Lenzr.com is just starting to get its web legs, and now there are widgets available for blog users. This is great way to join the Lenzr community and become part of a synergistic art movement. Check out the widgets here.

This bean sprout website germ-of-an-idea manifest online has just pushed its head up above the night soil.

In the summer of 2009, this junior contest website is starting to get some attention, and twenty one days after launch their were over 100 registered users, 120 different photos and almost 5000 total votes. There are now unusual alliances forming and new production rituals appearing as knowledge is gathered on all eleven sides of this uncut diamond.

THE BLOG WIDGETS

The Lenzr Blog Widget is now available in three basic layouts (vertical 100x or 200x or horizontal 300x) for all bloggers that want to get more involved in Lenzr’s creative community; the bean stalk is just beginning to stretch out its hairy tentacles.

The Lenzr Blog Widget cycles through all three contests, showing the top three most popular images in each match, one contest at a time – each event gets two seconds with a half second fade. Should it be longer? NOTE: The blog widget that’s currently available is just the beginning of what’s possible. Today there’s only two layouts, vertical and horizontal, but tomorrow there will be many more customizable features. For example, right now the script is programmed to load the most popular images, the three most thumbed up pictures in each contest. The mechanism ignores the thumbs down quotient and that could be changed – the feed could someday select and display the worst, most unpopular images. Or maybe it could be programmed to show only the images that member has uploaded? Or perhaps only the images they like?

How I met Steven Prentice is a funny story. I was watching CHCH news television in the morning while checking my emails and he made an appearance on behalf of Bristall Morgan. He was on there talking about the power of networking and harnessing humans on social networks and I took exception to one of his remarks.  So of course,  I visited his website and subsequently left a vitriolic comment on his blog.

Mr. Prentice did not erase my angry words. But rather he answered my concerns with the perfect tone and factual disposition necessary to quench my irritation and immediately win my respect. In fact I believe that I wrote an additional comment to that effect and I still reference this exchange today in my Smojoe talks when I discuss the power of complaints. So it’s indeed fitting that my first face to face meeting with Steven should result in us working together to market his time management consultancy in connection to his sponsorship of a unique and exciting photo contest.

Emergency in Toronto should engender some original images showcasing our city’s ambulance, fire and police service in action. The official description asks registered users to lens “… fireman racing into a burning building, or Toronto police officers making an arrest, or EMS technicians hustling a patient on a gurney cart into the back of a waiting ambulance”, and that could be hot. Stay safe though.

Contest ends midnight August 31st, 2009. The winning photo is the picture with the most votes at that time. The Winner, the registered user that uploaded the winning photo, will receive an Esquire Verve men’s watch with quartz movement, silver-tone hands with four diamond markers. This waterproof timepiece was generously donated by Steven Prentice and should a female photographer wish to acquire the woman’s version of this prize, well that’s also possible. In fact his blog will soon have images of the woman’s equivalent. Here’s Steven’s Twiiter.

Bristall Morgan is a good place to get expert advice on how to marry the natural potentials of diverse human beings with new and emerging technologies in the workplace. This organization has been in business over sixteen years, and they deliver high quality workshops, consulting services, web-based teaching, and keynote speeches on subjects concerning the relationship between people, technology and productivity.

Lenzr’s First Sponsor

On Monday July 13th at 3pm in the afternoon Rob Campbell shook hands with Paul Peic and officially recognized him and mycellmyterms.com as Lenzr.com’s first official contest sponsor.

The first official photo contest:  Summer in Toronto

Local photographers are now empowered to get shots of summer wherever they can find them throughout the megacity. At the beach, in the streets, and shopping malls of our mega city  They’ve all been instructed to record exactly where the photo was taken, and so this visual information will be archived and added to the historical record of the city.

The most popular image wins an amazing prize – The winner may choose any one (1) of several smart phones currently available in the Canadian wireless industry, including but not limited to iPhone, Blackberry, Pre, etc This client’s website is still under construction, but will soon contain more details about the generous reward package.

These guys are social innovators using the web for positive change . The My Cell My Terms website will allow Canadians to negotiate their own cell phone terms for FREE.

Just simply tell them what you want, and they shop for you on their Exclusive Dealer Network.  How cool is that?

When they’re done, they rank your offers and then YOU decide which cell phone deal is best.  It’s that simple.

They’re just starting out too, and have almost finished BETA testing their program and hope to launch in the next four days.

Twitter @mycellmyterms

The first customer of Lenzr is another internet start up with big intentions.

Today is Sunday July 11th and Lenzr has been up for eleven days.  In that time seven photos have been uploaded, and one hundred and fifty votes have been recorded. There are twenty seven registered members and sixteen comments. But there’s so much new information about the growth and general reaction to Lenzr.com off site that it has become a daunting task to try and record it all every day.

Anyone seeking information about the birth of Lenzr should read Rob Campbell’s Smojoe blog which discusses the origins of Lenzr and the evolution of the photo contest from its germination on Dumpdiggers.com

Yesterday, Andrew Ainsworth of AndyFilmSchool.com sent me this link which is the New York Times reporting the success of their online photography contest.  Here the author alludes to the networking advantages that professional photographers enjoy when they participate in these types of events.

Lenzr has just launched its first local photography challenge on its new website; the debut contest Best Toronto Skyline is sponsored by Lenzr itself, and the reward is 12 megapixel new Pentax Optio P70 digital camera.

Photo Challenge #1: Best Toronto Skyline

Upload photographs of the Toronto skyline and try to show our city on the horizon from a unique and powerful perspective.

The winning photo will be the image with the most ‘thumbs up’ votes at midnight August 31st 2009.

The winning image will be profiled here, on nearby discussion forums, and a smattering of local blogs.  The winning photographer will then be presented with our respect and admiration and brand new Pentax Optio P70 digital camera.

The 12-megapixel Pentax Optio P70 is a super compact camera with a wide-angle 4x optical zoom lens (27.5-110mm equiv.). It has a 2.7-inch LCD display, Advanced Face Detection, Smile Capture, Blink Detection, and Pixel Track Shake Reduction “to assure sharp images with low noise even in poor lighting.” The Optio P70 can also capture 720p HD video at 15 frame-per-second..

Who will win?