Calling All Developers - AppsFuel HTML5 Challenge Now Open

Round 2 of HTML5 App Challenge is announced.

The overall winning app will participate in the prestigious Mobile Premier Awards, to be held in Barcelona in 2013.

Barcelona, November 07, 2012: The second round of the HTML5 App Challenge has begun. Developers, startups and app businesses can now submit their apps for the next round of the competition. The challenge is open to all developers, professionals or business startups with a functioning HTML5 app optimised for smart phones or tablets.

AppCircus and AppsFuel have launched the HTML5 App Challenge to find the best apps written in HTML5, the programming language that will power many of tomorrow’s mobile web applications.

By submitting their HTML5 app to the competition, developers will have the chance to be among the first to use the AppsFuel Payment API, giving them the ability to start monetising their apps in supported territories, no matter where they are based.

The HTML5 App Challenge is a three-month online competition, ending December 20, with the next deadline for submission being November 26. Each month a winning app will be chosen via online voting. The overall winning app will participate in the prestigious Mobile Premier Awards, to be held in Barcelona in 2013.

To submit apps and find out more about the competition go to HTML5 App Challenge page.

AppCircus is the world’s largest travelling competition for applications. The event serves as a showcase for new app developers to premier their latest creations in front of mobile industry experts, angel investors and other developers. Since it began in 2010, there have been over 100 AppCircus events around the world in over 30 countries, with over 2,500 apps submitted.

For more information, please contact: daniel@dotopen.com

AppsFuel is a new marketplace – device and OS independent – featuring only top quality HTML5 Apps.

With AppsFuel, users will find it easy to browse categories, read reviews, find their favourite apps and share them on social media, knowing all their friends can use them, because AppsFuel apps work on any smartphone.

For developers, AppsFuel is an open and simple platform to use for distribution of mobile web applications and monetisation via carrier billing, an exclusive feature of AppsFuel.

By joining AppsFuel, developers will enjoy an unprecedented direct connection to their customers, always providing them the latest version, as well as the flexible payment options of carrier billing, soon to be available in more than 25 countries. What’s more, the "write once, deploy everywhere" nature of the platform will massively reduce the cost of creating, versioning and maintaining applications.

For more information, please contact: team@appsfuel.com

Subscription Services - Not as easy to be subscribed as some make out.

There is a lot of pressure on content providers these days, unlike a couple of years ago when a subscriber would simply sms a keyword in order to be subscribed to a club - these days there are a number of hurdles in place that literally should stop any potential subscriber in their tracks.

The regulation, which is very similar in most countries, stipulates that there has to be a double opt in process. What this means is that there has to be an authorization process that verifies and authenticates any potential subscriber before they join a service.

Not only does a company have to abide by the regulatory bodies (i.e. WASPA in South Africa), but they also have the Business rules of the networks to abide by, the consumer protection act, the National Lotteries Act, the  advertising standards authority etc.

This makes doing business in this landscape exceptionally difficult as one has to abide by not one set of regulations but many just to get a customer in to your world.

Some companies, like Via Media, Integrat, Bee Mobile, Zed, Strike Media, Sprint Media, Natta and Buongiorno are some examples of companies that are working in this area.

These companies achieve a feat very few others are able to do -and that is survive in an environment that is technically geared to stop them from trading - and yet they still manage to survive.

In my opinion it is the likes of these companies that are the leaders, drivers and innovators of marketing, of acquisition and conversion.

You want to know how to shift your business - look at what these guys are doing - BUT heaven forbid you try to replicate what they do - because you'll have to jump through hoops, walk on coals and swim with piranha - just to get yourself wet. Surviving all that is an entirely  different story.

I've included a rough schematic flow of the process an online user has to follow - to join one of these services... below;

Now, you tell me - just how easy is it to join a subscription service?