Google Summer of Code applications open tomorrow and last until March 31. That's a very short period of time for students to come to Drupal, figure out what they want to do, get feedback on their ideas, and submit their applications to Google. So! We need an army of friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable Drupal folks at the ready in #drupal and http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008 to help answer student questions, review student proposals/project ideas, point students toward resources (either documentation-wise or people-wise), cross-post proposals to relevant groups to get further input/feedback, and generally just be there to guide folks on their initial steps into the community. Some of the ideas that made it to our ideas list @ http://drupal.org/google-summer-of-code/2008/ideas-list include integration with numerous 3rd party APIs such as YouTube, Last.fm, and CiteProc, improvements to modules such as Date, Calendar, Organic Groups, and Views, and several architectural pieces such as a Validation API and performance profiling system. In addition, several students have suggested awesome ideas of their own in the Summer of Code 2008 group. It looks like it's going to be a rockin' summer!! So please, if you could hang out in #drupal and comment on posts in http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008 when you have a chance this week, it would be *greatly* appreciated. Let's show these students what a great community Drupal is to work with. :) -Angie