Appsfire, the service for sharing iPhone Apps with anyone, has announced that they are doing a contest called App Star Awards, in partnership with SFR/AppliStore and LeWeb.
The idea is very simple. Anyone that has a legit iPhone application that doesn’t require jailbreaking, can submit a 30 second video to the contest, even if the app is not totally finished. 30 clips will be preselected, 10 in each category — games, entertainment, utility and other. Those clips will be reviewed and rated by a jury (full list below). Three winners, one in each category, will get a check of $1,500 and a free ad campaign with participating partners.
The results will be announced on stage at LeWeb in Paris on December 9th. TechCrunch Europe is organizing the startup competition in partnership with LeWeb.
AppsFire is currently taking pre-registrations on the site, but submissions will open on November 23.
The full list of jury members:
Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Loic Le Meur (Seesmic.com)
Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb.com)
Robert Scoble
Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC)
Jean Francois Caillard (SFR)
Eyal Magen (Gigya)
Rani Cohen (TuneWiki)
David Sifry (Offbeat Guides, Technorati)
David Marcus (Zong)
Zee M Kane (TheNextWeb, WeDoCreative)
Patrick Jordan, Just Another iPhone Blog
Yaron Samid (TechAviv.com)
Louis Gray
Daniel Brusilovsky
Hookups to past techcrunch writers. Lovin’ it!
They should include all the apps in Cydia and other jail broken repositories as well!
RT
http://www.anonymous.ua.tc
“Three winners will get a free ad campaign with participating partners.” Who are the participating partners and what does this mean exactly? Can I become a partner, if so, what does that entail?
that means that some partners have agreed to give some media space to the winners when their app reaches the app store. we’ll disclose the list of those partners soon
Oh, okay, thanks
Why do you keep pushing this app when it has 4 5-star reviews and 35 1-star reviews, all saying it’s broken, and doesn’t actually work? Who cares if they’re running a contest if no one case use the app?
Kudos for giving us indie developers a chance to get free marketing outside the app store. With such a crowded market, we need to take advantage of these kinds of things whenever possible.
“Anyone that has a legit iPhone application that doesn’t require jailbreaking”
should read
“Anyone that has AN UNRELEASED legit iPhone application that doesn’t require jailbreaking”
the app gold rush is a myth for 99.99% of developers and mobile companies. the web browser works and is easier to navigate and manually manipulate content. i always find myself turning off mobile mode and returning to internet version. of course there will be an app for everything. the business game changer will be who can offer the greatest niche natural language location based services that hybrids the internet and mobile seamlessly.
Why are they limiting it to only apps that have not been submitted? Some of our apps have been sitting in the app store for many weeks waiting for review. What is the difference between an app that has not launched because it has not been submitted and an app that has been submitted but it takes Apple months to review?