Web Services & Application Store Blog

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!

We want to introduce the finalists of the 1 Million Euro zanox Web Services Contest 2008 to the public. They made it out of ca. 150 to be invited to present their business model at the Finale of the 1 Mio EUR zanox Web Services Contest 2008.

iliketotallyloveit.com is an online social shopping community where users submit and vote for products that they ‘like totally love’ while simultaneously helping people discover exceptional stuff. Included with every item is a link to an online shop where it can be purchased. The more people vote for a product, the greater opportunity it has to advance to the homepage and be exposed to even more visitors. It is a popularity contest within the community.

Consumers want an entertaining online equivalent to recreate their offline shopping experience of window shopping, relaxed browsing, and discovery. Consumers want to know what real people love, not what marketers want them to love. That is exactly what they try to offer. They let the people vote!

What makes them better than the competition?

They don’t follow trends or let marketers fool our users—they showcase trends live as they happen and are very transparent. Many other services are cluttered with useless features that have nothing to do with shopping. They try to be everything for everyone while iliketotallyloveit.com comes in a clean, no-frills, no-brainer package. Our site is straight to the point and very easy to understand. It’s social voting for products.

In one sentence: iliketotallyloveit.com – Extraordinary propaganda for extraordinary products.

We want to introduce the finalists of the 1 Million Euro zanox Web Services Contest 2008 to the public. They made it out of ca. 150 to be invited to present their business model at the Finale of the 1 Mio EUR zanox Web Services Contest 2008.

MindMeister – Online Collaborative Mind Mapping

MindMeister (http://www.mindmeister.com) is the market-leading collaborative online mind mapping and ideation tool. Launched in May 2007, the site
had attracted more than 140,000 subscribed users since going live and won several prestigious awards.
MindMeister is at the forefront of Office 2.0, a trend of moving productivity tools online, which was initiated by Google with its well-established “Docs” suite. Such applications take advantage of the
possibilities of the Internet to allow for real-time collaboration of globally distributed users, just through a standard web browser.

MindMeister achieves this for the world of mind mapping, a fast-growing structural thinking and brainstorming technique even better fitted for collaborative use. MindMeisters benefits comprise
easy of use, online and offline availability, real-time-collaboration, and sharing. It innovates the way you take notes, brainstorm, or plan your projects. MindMeister – a solely browser-based software service – takes out the hassle of maintaining software installs for usage in organizations like schools or enterprises.

With its latest v3 release MindMeister introduces the concept of WikiMaps (a super-easy collaboration mode), an animated History View, much improved Task-Management, and its own file format.

Yesterday Benjamin Rohé visited us at the zanox GAP Campus. Representing beschenkmich.de he took the opportunity to meet the zanox Monetization team and the zanox Web Services team. Good luck to Benjamin for the presentation at the zanox Web Services Contest Finale 2008!

Shoptainment did it right. Inviting the zanox Monetization team to the FU Berlin profund Business & Beer get together helps to get immediate personal support. Finally they made it into the TOP 20 of the 1 Mio EUR zanox Web Services Contest 2008.

The participant will win the one million Euro zanox Web Services Contest, who provides the most promising business model. The busniness modell must not base on zanox completely – zanox has to be at least part of it. Not necessarily the one with the most commission will win – even the one with the lowest commission during the contest may have the most promising business model.

All participants have to show two things:

1. a business plan, and


2. a running application accessing zanox Web Services.

If you have more questions regarding the contest you are invited to contact Francesco Votta (francesco.votta@zanox.com) in English or Italian or Sebastian Wallroth (sebastian.wallroth@zanox.com) in English or German.

There is a german press release pointing out that over 80 teams applied to the 1,000,000 € zanox Web Service Contest already with a wide range of business models.

Tell your friends about this contest. You can use this amazing widget hosted on widgetbox.com. Or apply today yourself. There only some weeks left until September 30th!

A frequently asked question is how one can participate in the 1,000,000 EUR zanox Web Services Contest 2008 or the zanox Web Services Closed Beta Test.

We merged all in information on one page: Download the PDF “Steps to success with zanox Web Services”.

Q What about my business model? Do you guarantee confidentiality?
A Yes, only the jury will see your business plan and they signed an NDA.

Q Where does the money come from?
A The 1,000,000 EUR venture capital will be issued by Corporate Financial Partners

Q How many shares of my company I have to give for the 1,000,000 EUR?
A This depends on the estimation of value, and is a matter of negotiation.

Q Will one company receive all the money?
A Yes, the winner will get 1,000,000 EUR. But all participants will have the opportunity to be recognized by investment companies and could significantly improve their financing chances this way.

Q What do I have to do to win?
A If you do not have a zanox account already you have to create one and to register for the contest using this link:—- You will be accepted for the zanox Web Services Closed Beta automatically within 24 hours. Then you have to develop i.e. an application, widget/ gadget or mashup that connects to external systems and generates a considerable volume of well converting traffic into leads or sales or achieve an top Zanox Publisher AdRank.

Q Can you show me examples?
A Yes, we have a few in our Web Service Blog

Q Is it allowed to use the widgets on iGoogle, Facebook etc.?
A Yes, you can use any existing platform. Just make money!

Q How to access your Web Services?
A Register for the contest using this link:—- You will be accepted for the zanox Web Services Closed Beta automatically within 24 hours. See the zanox Wiki now for the zanox Web Services documentation: http://wiki.zanox.com

Q Do I need to pay to use the Web Services?
A No, as far as expenses and profit remain meaningful

Q Is it mandatory to earn money with my application or is it enough to develop it?
A You have to make money.

Q I miss a function or data to realize my ideas, what can I do?
A Please contact us over webservices@zanox.com, we will try to provide the function or data.

Participate in the zanox Web Services Contest 2008: One Million Euros Venture Capital from the zanox Campus Sponsors under the leadership of the M&A Consulting Firm “Corporate Finance Partners”.

Goal: the best business model, based on the zanox webservices will be eligible to be awarded the investment capital.

Enterprises, startups or developer can prove that they have developed an monetizing business model based on the zanox webservices. For example: develope an application, widget/ gadget or mashup, connect external systems like other api’s, networks or platforms to zanox webservices, generate a considerable volume of well converting traffic into leads or sales or achieve an top zanox Publisher AdRank.

Procedure

• interested candidates apply by setting up an corresponding account and accepting the terms of conditions.


• zanox makes a pre-selection by analysing the zanox publisher statistics of the candidates during the entire contest.


• the best 20 candidates will be asked on September 30, 2008, to turn in their business plans until October 5, 2008.


• the ultimate top 10 candidates will receive invitations to the closing event in Berlin (probably October 24, 2008).


• within a business plan-conference/-competition) the top 10 candidates will get the opportunity to convince the jury by giving a short presentation of their business model and team.


• the jury will officially announce the top five candidates in the following recall party.


• all participants will be promoted with their brand and Ranking to the campus sponsors and the zanox investors network.

The Jury’s decisions are subject to its sole discretion. See full terms and conditions.

Good luck and keep on monetising!