Registration for the Facebook Hacker Cup, a new annual "algorithmic programming contest" which opens on December 20 with a first prize of $5,000 USD and title of "world champion" to the winner of three online rounds and a finals to be held at Facebook HQ in California.

This is a contest with a difference. Instead of being asked to write a "killer app" that some company can then go on to market for you while benefiting from the extra developer activity it generates, this one is about algorithms and problem solving.

This contest is bound to attract a lot of participants and so starts on January 7, 2011 with a 72-hour Qualification Round  All registered competitors will be presented with three problems and only those who correctly solve at least 1 problem will advance to the next stage. 

Online Round 1 consists of three subrounds each 3 hours in length held on January 15-16 and the top-scoring 1,000 competitors from each will go forward to Online Round 2.

The 3,000 competitors in Online Round 2 will all compete simultaneously on January 22 and have 3 hours to solve problem set. The top 300 will receive an official Hacker Cup t-shirt and just 25 will advance to the final  round.

Facebook will fly these  top-scoring competitors to Palo Alto, California, for the final round of competition on March 11 200. The cash prizes to be awarded at this stage are  $5,000 USD for the winner, $2,000 for 2nd place, $1,000 for 3rd, and $100 for 4th through 25th.

More information of dates and times::

www.facebook.com/hackercup