Posts Tagged ‘contest’

Build a Vodaphone widget…win money

September 25th, 2009

Vodafone announces 1,000,000 Euro Appstar prize fund. (with a 100,000 Euro top prize.)

phone

Simply build a widget for the Vodaphone 360 platform utilizing the latest Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) SDK that can be found at www.jil.org

Widgets will be judged on user experience, innovation and value to the customer.

Happy building!

Win the Nokia N97 with your widget installed

June 17th, 2009

Nokia has introduced a contest to win an N97 with the widget that you created (to win the contest) installed on the phone.

nokia-n97

Create a widget and submit it to the competition. A jury will pick winners based on the creativity and feasibility of developing them for the Nokia N97.

The selected widgets will be made available for download from Ovi Store. All 10 winners will receive a Nokia N97 with their very own widget installed. Click below for more on the widget development and to see the jury’s motivation of the winners.

As of this post you have 3 days and some 13 hours to create and enter a widget into the competition.

http://www.onlineasithappens.nokia.com/winners

Opera Widgets X Widgets Challenge

October 23rd, 2008

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With the release of the second Beta of Opera Mobile 9.5. Opera also announced a Widget Contest for developers called X Widgets Challenge. this forms part of their strategy to defend their Browser in the mobile market from Firefox and Skyfire and as a plus to promote the Desktop version of the Browser.

There are $10,000 in prizes and in this times of Economic Doom & Gloom. this is the kind of opportunity that should appeal to anyone interested in widget development. they call them X widgets because they are cross device widgets. widgets that need to work in the desktop Opera browser and in the Opera Mobile 9.5 browser. so it also helps Opera against the coming wave of competition they will face with Silverlight and Flash on Mobiles. so why not give them a break and get some money and experience in the process too?. if you don`t trust them because they are Norwegian and they are weird. don`t fret. they are trusty as Canadians. they are cool. i vouch for them. :D

X-Widgets Challenge

Are you up to the challenge?

Opera is challenging developers to create cross-device widgets or “X-Widgets” that can be used on both mobile phones and PC/Mac computers.

An example of an X-Widget might be a shopping list you keep both on your computer and mobile phone. That way you can update it whenever and never lose track of what you need to pick up at the store. Another could be a simple game that you can play on your computer, then pause it, and continue on your mobile phone – perfect when you are going for a high score. One more could be an online auction widget, where you could follow an auction both at home and on the go, and bid right up to the last minute!

Cash prizes galore!

Opera is stepping up and awarding generous cash prizes for the best overall X-Widgets submitted.

  • 1st prize: $5000
  • 2nd prize $2000
  • 3rd prize $1000

In addition you can win t-shirts and $50 Amazon gift cards if you’re one of the first 20 qualified entrants. The best weekly widget will be rewarded with a $300 Amazon gift card.

If your X-Widget is among our top picks, we will promote it on widgets.opera.com and you might also find it bundled in our next widget product release!

Yes! How do I get started?

Check out our Opera Widget SDK which has an emulator and access to the Opera Widget manager on Windows Mobile and Symbian phones to help you test and play with your creation.

Rules

Have a read through these rules before you roll up your sleeves:

  1. X-Widget submissions must be able to run on both the widget emulator included in the SDK and on your desktop.
  2. On the emulator, the submission must support QVGA (portrait and landscape) and desktop.
  3. You can upload newer versions of your widget, but remember, only the latest approved version will be judged (be careful when adding or removing features).
  4. You are allowed to submit a maximum of 3 widgets, and are encouraged to focus on quality over quantity.
  5. Coding standards are to use a separate markup for styling and scripting.

Submitting your X-Widget

To submit and participate in the challenge you have to:

  1. Become a registered member of the My Opera community (sign up).
  2. Upload your widget to http://widgets.opera.com/.
  3. Send us a link to your submission using our contest form.

Judging

All X-Widget entries will be judged by a panel of developers and marketers at Opera. X-Widgets will be judged on:

  • Usefulness across mobile and desktop
  • Addictiveness
  • Coding quality
  • Design quality
  • Overall quality

Dates to remember

Weekly prize deadlines:

  • November 2nd, 2008
  • November 9th, 2008
  • November 16th, 2008

Final deadline: November 23rd, 2008.

Winners will be announced December 15, 2008 in this blog.

Tips and tricks!

  • Don’t wait until the last minute to send in your X-Widget.
  • You can ask for tips and hints from our developers in forums.

Enter the X-Widgets Challenge!

via My.Opera

ContestMachine: run Easy Promotions, Contests or Giveaways in a Widget

September 10th, 2008

contest machine!

Automatization or simplification via widgets is something that has been targeted by widgets heavily and one of the reasons widgets are a good thing.  this has spun off automatic contact forms, list, etc. most without any real leveraging of intelligence just enabling convenience. Contestmachine wants to bring not only convenience but something intelligent too.

Contestmachine allows you to create multi tabbed widgets where you can run contests, giveaways or promotions via a widget. freeing you from the logistics, the security issues and the hassle that come with making up any of those things. they give you the form where you can ask your readers to fill info in order to get into your promotion. they lets you manage that info from the widget or manage it for you depending on what you want to do or what the scale of the contest is. it is not the same to manage a contest where 100 people entered their details in order to win but that required personal reviewing than having a context based on serving a number of spots. they are offering up 2 contests free a month and  $9 dlls a month or $90 dlls a year for their advanced offerings. this is widget marketing at is best.

tmp7

But it is not just the widget, you get a customizable land page for your promotion and also customized winner e-mails with the service. any that has ever run a contest knows that while they look easy to do and they are. they can be time consuming. the goal of contestmachine is to eliminate the hassle, improve your contest efficiency all while having a good business model that you can live happy with it while using their widget. sounds good to me. my only critique of the widget would be that the widgets are too plain looking. the widgets should be more attractive looking (better design),  should be fully customizable and they should offer a High Spread Sharing module so it could be easy to use not only in blogs and site but also in social networks.

ContestMachine

Gigya Releases Six Wildfire Interface New Themes And Announces Theme Design Contest

August 22nd, 2008

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The Wildfire Interface is how gigya calls its High Spread Sharing module. just like clearspring calls it launchpad and musestorm calls it Intelligent Delivery, etc. High Spread Sharing as i have said before is:

a high spread sharing module allows a widget to be quickly spread around without the need of copy and paste by sharing its embed code into several services  from a  selection panel with Quick Install Link that calls the specific install code and action for the service where the widget is being shared to.

In gigya case that would be its Wildfire Interface panel. they have now released six new themes for it:

image image imageimage imageimage

You can also customize your theme on your own. or as they put it “pimp your widget” out:

Those are great and need advances. because while at one point in time, gigya had the best High Spread Sharing module around. the updates from pretty much everyone in the Widget Space has now reached them up or surpassed them. more notably in the case of Clearspring as a example of the best High Spread Sharing module right now. Gigya may need also update the module itself.

But that is not all the news. you can also enter a contest to win a iphone or a shot to get your work forever featured (forever may be relative). the only thing you need to do is design a Wildfire Interface Theme.

Gigya got a Full Press Release on it as follows for full details:

PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwire – August 11, 2008) –

News Facts

--  Gigya, the largest widget distribution network, today announced the
    release of six new design themes for its Wildfire widget distribution user
    interface.
--  Now, in addition to being able to easily customize their own UI,
    publishers can also choose to quickly implement one of six predesigned
    themes.
--  These six designs can be accessed by logging in to a free Gigya
    account, visiting the API page of the Gigya website, selecting "standard"
    or "advanced" set-up and then selecting one of the themes from the drop-
    down menu.
--  In addition to the design themes, the new Wildfire design elements
    include: animated transitions between screens, mouse-over tool tips which
    display on social network icons when no social network title is displayed,
    new button designs with larger buttons, and a new toolbar design.
--  Today, Gigya also announced a theme design contest, giving publishers,
    developers or anyone interested in participating, the opportunity to design
    their own Wildfire theme and enter it in the competition. The best design,
    as selected by Gigya and the Wildfire user community, will be awarded an
    iPhone. See below for more information.
    

Situation Analysis

--  To extend their reach, publishers and content creators look for easy
    ways to get their content distributed across the social web. In the past,
    readers would have to locate the embed codes and figure out how to install
    them into their favorite social network.
--  Gigya's Wildfire technology handles this process for the user with
    just one click, increasing a publisher's success rate for getting content
    installed to the more than 50 social platforms including MySpace, Facebook,
    and other top destination across the web where users want to consume it.
    

How Wildfire Works

--  Wildfire, a free technology, is the most popular widget sharing
    platform on the Web, reaching more than 150 million unique widget users
    each month, and successfully installing more than 500,000 widgets per day
    across the social web.
--  With a completely customizable interface and thirty-minute or less
    implementation, Wildfire is easy to integrate within any web page or
    widget.
--  Wildfire also provides real-time reporting on how and where widgets
    are used in addition to standard metrics.
--  Through Wildfire, publishers can easily tag an unlimited number of
    interactions with widgets.
--  Wildfire's reporting is intuitive and can be accessed through an easy-
    to-use web-based reporting dashboard, exported to Excel, or pulled into an
    existing system through Gigya's API.
    

Wildfire Design-A-Skin Contest

--  Today, Gigya announced a contest giving publishers, developers or
    anyone interested in participating, the chance to design their own Wildfire
    theme and enter it for a chance to win an iPhone.
--  Publishers and developers have until September 12th to send the
    exported theme code and screenshot (jpeg or gif) of the design along with
    the name and contact information of the designer via email to laura@gigya-
    inc.com with the subject line "Wildfire Contest."
--  Gigya will choose and then announce the top ten designs on September
    15th. The online community will then vote for their favorite design from
    the top 10.
--  The winning designer will receive a new iPhone and the top 10 designs
    will be featured on Gigya's site.
--  For free access to the Wildfire API, please sign up for an account at
    www.gigya.com, 
    

For the page where all this originates, just go here:

Gigya Releases Six New Themes for Its Wildfire Interface

*This was submitted and facilitated by Gigya, submit your news to Widgets Lab*