Message from Rob Campbell, the Executive Contest Producer
Occasionally the Lenzr admin writes dispatches to the membership outlining positive changes and technical evolutions to the Lenzr website. We are growing ever more popular, but slowly, and not so much through software innovation any more as by hosting imaginative contests that appeal to the masses. Each contest is like a stage play, or a project that we mount – and we never really know how successful the live event will be until it happens. Each contest is a story, as I have said before, and every picture is a sentence in the multimedia document, and together we wait to see who wins, and how the story ends.

Regarding the Website Crash(es)
Already House for Renovation and Electronic Engineering matches are breaking the bank and, as it turns out, breaking the website too. There was something restrictive in the database tables? Something fuzzy was happening there, and it was breaking every day as the website peaked in users and activity.

What to do? Pay smart people to fix it quick was the solution. And that’s what we’re doing/have done. It is still and will always be a work in progress, I’m sure.

Regarding the SPAM
I cannot tell you how stressful and embarrassing it is to operate a community software based website that doesn’t allow users to EDIT or DELETE the ubiquitous spam comments that accrue in such destinations all over the internet. Even the admin can’t moderate comments in our new website. And yet we (sometimes) pride ourselves on developing thoughtful and intuitive software solutions… our Achilles heel is that we have overlooked that critical component that every successful user generated content / interactive design MUST have. Now, today it’s a soleful task to receive and reply to countless emails asking for remedy. To everyone with SPAM on their profile pages I apologize and encourage you to Report Spam in the Discussion Forum here. It will all be mopped up and wiped away eventually.

Regarding the Toronto Christmas Market Photo Contest

Holy smokes the Toronto Christmas Market photo contest on Lenzr is an incredible success! There are now over 300 images in the gallery! That’s more than twice as many photos in this Community Contest module than in any featured contest Lenzr has ever run in its two and half years of operation, which is over sixty contests. There are twice as many votes as the highest ranked featured contests too. It shows the power of cross platform marketing and the value of developing the photo contest feeds for 3rd party client website hosts. This contest has become an incredible example of just what’s possible when you host a gallery of pictures on your website chronicling an event.

This photo, Christmas sunset by a new user named silverlink is one of my favourites.

If you have a photo in this match, please watch the next video we produce which will hopefully go live before January first, that will show the actual judges live voting and making their decisions on-camera right in front f your eyes! hopefully, if all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed YOU could be a winner!

Here’s a snapshot of Lenzr’s traffic from Nov 22nd to today, Dec 22nd 2011

And that’s a great place to sign off saying ‘have a merry Christmas’ ; we all thank you for your participation and patience and your great photography – please  look forward to more great matches on Lenzr in 2012.

When photo contest participants become photo contest winners, they write kind letters.

Hi Rob!

Wow and reWow! Fantastic news this morning! I’m so happy! This is sooooo cool!!!

What a great honor when we’re considering the always getting better quality of the submissions in contests. I’m starting my telescopic mast photo business right now and this prize will be more than welcome. The site is getting better day after day Rob. The one only photo by member in the Top Ten policy is a great improvement. You have so much nice contests right now. I really like to see prizes involving licensing. This is a great way to have visibility and expand the finality of the site.

You know that I’ve always been interested by your site concept and will continue to be an active member. I’d like to see it becoming more social and less competitive. But with nice prices like that it’s gonna be difficult I’ve met very nice people and good photographers in the LENZR environment. I think it‘s a great way to learn from each other and become better. I want to thank you personally to have always been so encouraging. I know your a man of word and I respect that.

I eventually like to invest myself in your project and maybe help to find a way to promote your idea in Quebec. I’m sure they’re a lot of sponsors who will be interested and photography is a big market here.

I’ve never forget your judge offer too. Let me know if I can do something for you, it will be my pleasure. I’m very very happy about what’s happening and want to thank everybody at Lenzr, I know you’ve always been behind me!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Martin

Months after the reward voucher was issued, Debbie Watson of Hamilton Ontario, also known as Mommakoala,  (a formidable contester and multiple Lenzr prize winner) appeared in person at Chocolicks in Toronto to claim an outrageous prize.  She won over 50 lbs of Belgian chocolate and it came as five huge 10lb blocks – each one wrapped up like a big chocolate bar.  She received three milk chocolate bars and two dark chocolate bars, which I believe are unsweetened or semi-sweetened and could be considered antioxidants and therefore not entirely the kiss of death that healthy fifty year old people are looking to avoid. Click photos to expand views.

Outside Chocolicks on the morning of September 10th stands Tina Rogers of Tempo Toronto an online magazine stuffed full of stories and coupons and contests shaped for an over 50 demographic. That age group is hard to target, and even harder to please. Will they be amused by one of their own winning over 50 lbs of Belgian chocolate? Is it like watching a train wreck?

Besides being innovative and entertaining, Tempo Toronto is a very valuable resource for people living in the downtown core of the largest city in Canada.  On these digital pages readers will find good insightful Toronto restaurant reviews, theatre critiques and experiences and write ups on the latest books by bestselling Canadian authors. And of course there are recipes, coupons, links to other contests, and profiles of other cool fifty year old people, musicians and artists and investment bankers.

The 50 Going On 15 photo contest on Lenzr was destined to index the country’s most courageous 50 year old people acting like crazy kids and Debbie won the prize because she showed us a rare glimpse of herself, wearing huge green Elton John glasses and acting outrageous; here’s her Elton Johnish submission. True to form, Debbie started acting crazy again on September 10th after just a few bites of a big bar

Now she can enjoy over 50 pounds of pure chocolate, supplied by Chocolicks, Toronto chocolate located at 573 Eglinton Ave west in the heart of Forest Hill.

You might ask what Debbie plans to do with that much chocolate? We agree, it’s a problem. Perhaps thats why it took her three months to claim the prize. Now maybe she will sit on it for the rest of her life? Whatever the solution, it’s a nice problem to have.

Conflict is a photo contest on Lenzr, and story sauce on the internet.

The number one failure of boring public speakers, bad business presentations, and weak online storytelling is the lack of conflict.

Hero driven social media marketing is built on a dynamic relationship between two or more characters, and its most powerful when presented as a protagonist’s struggle against a formidable antagonist. The journey from problem to solution should be a storyful vessel filled with human emotion on a compelling character arc, cause that’s what people remember…

Smojoe Social Media Marketing in Toronto endeavours to do business without conflict, and all case studies proudly showcase positive and productive client relationships. But when composing good brand stories an Online Social Relevance Director, cognizant of his client’s best keywords, campaigns and community managers, should isolate and engineer the most interesting examples of ‘human business’ to achieve a myth making that fuels viral connectivity. And this should include conflict.

Conflict really will occur when voting begins on September 20th 2010;  its then we’ll see professional photographers and contesters line up their social networks to vote for their favourite pictures.  There will be elaborate vote fraud detection systems running right up until the contest ends on Oct 1st 2010. The highest ranked photo wins a Blackberry mobile phone.  Take pictures of conflict and upload them to Lenzr and you could WIN a Blackberry BOLD* 9700

Smojoe social media marketing uses Lenzr photo contests as a tool in their quest to build high quality social capital for their clients. The firm also authors Canada Blog Friends, and does blogger outreach through multiple channels in Canada and the United States.  This company authors compelling stories that intrigue humans and satisfy search engine robots.  Smojoe social media marketing always improves client search engine rankings – each story funnel is a punch of online social relevance.

Three new photo contests will launch July 10th 2010. They will be subject to a new voting ritual. A change is occurring whereby pictures are collected and displayed until the last two weeks of the contest, when votes are collected. This levels the playing field for photographers and professional contesters.  Please read more about the new Lenzr voting mechanisms in the next post.

May June contests come to a conclusion, with one strange upset…

Another unusual chapter in the story of Lenzr has been written today. An unprecedented event occurred at 11:45pm on June 30th, 2010. Mommakoala’s image, My Candy Stash was eliminated from the competition. The correction was made by admin.  The result of their decision makes her ineligible to win the Portable Luxury photo contest, and the Las Vegas vacation prize for which she has been campaigning in multiple social networks for a month.

Debbie is upset, Bill is furious, but Lenzr has to be fair to all members.

As everyone knows this blog is connected to a serial photo contest website that issues new challenges every sixty days. Its the only indy photo contest website of its kind, and as such it has developed a core following of veteran contesters that dominate each challenge and sub-divide the spoils. These individuals scour other social networks recruiting votes and promoting their work, and this activity is encouraged by admin. That’s right. We like it when that happens. When contesters put the message out on their own social platforms it compounds the quality and distribution of the marketing.

However, Lenzr website admin must also guard against proxy IP vote fraud and multiple domain registrations for / by which the only activity is voting perfect 10s for specific images from specific members (and voting 1 for everyone else) We can see when that happens.

Although Mommakoala’s My Candy Stash was the only photo removed in this session, almost all of the photos uploaded by just about every member have red flags attached to them in Lenzr reports; they are being flagged for some terms of service violation or another, by both humans and the filter. And that’s understandable because its just the way the votes are collected…

WHO’S TO BLAME? Because the abuse is so widespread across the entire database we have to believe that individual contesters themselves are not really responsible for the methods and passion of their friends, or strangers who might otherwise seek to disqualfy them.

Its a strange web we weave when we invent and launch a ‘democratic photo contest website’ made ‘by the people for the people’ wherein admin has ALMOST no control.

Remarkably, Seattledredge’s Portable City had no such red flags or suspicious activity. It appears to have collected 330 points in a most organic fashion. Admin had to act here, to be fair to Seattle and reward her for submitting some very pretty images in all three categories.

So a decision was made to reward Seattle’s image over Mommakoala’s submission, and as Admin has no power over the voting algorithm itself, our only option was to eliminate Debbie’s image entirely from competition.

Mommakoala is one of our favourite associations. As you will read in the next write-up, Debbie’s Elton Johnish photo is the winner of the 50 Going On 15 photo contest, and she will collect over 50 lbs of pure chocolate from Choclicks courtesy of TempoToronto.ca

Ve3bnw Bill Watson, Debbie’s husband will reap the Blackberry reward for having submitted the first place photo in the Crowded Places photo contest. I myself, Rob Campbell the Lenzr blogger have offered to host a banner promoting Bill’s aerial photography business in the sidebar of the Lenzr blog.

NOW WE ADAPT A SMARTER PROGRAM where VOTES ARE COLLECTED AT THE END

From July 1st 2010 forward, Lenzr has a new voting ritual. The new procedures will cure all the vote fraud malaise as we together evolve and perfect this social experiment and make it friendlier and fair for everyone that chooses to participate. Comments and queries are encouraged and will be answered directly.