[Exclusive] Paypal Delivers $50,000 to Three Winners in Android-Centric Third Developer Challenge
This past March, Paypal announced that they’d be opening up the floodgates for their third developer challenge. To reinforce to everyone that they’re serious about mobile, Paypal introduced the challenge with a mobile theme – they wanted to know who could come up with the best Android applications that incorporated Paypal’s payment APIs in unique and useful ways.
After tons of entries, only three winners could be selected for a total of up to $50,000 in cash prizes – $25,000 for first place, $15,000 for second place and $10,000 for third place. Great cash prizes for what we would consider a nice crop of applications. Here were the three winning apps:
1st Place (winner of $25K)
Mopper: This solution brings a digital component to print media by giving media owners and advertisers the opportunity to reach customers on a whole new level through Print Commerce. Through the inclusion of a QR tag, customers are able to make purchases directly from print media – they simply scan the tag, press the Buy button to pay with PayPal and the product is delivered directly to your home address. Talk about immediate results!
2nd Place (winner of $15K)
PayPal for ThruTu Button: ThruTu allows users to share all kinds of information and media while they’re on a call – at the touch of a button and without disrupting the conversation. This unique PayPal for ThruTu button makes it possible for users to quickly, easily and securely make payments during a phone call.
3rd Place and People’s Choice Award Winner (winner of $10K)
SiZiga: This app leverages QR codes to help restaurants efficiently manage payments for groups, while simplifying the process for their customers. SiZiga eliminates the need for customers to manually divide up the bill and for restaurants to swipe multiple cards. A QR code is generated for each party and the guests are able to modify payment parameters (tip percentage, number of people paying, etc.) and then pay with PayPal by merely scanning the QR code with their mobile phone.
Thrutu is especially interesting as its in-call information sharing technology is innovative in and of itself, and the added ability to send payments while on a call using Paypal is just icing on the cake. All of the finalists’ offerings are great, though.
A theme here seems to be that the winning applications incorporate Paypal in a way that helps you out in your everyday lives and in everyday situations, and that makes them worth checking out even more. We know SiZiga’s offering solves a problem that many groups have when heading out for evening fun, and that’s probably why they were the people’s choice for third place.
Although only three winners have been announced, the Paypal developer challenge has adopted many contestants and has helped to bolster the Android market with applications that utilize the most popular digital payments platform in the world, whether they’re new or have been around for a while. We hope this is only the first of many to come. Be sure to take a good look at the three winning applications linked above and let us know what you think if you’ve tried them.