| Gifting. Gifting is a combination of the words Giving - the act of To Give and Lefting - German for the opposite of Righting. Wait, our lawyers just informed me that is not correct. Okay, let's just say that scientists may never agree on the actually definition of Gifting. Gifting is our theme for this Hack-a-long contest. We are looking for anything that leverages the Zappos API and falls into the theme of Gifting. We aren't even saying the final product has to be electronic... |
So what to build? There are a lot of neat things in their API, searches, products, images, statistics on the latest purchases and even their core values. So I decided I would allow people to give each other a core value via email from my web form. If you don't know, Zappos.com is pretty famous for their core values which are at the heart of it being such a great and fun place to work (from what I hear).
So here is what I built.
http://www.ondemandcommercials.com/zapposcorevaluesgifting.html
The recipient of the Core Value Gift will get an email similar to the following with one of their core values.
| Deliver WOW Through Service At Zappos, anything worth doing is worth doing with WOW. WOW is such a short, simple word, but it really encompasses a lot of things. To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means doing something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that's above and beyond what's expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver. We are not an average company, our service is not average, and we don't want our people to be average. We expect every employee to deliver WOW. Whether internally with co-workers or externally with our customers and partners, delivering WOW results in word of mouth. Our philosophy at Zappos is to WOW with service and experience, not with anything that relates directly to monetary compensation (for example, we don't offer blanket discounts or promotions to customers). We seek to WOW our customers, our co-workers, our vendors, our partners, and in the long run, our investors. Want to REGIFT this Value? - Want to send a different Core Value?" |
As you can see, I even allow REGIFTING! :) On another note, in the Zappos.com Core Values API there exist a few easter eggs. For example, they only have 10 core values. But like in Spinal Tap, the numbers just go to 11. Because you know like your up on stage right and you have a regular amplifier and you're rocking out at 10. Where can you go from there?
| We only have 10 core values but the numbers all go to 11 Because 11 is always better 10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY |
• Best Overall Application: $100 value ($100.00 Zappos.com electronic gift certificate)
• Most Fun and Weird Application: $100 value ($100.00 Zappos.com electronic gift certificate
• Best Mash-up Application (integrating other APIs or apps): $100 value ($100.00 Zappos.com electronic gift certificate There were also a few partner API's that are also offering prizes for using the Zappos.com API and the partner API in the entry.
Some of those partners were also going to offer up some side prizes -
• Rovi: APIs for Multi-Media
• TokBox: Drop in some video chat with Open-Tok
• SendGrid: Get your email on!
•Context IO: API for quick and easy indexing of email inboxes.
•Twilio - make almost anything SMS or Voice capable using Twilio APIs and tools.
My Zappos.com Hack-a-Thon entry hopefully falls into all 3 categories. I used the SendGrid API in my entry as well, maybe I can win a side prize too.
"SendGrid's cloud-based email infrastructure relieves businesses of the cost and complexity of maintaining custom email systems. SendGrid provides reliable delivery, scalability and real-time analytics along with flexible APIs that make custom integration a breeze."
It was pretty easy to use their API, the only problem I had was I needed to have my hosting provider open up port 587 so I could communicate outbound over SMTP. That was no problem, as my hosting provider Siteground.com always comes through for me. I highly recommend them. :)
They haven't judged the hack-a-thon, so I don't have much to say about it right now. If I win something I'll be sure to post an update.
