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As if the launch of Vodafone 360 (see here) wasn’t enough, Vodafone are going big on a talent search for the best Mobile Widgets!
At its international Developer Event today, Vodafone is announcing the launch of a two-phased competition to find the most innovative and useful mobile widgets, giving two victorious developers the chance to bank up to €100,000 in prize money. Vodafone will outline the widget capabilities of the new Vodafone 360 mobiles at today’s Developer Event in front of content publishers, web and mobile developers from around the world.
Split into two phases (the first phase now and second phase during 2010), the Vodafone Appstar competition has a combined prize fund of €1,000,000 which will be shared across eight of Vodafone’s largest European operating companies to encourage innovation in the mobile application and widget space. The participating eight countries are: UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.
In the initial round of each phase of the competition, developers from anywhere in the world can submit widgets compatible with the new Vodafone 360 mobiles to any one of these eight markets via a competition website. A panel of experts from the local Vodafone operating company will then select three winning entries based on three criteria:
- User experience
- Innovation
- Value to the customer
The developers responsible for the top three mobile widgets will be awarded prize money of €25,000, €15,000 and €10,000 for coming first, second and third respectively. The €25k winner will also have their entry submitted into a Pan-European competition to decide the best of the best. The eight competition winners’ widgets will then be put to the public vote within the participating eight countries and the winning developer will pocket a further prize of €75, 000, bringing their total prize money to €100,000. The runner up will win a total of €50,000.
Software developers will be asked to write applications based on the latest Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) Software Developer Kit found at www.jil.org. For full details of the competition, please visit the website at www.jil.org/vodafone/appstar.
And that’s basically it! Extending the Vodafone 360 impact in one easy swoop, by targeting developers – clever move, I like it – and the result should hopefully be some really decent Widget apps…
For more on Vodafone 360, click here.
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
