Sprint Hackathon: Use a Neustar Information Services API, Win $1000 in Amazon Gift Cards!
Neustar will be at the Sprint Developer Program Hackathon next week in San Jose with a load of their Information Services APIs that can help build great apps and services for marketer and other enterprises. Up for grabs for the best app using their APIs is $1000 in Amazon gift cards! Read on below to find out how your app can win.
1. Hello! Please introduce yourself and your company.
Neustar is a trusted, neutral provider of real-time information and analytics to the Internet, communications, entertainment, advertising and marketing industries throughout the world. Using advanced, secure technologies, Neustar provides addressing, routing, policy management and authentication services that enable customers to find their end users, route network traffic to the optimal location and verify end-user identity. Neustar also is a provider of consumer insights, segmentation, and analytics services used by enterprises to help them find the right audience and also understand more about their customers.
2. You are sponsoring a category at the upcoming Sprint Developer Program Hackathon for the best use of one of the Neustar Information Services APIs. Tell us a little bit about them, and what they can do.
Neustar is providing developers at the Sprint Hackathon the ability to submit a simple query that includes an identifier, such as an email, name, address or phone number, which we can then attach additional information to. This service is often used by contact centers, CRM, and commerce solution providers to verify information about a consumer which they may already have from previous engagements in their CRM database, to synchronize information in their CRM database or to add data that is missing. Additionally, Neustar can provide these solution providers with other characteristics about the prospects and customers that they are engaging with, such as their demographics, geographic location, lifestyle, and preferences. This information can be applied at all consumer touchpoints, including mobile, so the enterprise or solution provider can create more relevant engagements.
3. What are some apps you might expect to see using the APIs, or apps that can particularly benefit from them?
There is a growing need for application developers to better understand their audience, so they can engage with their users on a more personalized level and keep them coming back to use their application. Application developers that are seeking to monetize from advertising revenue will also benefit from understanding the make-up of their user base so that they are able to communicate this to the advertisers who may have products or services that their users would benefit from. Neustar has APIs and segmentation tools to enable Mobile Application Developers to better understand their audience.
Neustar also offers APIs that provide basic information about the phone number – is it tied to a business or residence? Is it prepaid? Who is the carrier? Is the phone number still active? If the phone number is published, then Neustar can also return name and address attributes associated with the number. Due to privacy safeguards however, Neustar does not return name and address associated with a mobile phone number. Neustar can return the zip code associated with a mobile number.
4. What should developers do to prepare for your category at the hackathon? Are there SDKs they should download, places they need to register or documentation to take a look at?
Check out the list of APIs we're bringing, and think about what they could add to your app. To get access, come and talk to us at the hackathon and we'll get you set up with an account.
5. What’s your advice for developers in a hackathon, both to win your category and in general?
We are looking for creative, innovative, new applications using our services that could potentially be extended to the application development community as a service or to our enterprise customers.