Competitive coding format has not seen much innovations since the times of ICPC and Topcoder SRMs though there have been many incremental improvements. I have been thinking about ways in which we can improve on current formats. I am eager to know if anyone out there has a good idea to make contests interesting for both participants and spectators. Note that by competitive programming I don't necessarily mean only algorithmic programming. Given below are some lines of thought I have had so far in no particular order.

1. Make it more game like (graphical). May also help in spectating as spectators can watch the output
2. Different contest format (e.g. 1v1 tournament style, club based, country based teams)
3. Make it equally interesting for people of lower and higher ratings (e.g. constraints based on ratings?)
4. Tie it to real world projects (???)
5. Different problem formats (e.g. interactive problems was a good idea, some good problems at IPSC)

What have you got?

PS: This is a mirror of a similar post I made on Facebook.