PayPal chooses top 10 apps for its developer challenge

Online payment company PayPal has expanded beyond a standalone payment service into being a developer platform, with the stated goal of powering all the e-commerce on the Web. Now it’s focused on getting developers to use its tools to power cool payment-related applications.

To that end, the eBay-owned company is running contests and  just announced the 10 best entries in its second developer competition.

PayPal opened its platform in July 2009, and announced the winners of its first developer challenge at the DEMO conference (co-produced by VentureBeat) earlier this year.

In the latest contest, PayPal says it will give out $150,000 in cash prizes and waived PayPal fees. The winner of the grand prize will be announced at PayPal’s Innovate developer conference on Oct. 26 and 27 in San Francisco and will receive a $50,000 payment and up to $50,000 in waived fees.

Here are the 10 grand prize finalists, with descriptions provided by PayPal.

• BetmeBig: lets you bet on sports, politics, celebrities and more against your friends, family or (coming soon) total strangers – legally. You gamble, and your favorite charity wins.
• iConcessionStand: a location-aware mobile marketplace for ordering food and souvenirs at stadium events from your seat using your mobile phone and PayPal.
• Kabbage: recognizes the unique position online merchants are in and their need to get the cash they need to grow– quickly.
• Kachingle: a voluntary social micropayment system where people like you, who enjoy content on the Internet every day, can voluntarily sign up to contribute $5, $10 or $20 a month, toward the content you love.
• LendFriend: makes it easy and secure to lend and borrow between friends and family.
• OrderMapper: has created an ordering platform capable of processing orders from any Internet-connected device, delivering them via phone, fax, e-mail or direct to POS, and updating the ordering device in real-time.
• RFinity: lets you send person-to-person payments via cell phone with no additional hardware and provides merchants with a reader device that integrates with nearly any PC-based point-of-sale terminal.
• SellAround: allows you to create a selling widget that is an advertising banner and mini shop in one that can be distributed across the social Web.
• ShareABill: facilitates the collection of money for group purchase and expenses thru “deals” and the individual collection of money toward “wants”.
• SmartMarket: a mobile point-of-sale system where buyers use their mobile phones to “bump” payment to a merchant’s iPad merchant application.

[image via Flickr/Andrew Rueda]

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. Join us at DiscoveryBeat 2010 and hear secrets from top industry executives about how to break through and profit in the new cross-platform app ecosystem. From metrics to monetization, we’ll take an in depth look at the best discovery strategies and why they’re working. See the full agenda here. The conference takes place on October 18 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. To register, click here. Hurry though. Tickets are limited, and going fast.