Great Idea for IAC’s New Sidewalk.com? Enter Contest
Citysearch publishing head Kara Nortman reminded us today that Citysearch and IAC are set to do great things with the Sidewalk.com brand it acquired from Microsoft in 1999. In the best spirit of Web 2.0, the company has announced a contest to get ideas from the public. The winner will receive $10K, a piece of the new company, and the possibility of a full-time job.
The entrants will be judged by an all-star crew from IAC and other places. The winner will illustrate how the new Sidewalk will let people “live life on the go” on the Web and on mobile. The solution will also integrate well with Citysearch’s taxonomy, directory, content and other open APIs focused on local, and obviously leverage traffic from Citysearch’s publisher network.
Entries are due July 17, and winners will be announced in mid-September. Entrants should log onto www.sidewalk.com to enter. They can follow updates at twitter.com/sidewalkdotcom.
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The Old Sidewalk
Great idea for IAC, lousy idea for an entrepreneur! I read the fine print, the winning idea gets funded with $1M and “up to” 10% equity in the venture. 90% dilution on a seed round. Umm, perhaps a win-win for a smart developer with a great idea as their training wheels, but if the idea is good enough to pass this test, it should be viable for someone to fund with less absurd terms. Again, very shrewd for IAC.
Comment by Perry — July 2, 2009 @ 10:26 am