 
become adept at, or at least acquainted with, programming, as the BBC 
reported.

“Codeyear” is the name given to a new, year-long effort by Codecademy to 
get people to use its signature online lessons to learn basic online 
programming skills for themselves. 

Codecademy’s website itself is not even five months old, but already the 
innovative New York City-based startup company has attracted generated 
enormous buzz among tech journalists, who praise its timeliness, ease-of-
use and, perhaps most of all, the general enjoyment and satisfaction 
provided by its quick online exercises in programming.

The company was started in June by friends and former Columbia students 
Zach Simms, a political science major, and Ryan Bubinski, a developer, 
the New York Times reported. Within days of launching their website in 
August, over 200,000 users began taking courses on the website. Within a 
month, that number had reached over half-a-million. 

Coincidentally, nearly 200,000 people have also signed up since the Code 
Year effort was launched on New Year’s Eve.

It’s unclear just how many users have begun interacting with the website 
since Bloomberg’s announcement, but one would expect a substantial bump 
deriving from the backing of the Mayor of the Big Apple. Aside from his 
love for tech, Bloomberg could be courting the increasing political clout 
that comes with being a tech-savvy politician. 

--
Cheers,
Stephen