Photo Contest Websites: Thin Edge of Social Innovation

Five years ago a friend of mine started a photo contest on his blog, and everything was fine when it was just friends and family putting up pictures of kitty cats and flowers from their backyard. But a few months later the prizes got serious, and so did the competition.

Photo community websites cant do contests. Or rather they are especially problematic as they tend to be anti community, and stress individual strengths more than sharing and nurturing newbies. In these such websites member disputes often arise over protocol, respect, and perceived unfair advantages. And when websites let users rate each other's photos, well that's when things really spiral out control and a special 'social construct' is required to keep things glued things together.

Here in North America, there's a wide array of respectable photo contest websites, and they are worth studying for one remarkable reason, they're evolving.

There are many different business models here. Some schemes are all about selling photography lessons, and how -to manuals and ebooks filled with contest information and websites addresses that publish and or index photographers. And of course some models are fly-by night contests with T.O.S. designed to expropriate photos from innocent particpants, while others are completely covered in 3rd party advertising and still more are designed to capture emails for a database.

Personally I'm most fascinated by three new photo contest websites, Lenzr, Mazoolo and WeSay. In all three of these domains the photographer retains the rights to their images while they compete for cash or prizes.

All three sites have different methods of selecting winning photos because in each case, like miniature life forms, these enterprises have refined unique processes.

Lenzr photo contest website is where business helps local photographers make art and things really are most democratic on Lenzr. This site is almost a year old now and they have changed the voting algorithme three times already. The management seems to be sincerely engaged in trying to develop a unique algorithm of votes and views and comments. The administration has no power to choose winners here - the membership is 100% responsible for selecting the winning image.

The Lenzr contests yield good prizes donated from local businesses in exchange for buzz marketing. Already in 2010 there's a blue tooth headset worth $440 from of an office phone system installer, and a teeth bleaching kit plus dental supplies for a year from a Toronto dentist near Yonge and Bloor, and a retreat in Eastern Ontario courtesy of the The Wine Ladies and their wine blog.

I have it on good account that the early adopters are still winning all the contests on Lenzr. And although the changes in the rating recipe have reduced click fraud, and increased membership, there's a potent core of winners on Lenzr that use 3rd party social networks to win photo contests. The true beauty and photographic merit of late submitted photos seems to be lost, or rather mathematically ignored as #votes continues to favour the folks that were first in line to upload their snaps and get in at the beginning of the photo rotation sequence. The Lenzr photo rating recipe is explored on the Lenzr blog.

Mazoolo is perhaps the slickest of the bunch, This website gives users a chance to earn real money while having fun with their photos. The original design of this photo game offers users a unique photo rating mechanism. On Mazoolo it's impossible for anyone to vote up or have their friends vote up their own pictures - indeed the user is limited to participating in only five matches a day. The gamer can play with five photos in each round to earn something, or simply play for free. Originally the website had just a few matches everyday as it had almost no membership, but now the site is busy hosting hundreds of games daily.

Being a part of MAZOOLO is as easy as 1-2-3. The first thing photographers will probably notice is the easy registration process. Next they must upload 1 to 5 photos. Then they can select a set of five tokens either for free or for money, for each uploaded photo. Then it's off to rate photos - only members can vote and compete at Mazoolo gaming arena and they must vote in order to keep their membership active.

The games are played under different categories such as art, nature, people, kids, pets etc and token value ranges $1 to $25. The game is played in such a way that 5 photos from the same category and identical token value are put in to one game. Every photo that enters the game is considered equal to one photo which is calculated from a virtual cash box where the account information and balance details are stored.

As an example, if a person enters a game of $5, five other members are participating in the same game with $5 invested each. So how does the voting process happen? The voting page of Mazoolo displays five randomly selected photos of five different members. Members pick three photos from the five and these selected photos win 2 tokens, 1.5 tokens, 1 token respectively.

On WeSay.com the photos are ranked by a unique combination views and prominence. The site admin extols the fact that editors can accelerate an individual's votes by featuring their favourite photos on the homepage. In this spotlight the best snaps are certain to get more views and win the contest. Indeed this fact is broadcast to visitors as incentive; they're told that if their photo uploads make the homepage, then they can just sit back and watch their totals rise. And I can understand why this system works - it reduces the temptation to game the voting algorithm that every photographer feels in his heart. On the internet there's a general feeling that if something is possible then it's okay to do, even if otherwise considered immoral.