Yahoo and the Ad Council have announced the launch of the 2010 "Create for a Cause" contest. The competition looks to highlight the best and most creative in non-profit-focused digital advertising.   

Update: Microsoft announced that the "King of Bing Maps" contest is now closed. They will determine the winner soon.

Original Article: Bing has announced that it’s searching for "someone to worship." By this, they mean lead the way in Bing Map App development. So naturally, they’ve launched a contest.

Logitech has started a contest to promote Google TV, the upcoming service for which Logitech is a launch partner. The contest is called "Host with the Most", and asks if "you have what it takes to be a ‘host with the most’ for Logitech Revue with Google TV?"

Logitech Revue is the company’s set-top box that will help the Google TV service launch (alongside TVs and Blu-ray players from Sony).

A project that should entirely live up to the billing "historic cinematic experiment" has begun.  Ridley Scott, Kevin Macdonald, YouTube, and LG have asked people all over the world to record (part of) their lives on July 24th, and then much of the footage will be used to create a single film that’ll premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

YouTube has teamed up with Dr. Pepper Cherry and Jon M. Chu, Director of Step Up 2: The Streets and the upcoming Step Up 3-D, on a YouTube dance contest called, "YouTube Dance Contest: Dance Studio".

In this contest, YouTube users are asked to submit videos of themselves dancing for a chance to win a trip to LA and spend a day with Chu at a "jam session", as well as an opportunity to dance in an Ultra Records music video.

Look for many, many interesting new PayPal apps and services to surface over the next four or so months.  The second PayPal X Developer Challenge was announced today, and the competition is sure to draw lots of participants with $150,000 in prizes on the line.

A PayPal representative explained in an email to WebProNews, "[T]he grand prize is worth $100,000 – $50,000 will be deposited directly into the winner’s PayPal account and the other $50,000 will go towards waived transaction fees."

YouTube, HP, and the foundation behind some of the most famous museums in the world have teamed up to discover creative online videos.  Winners of the YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video competition will then get to see their videos presented at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, along with the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice.

A science fair that’s been around since 1950 is about to become an even bigger deal thanks to Google.  The company’s announced that it will give out three Google Special Awards at the International Science and Engineering Fair (which has been sponsored by Intel since 1997).

The Facebook Fellowship Program has born fruit.  After making an initial announcement about it three months ago, Facebook will now pay five Ph.D. students’ tuition and fees, send them to conferences, and provide each of them with a $30,000 stipend.

Another year, another Google-sponsored competition meant to identify the world’s best programmers.  People can now sign up to participate in Google Code Jam 2010, which will offer winners more than $10,000 in prize money.

Here’s a brief overview of the most important dates for anyone who’s ready to dive in: registration began this afternoon.  A 24-hour qualification round will take place on May 7th.  Additional online rounds will take place May 22nd, May 23rd, June 5th, and June 12th, and then the onsite finals will fall on July 30th.

About one month ago, Yahoo launched a new campaign to get people excited about its brand, and as part of the exercise, asked individuals to put their spin on the famous Yahoo yodel.  This afternoon, Yahoo identified the three people who stood out from the crowd.

Yahoo is launching a new Yahoo Mail ad unit called "Tandem," to be reserved for "the most creative" non-profit campaign. The company has partnered with the Ad Council to launch the initiative, which it refers to as "Create for a Cause."

Update: Nefflix officially announced the winner of the first contents today, and the beginning of the second contest. The winner of the first one is a team of engineers, statisticians and researchers. 

Read the release here.

Real-time search engine Collecta announced the release of its API today, meaning developers will be able to use it to pull real-time search results directly into their applications.

Update: Google says the Google Chome Icon Project is over now.

Free stuff has a way of piquing people’s interest, and Google intends to capitalize on this fact with a new competition that is starting today.  10 Days in Google Books may drive use of the search giant’s literature-related service by putting Sony Readers on the line.

The photos that rotate through Bing’s homepage are, at least from an aesthetic standpoint (we mean no disrespect to the search engineers), one of the best things about the site; it’s always a pleasure to stop by and see some interesting scene.  And now artistic types are getting a chance to contribute thanks to the new Bing Photo Contest.

As you are probably aware, Apple announced last week that the iPhone 3G S would go on sale this Friday. Phone recycler Gazelle tells WebProNews that 300 iPhones were traded into its site that day alone.

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About one month ago, Google put out a call for students to submit photo collections.  Now, the Google Photography Prize contest is coming to a head as 36 groups of pictures have been made into iGoogle themes and voting has begun.

Yahoo is launching a campaign with Bank of America this week, which a spokesperson for Yahoo tells WebProNews is essentially "a big online push for BofA to build visibility and facilitate dialogue in the small business community."

Yahoo’s Small Business Answers Center is designed for small business owners with "great ideas and good questions," who don’t always get credible answers.

eBay aims to "spark the entrepreneurial spirit" among its sellers with today’s launch of the eBay Sellers Challenge. The challenge is for sellers to answer the question: "How would you use $25,000 go grow – or start – an eBay business?"