Son of a Beekeeper

Nov 23

Toronto wedding cakes photo game

There was a time when I had a lot of potential to live a normal life and find a girl and marry her and have a family. The ceremony would be complete with a giant pastry from Toronto wedding cakes to eat chocolate or raspberry or peaches or sugar icing and kindness. Served on porcelain plates with savory vanilla cream sauce and little bits of shredded cheese melting into a warm sugar gravy.

That’s when I woke from my day dream and vision of sugar plums and other confectionaries went transparent in the heat of some new online excitement - i love websites that let me gamble money and yet I loath casinos because I just dont trust them. But I’ve found a photo game called Mazoolo that presents visitors with the interactive challenge of voting on other people’s pictures while nervously waiting the results of their own work and yes this activity can yield real cash, but only if you wager Paypal funds on your own photos. Otherwise the tokens are free.

Members of Mazoolo don’t need to seek out contests for their photos – the website admin does that for them. It also reports daily how many contests their photos have won, placed second or third (or fourth or fifth - there are five photos in every match). I wagered 1$ Paypal against my best photo of the prettiest girl I know, Miss Teen Canada Siera Bearchell. Check out the image below to see how my photo of Siera has now won a match, lost a match, and broke even in the last three random events. This results in an overall profit of two tokens. All photos are charged one token to enter a game. When a game is done: #1 wins 2 tokens, the math: -1+2=+1 #2 wins 1.5 token,the math: -1+ 1.5=+0.5 #3 wins 1 token, the math: -1+1=0 #4 and #5 lose 1 token

Oct 26

myCELLmyTERMS in Financial Post!

Fresh from CBC Dragons’ Den where they did a huge deal for $400K for a third of their company, the guys from myCELLmyTERMS.com were just interviewed today in Canada’s Financial Post.

Here’s an inside look at what it takes to start a company that will no doubt revolutionize the wireless landscape in Canada. The three big cellular service provider companies are resisting change, because they are making so much money - along comes these guys with help from Dragons Brett and Arlene to make change.

Are you getting the best cell phone deal? Are you sure?

Oct 17

Wise New Warranty Elephant

How many new products did you buy last year? How many of them are still covered by their factory warranties? Will you remember to check these products for flaws or defects before the expiry date?

Warranty Elephant remember cycle

Now WarrantyElephant.com will help you remember. The free email service is perfect for anyone who buys six or more new items a year, or has a messy file system habits. Warranty Elephant is a free service that always remembers the submitted information dates and sends short simple email reminders to consumers informing them exactly when their warranties are about to expire.

Check out the Warranty Elephant Blog for more insight into this smart little company and their free service.

Oct 9

How To Market Events in Toronto Oct 14th 2009

Everything Smojoe knows about how to market an event in Toronto will be revealed on Weds Oct 14th, 2009 starting at 6:00pm - 8:30pm inside the Spoke Club 600 King St W, Toronto. Get tickets in advance here they’re cheaper.

https://secure.gettickets.ca/?event=15422

Rob Campbell of Smojoe has lots of experience marketing live events online including the Miss Teen Canada-World pageant event this summer. That’s when I went on a quest to find and index all manner of web services that are built to capture local event listings, and that’s what I’ll be talking about on Weds.

Deb Lewis of City Events will headline the presentation and share years of her empiric knowledge condensed inside a handy workbook that’s being printed for distribution to attendees. Smojoe will supplement the symposium with spicy insights that showcase superior web tactics, like how to make an effective Craigslist ad etc,

Come listen Weds Oct 14th as Smojoe explains his Story Funnels to Buckstops marketing methodology. Bring your ideas to the event and share as Rob Campbell will be giving away twelve jars of Campbell’s Honey to build buzz and reward audience participation. More details on Smojoe blog.

Sep 13

New Lenzr Photo Contest: Ontario Tourist Attractions ends November 1st

Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest on Lenzr sponsored by, Kanetix insurance & mortgage rate quotes, is a search for pictures that celebrate of our province’s most interesting destinations.

This web challenge hopes people will upload shots of Canada’s Wonderland, Marineland, and Ontario Place with a shot of CN Tower in the background.

Have you ever been to Upper Canada Pioneer Village in Cornwall Ontario? or Black Creek Pioneer Village in North York Ontario?

Casa Loma and Ontario Tourist Attractions on Lenzr

Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest commenced Sept 2nd 2009, and will end at 12:01 am on the morning of November 1st 2009.

The Prize is American Express gift certificates. There’s a $200 value first prize, followed by a $100 second prize unit.

Aug 17

Time Management Guru at Bristall.com

Steven Prentice and Rob Campbell Steven Prentice is Toronto’s best time management guru, author and public speaker. His company is the official sponsor of Lenzr’s third photo contest, Emergency in Toronto

The challenge tasks local photographers to submit pictures of Toronto’s emergency workers in action. This contest is a really difficult challenge, probably the hardest on the site this summer. It requires being ready and in the right place at the right time - you’ve got to have your camera ready!

The slightly morbid theme was selected because it best represents the idea of saving seconds, and precious moments of time - similar to the wisdom conveyed in this sponsor’s vocational seminars. Time is definitely precious to Toronto’s first response teams, and Lenzr hopes to harvest images that suggest speed and action.

The Reward? they could win a luxury watch. How exactly? Toronto police, firemen and EMS techs are good time managers, especially when responding to a crises. Photographers that capture these precious seconds could win an Esquire Verve 2020 silver-tone men’s watch with four diamonds. This timepiece has Quartz movement, is water-resistant and features a stainless steel bracelet with butterfly clasp.

Contest ends 12:01 AM on August 31st 2009

Play Safe! Please dont risk your life or anyone elses’ in your quest for the perfect photo, but if you happen to catch a three alarm fire on your way home from work…

Jul 19

Summer in Toronto Photo Contest for Smart Phone

Lenzr photo contest Take pictures of Summer in Toronto and you could win a smart phone! This contest is wide open on Lenzr.com and unlike other challenges anything goes in this event. The winning image will probably be a magic moment on very summer day somewhere in Toronto, and it will definately be a photo that everyone really likes and gives a generous thumbs up.

Contest ends midnight August 31st, 2009 . On Lenzr.com the winning image is always the picture with the most green thumbs up at the end of the contest period.

The user that uploads the winning photo, may at the end of the contest period midnight August 31, 2009, choose any one (1) smart phones that are available in the Canadian Wireless industry, courtesy of Canada’s best cell phone plans company website. The winner picks their own smart phone - how cool is that? This offer includes but is not limited to the Palm Pre, iPhone, Blackberry, etc. More details on and you can read about the My Terms Network Inc, on Lenzr’s blog.

Jul 2

Lenzr = Photo Contest

First Lenzr Photo Contest

The first photo contest on Lenzr.com asks public to upload their best shots of Toronto’s skyline. Contest ends midnight August 31st; the winning photo, the image with the most green thumbs up, wins the prize.
The prize is a new digital camera, a Pentax Optio P70 is a 12 megapixel 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.

Jun 14

The Complaints Website As Citizen Journalism

Angry content is good content, and few categories are as compelling or infectious as user submitted complaints.

Because such a large percentage of Canadian society now has a voice, its only logical that a truly canuck customer service website should appear to harvest opinions and data from people when they are the most emotional.

Right after a customer snaps, they need to vent. When Canadians go online they end up on American sites where their remarks cant do much good (or bad) to a local homegrown company. Only local complaints websites could ever be expected to advocate on their behalf.

The complaints department at Sears TellOscar.com is Canada’s first online complaints website, and it’s as cathartic as it is effective at soliciting a response from this nation’s worst business offenders.

Good complaints are an art form. This type of user submitted content is rare and precious and very readable. The best complaints websites put that angry content right up front, and remove all barriers to harvesting it on the back end. For example new users can register after they’ve recorded their beef, as part of the submission process.

May 26

Miss Teen Canada And Her Blog Army

Things are different this year at The Search For Miss Teen Canada World.

This year each of the contestants must keep a personal blog. In fact they are graded 10% of their final score on the quality of their web journal.

And that’s because social networking is breathing new life into the beauty pageant.

And now the pageant director actually depends upon the reigning champion to be able to manage her share of the expanding MTCW social net. Its not a one sided relationship anymore; now they are partners who go to work promoting events and sponsors together.

Katie Starke keeps a blog right on the Miss Teen Canada World website.

And all the contestants are now blogging on the Sugar blog network.

So with all this advanced social media innovation, The Search for Miss Teen Canada has become more than a beauty pageant; now it’s a real quest for an new internet celebrity to represent our nation in Houston Texas at the Miss Teen World competition in August.

The four MTCW Judges (Elmer Olsen, Lorraine Zander, Eltom John, and Clarence Ford) have been asked to award high scores to smart girls with great personalities. So believe it or not, a girl’s physical appearance is actually not that important anymore. Now the succesful candidate must indeed be a leader.

Miss Teen Canada must be able to take command of a powerful blog army.