$900 gets developer first spot in NYC iPad 2 line, lots of publicity

$900 can buy a lot. With taxes added on, it can buy you a pretty nice iPad 2 -- provided you can find one. For iOS developer Hazem Sayed (pictured at right), $900 bought him the first place in the iPad 2 line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in Manhattan and the perfect venue to tout his free AskLocal social / geolocation app.

The person who was the "real" first in line, 20 year-old college student Amanda Foote, fully expected to sell her enviable place in line. When an app developer with a keen eye for publicity meets a college student who needs money, great things happen. Both Amanda and Hazem received their 15 minutes of fame, and Hazem was able to get the word out about AskLocal after being interviewed by Fortune, the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, as well as other media outlets.

Hazem is no stranger to TUAW; he's visited with us at the TUAW booth at Macworld Expo for several years, and we used AskLocal to invite readers to our meetup this year. The app is unique in that it allows users to communicate by location rather than by name, and Hazem noted that the app was being heavily used by people in line at several of the Apple Stores to communicate tips about line length, expected numbers of iPads and people cutting in line.

As for Amanda, she wasn't interested in buying an iPad 2. Instead, she's using her $900 to "go see Lady GaGa in concert."

[via Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal]