Viadeo launches developer challenge

Viadeo, a social network for professionals, is today launching a contest to build a social app using its Graph API, open to developers in the US and Mexico.

The API enables sites and apps to integrate with the Viadeo social graph in a number of interesting ways. For example, recruitment sites can tailor themselves to the user's professional profile and automatically populate search fields with the user's data.

News sites can display stories that social contacts have recommended, and articles can display data from the Viadeo profiles of people mentioned within them.

Any site can simplify its registration process by allowing users to log in with their Viadeo details. You can see a showcase and detailed description of how other sites are using the API here.

The contest challenges developers to create an innovative app that cleverly makes use of the features of the Video Graph API, and other API's can also be incorporated. The judges will be looking for something disruptive that's visually attractive and based on a good business model.

Anyone from the US or Mexico can enter, and the deadline for submissions is 14th October 2011.