update: read the awesome coverage on TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and TheNextWeb
Today AppsFire is happy to announce the launch of the App Star awards in partnership with SFR/AppliStore, LeWeb, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and The NextWeb.
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What is this and why is this
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There are a lot of developers out there working on new apps and the App Star award is the first app contest for Apps that are not yet in the App Store. Yes, we want to highlight brilliant and interesting apps and put them under the spotlight before they even reach the App Store.
Someone around us called it the Off-Broadway competition 
The idea is very simple: if you have an app coming (legit, no jailbreak), submit a clip of 30 secs on Youtube with a demo. Will select 30 of the best (10 in each category: games, entertainment, utility and other) and our uber-Jury will review each one and point to 3 winners.
The details of the timeline and rules are here. But basically we’ll open submission on november 23rd, right now only pre-registration (here) to be notified are open. We’ll announce the winners on stage at LeWeb conference, the largest web conference in Europe, December 9th.
What will winners get out of this?
We wanted to give a symbolic reward to each winner which will get a check of $1500 and free ad campaignw with participating partners (once the app reaches the app store).
But beyond the reward, we believe this event will bring recognition to the winners (and pre-selected candidates too) by putting them under prestigious spotlights and by being reviewed by a prestigious set of people composing our Jury which are some of the finest worldwide experts about the iPhone.
For information All videos demos submitted will be g on our video channel and users will also be able to rate
The Uber-Jury
Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Louis Gray, Loic Le Meur, Daniel Brusilosvky, Zee (The NextWeb), Jean Francois Caillard (SFR), Patrick Jordan (Just Another iPhone blog) and many more will be part of our jury. A real dream team. Yes, in spite of their busy agendas, they will review your app, if you are selected.
A nice way to start, isn’t it?
Why did we create this event?
AppsFire is all about discovering great apps. We love to see users sharing their apps, and we love to see developers using our tools to improve the way they get discovered. But we believe that great apps should be able to get discovered even before they reach the app store. As a matter of fact, many developers like to tease about their
work (rightly so) before they launch. Discovering apps should be fun and rewarding.
We hope this event will contribute to help a little.
And why not say it in music! Here is the Rap Star
We are very excited about this event and we wanted to have something extra fun for it. Our friends at Mouthoff (an app we LOVE) have created a fantastic musical clip on the App Star. A great rap song on the theme “Are you an App Star or a Rap Star”. I am sure you’ll find it fun and will want to share it.
That’s All, Good luck to all participants!!
Oh yes, and if you like it, Twit it here!
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Big thanks
We’d like to thank SFR and LeWeb for supporting this event. Another big thanks goes to Olivier Turbis for the gorgeous design our the App Star page. And finally an extra thanks goes to Renate Nyborg for the original idea and contribution to the App Star/Rap Star clip (big thanks to UsTwo also!)
