Web Services Blog

Today, June 3, zanox launches the first Application Store for the affiliate marketing industry. Together with the innovation single sign-on technology zanox Connect it provides the technologic base for the 2 Million US-Dollar zanox Application Store Contest 2009.

The zanox Application Store is a platform that gives publishers and advertisers the opportunity to discover new performance-based marketing tools.

Developers can introduce and distribute their widgets, software and services for the internet and mobile world directly to zanox’s network of more than one million publishers and over 2,000 advertisers worldwide.

Publishers and advertisers will use the zanox Application Store to discover ready-to-use applications, widgets and software services. In order to identify the best-performing and most successful applications, the zanox Application Store will use a quality benchmark system: the zanox AdRank indicates how the applications are performing. In addition, a star-ranking system as well as a comment function shows the level of satisfaction from previous users.

With the zanox Application Store developers can reach out to the entire zanox customer base and earn money in a traffic-sharing model. At a later stage developers will be also able to charge advertisers and publishers directly, using different types of revenue-sharing models.

The new single sign-on solution called zanox Connect ensures an easy, smooth and secure way of integrating applications.

This process is similar to what is being widely used on platforms such as Facebook. Once logged-in, using an application can be done via just one click. Due to the application’s ability to access the publisher’s and advertiser’s data in a controlled way, developers will be able to offer tailored and value-added solutions with a seamless user experience.

With the launch of the zanox Application Store, $2 Million zanox Application Store contestants can now start uploading their applications and take their contributions to the next contest level.

Today at the Web 2.0 Expo our CEO Thomas Hessler officially launched the $2.0 Mio zanox Application Store Contest 2009. The start-up contest, which we hold together with the M&A advisory company Corporate Finance Partners, will award the winning business model(s) an investment of up to two million US-Dollars for the best monetizing application based on zanox Web Services.

As announced during the 1 Mio EUR zanox Web Service Contest 2008 Winner Ceremony at the zanox GAP Campus, hosted by zanox and Corporate Finance Partners, we want to give start-ups a second opportunity to successfully monetize their business models with zanox Web Services in various ways.

• Monetise your existing widgets or application for Facebook, iPhone, iGoogle or any other platform


• Develop new internet or mobile innovations and generate a considerable volume of well-converting traffic into leads or sales


• Earn from innovation via the zanox Application Store


• Convince the contest jury and win up to $2 million venture capital for your business model

Everyone from all over the world is invited to register for the contest. For additional information also check out the zanox Web Services Documentation Wiki.

Good luck and enjoy monetising!

With an overwhelming event the 1 Mio EUR zanox Web Service Contest 2008 came to an end. More than 250 people met under the motto “Internet Republic Germany – entrepreneurs and politicians focus on the internet as a critical success factor” at the zanox GAP Campus. Andreas Thümmler, Corporate Finance Partners, handed over (symbolic) an 1 Mio Euro attaché case to contest winners representative Christian Sauer, Webtrekk.

“We will use the capital to make further improvements to our products, and in particular for the globalisation of our core product, Webtrekk Q3”, Webtrekk founder and Chief Executive Christian Sauer said.

ZANOX CEO Thomas Hessler announced a follower of the successful “1 Mio EUR zanox Web Service Contest 2008”, the “2 Mio $ zanox Application Store Contest”, that will be started at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, March 31 – April 3, 2009.

“After receiving so many impressive entries for our first contest last Autumn, zanox and our partners are keen to give start-ups a second opportunity to successfully monetize their business models with zanox Web Services,” said Thomas Hessler, CEO and founder of zanox. “With the current state of the worldwide economy, it’s become increasingly difficult for many of these companies to secure follow-up financing for their projects – this is where we would like to help.”

The ceremony event was also hosted by the leader of the German liberal Free Democratic Party, Guido Westerwelle, as a guest speaker.

Thanks to all for coming. All the other can get some impression through the huge bloggers echo, the event tweets and the flickr gallery. Stay tuned for more information to come about the new contest in this blog.