How to win Panoramio's contest

[digigrafbg]

As we can see not always the best quality photos wins.

What do you think is important to win Panoramio's contest?

Maybe it is impotent number of friends you have to vote for photos, however how much impotent is location(popularity, number of photos around, etc.), tag lines, forum activities, caption of photo etc.

What are you doing to win contest? What are you doing to promote your photos?

What are your experience with this?

[Galatas ©]

Quote digigrafbg:

As we can see not always the best quality photos wins.

What do you think is impotent to win Panoramio's contest?

Maybe it is impotent number of friends you have to vote for photos, however how much impotent is location(popularity, number of photos around, etc.), tag lines, forum activities, caption of photo etc.

What are you doing to win contest? What are you doing to promote your photos?

What are your expedience with this?

I think you mean important not impotent , and experience not expedience
Both words have meanings quite different to what you intended.

[digigrafbg]

hahahahahhaha

it is always funny with spell checkers!

especially if English is your second language

[Draken]

Some of those users who have won the (official) contest don't come regularly to the forum and so they won't tell you.
Besides, it is not a secret some of them use means other users disapprove of and frowned upon.

I recommend your reading this: http://www.panoramio.com/blog/panoramio-comments/

Sorry, I can't be more objective and impartial than what I have said.

[leolund]

Quote Draken:

Forever, the great diplomat.

[Draken]

Quote leolund:

To be brutally honest, not always. Some issues bring out the worst in me.

[Deep.blue]

Quote leolund:

Quote Draken:

Some of those users who have won the (official) contest don't come regularly to the forum and so they won't tell you.
Besides, it is not a secret some of them use means other users disapprove of and frowned upon.

I recommend your reading this: http://www.panoramio.com/blog/panoramio-comments/

Sorry, I can't be more objective and impartial than what I have said.

Forever, the great diplomat.

I'm not.So,vote for shots that have no chance against you because you don't spam and hope they vote for you,erm........try spamming,(or not as you could have your account deleted),say you have voted for shots that do stand a chance when you have not,"like" and YS everything that you visit,or at least say you do( be prepared to get caught out with YS )

Mind you,i'm in the hard liner non mod camp ( or at least i was Tom), so i reckon you should go with Drakens link.Failing that,just treat the competition as a bit of fun and don't expect to win, (if indeed you need to).

Oh well..................

[AustinMN]

There are so many issues with the contest that I don't know where to begin...

Austin

[Galatas ©]

Quote Deep.blue:

.............just treat the competition as a bit of fun .........

Where's the fun in a contest where your entry might not even see the light of day again after you submit it ?

[Deep.blue]

Quote Galatas:

Quote Deep.blue:

.............just treat the competition as a bit of fun .........

Where's the fun in a contest where your entry might not even see the light of day again after you submit it ?

My dad once told me that the fun was in the taking part,not in the winning.


I know you would never contradict my dad!!

[AustinMN]

Quote Deep.blue:

If no one even sees your photo, are you taking part?

Austin

[Deep.blue]

Quote AustinMN:

If you run a marathon,perhaps nobody will remember you from the crowd.The pleasure is yours alone.You win perhaps but i have certain words from Tom and David ringing in my ears.I would happily wipe every spammer from the face of Spamaramio but they cannot take the pleasure i have from sharing what i see,whether i enter that competition or not.If you like,if someone breaks the rules,the last laugh can always be mine.It depends whether i click on send or not.I would rather it be them than me

Fire is warm,wine is chilled.Goodnight all.

[RoarX]

Quote AustinMN:

If no one even sees your photo, are you taking part?

Austin

Now we are almost getting philosophical here

Deep.blue is right about the marathon race but I don't think it applies to this photo contest.
I want to put it this way: If no one sees my photo, I'm taking part in the contest but I don't compete.
If you are in a marathon race, you are competing as long as you are moving towards the finish line.

[Bluescape]

Well I have some photos with a quite average quality especially when it's evening and night. Till today I sort of can't forgive myself for choosing this Olympus model but in a couple of weeks I'll have a professional camera at last and will finally start practising!

So the photos I have probably have a very low chance of winning even if they present something really beautiful. Anyway personally I don't find it that important to win. As one said here, the fun is in taking part. But the other side of the medal is like another one said, where's the fun when your photo can't be seen. I think that this contest needs some improvement

[Deep.blue]

Quote RoarX:

If you are in a marathon race, you are competing as long as you are moving towards the finish line.

Trust me,if i were in a marathon race,i would not be competing..........

[digigrafbg]

If you are in marathon race that means that you can run for over 40km what is something by itself.

To be contestant in panoramio's contest, it is enough to have a mobile phone with internet connection.

The question is is how to win. I agreed that rules are not searching for best quality photo, however there must be some conclusions on what kind of photos have better chances to win.

[Deep.blue]

Quote digigrafbg:

........... there must be some conclusions on what kind of photos have better chances to win.

The best thing to do is to look at the link below,scroll down the page, click on the monthly winners and come to your own conclusions.Good luck

http://www.panoramio.com/contest/

Ps, In my humble opinion,the photo does not "always" play a major part as to whether it wins or not.

[digigrafbg]

Fully agree, however let me analyze those photos which are won not because there was a lot of spam activities.

To be more clear, I will share some thoughts.

Is it better for chances to win to wait for photo to be listed in GE?

Does format of the picture making some difference (squared pictures are better represented in thumbs then rectangle)?

Mainly, voters are not professionals, and usually their judgment is not really based on all quality aspects of the photography. What kind of photos are most attractive for them?

Does the sunsets/sunrises have better chances to win?

What other approaches you found important?

[Draken]

Quote digigrafbg:

Any of the above.

The more messages you send "promoting" your photos, the best chances. Quality has nothing to do, it has become irrelevant. All that matters is quantity, backslap enough users and you will win. Don't exert yourself, there is honestly nothing to analyse. It all revolves around spamming enough. I am not exaggerating an iota.

[AustinMN]

Quote Draken:

It all revolves around spamming enough. I am not exaggerating an iota.

I nominate this as the understatement of the month. Spamming enough? It all revolves around spamming until you are nauseating to the rest of us.

Austin

[Draken]

You are right... I was behaving like a diplomat for a second. My fault.

[I like your new avatar]

[Galatas ©]

Draken is not a diplomat , he's just a very naughty boy

[Draken]

And I won't have any pudding (according to a famous Pink Floyd's song).

[digigrafbg]

Still thinking how to win the Panoramio’s contest.

Here is an idea.

May I start a new photo site (forum, gallery... whatever) and organize contest on that site with Panoramio's images?

I can organize voting system and rules on that site differently from Panoramio. After I pick the winner, I can ask all contestants from new site to vote for the winning photo at Panoramio. With few thousands contestants, photo from new site will always win at Panoramio.

If it works, that means that I can organize my own contest and I don’t have to worry about prices for the winners. Winners will be recognized by Panoramio and Panoramio will give them some awards. I can just send congratulations e-mails.

Am I breaking some rules or low if I realize this idea?

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

Quote digigrafbg:

It stinks.

[Draken]

Yes, you would be breaking a basic rule (in life, not only on Panoramio): you can't use someone else's property without having a explicit permission.

[digigrafbg]

You get me wrong... I didn't mean to take anyone's property... just want to refer to the photos posted to Panoramio.

Or, if you better like this way, I will help Panoramio to promote their service and advertise it.

The point is not taking a pictures, the point is to organize external voting.

[Oompie]

Quote digigrafbg:

Still thinking how to win the Panoramio’s contest.

Here is an idea.

May I start a new photo site (forum, gallery... whatever) and organize contest on that site with Panoramio's images?

I can organize voting system and rules on that site differently from Panoramio. After I pick the winner, I can ask all contestants from new site to vote for the winning photo at Panoramio. With few thousands contestants, photo from new site will always win at Panoramio.

If it works, that means that I can organize my own contest and I don’t have to worry about prices for the winners. Winners will be recognized by Panoramio and Panoramio will give them some awards. I can just send congratulations e-mails.

Am I breaking some rules or low if I realize this idea?

You have to be joking?????

[Oompie]

Quote digigrafbg:

You get me wrong... I didn't mean to take anyone's property... just want to refer to the photos posted to Panoramio.

Or, if you better like this way, I will help Panoramio to promote their service and advertise it.

The point is not taking a pictures, the point is to organize external voting.

Another joke???? This, to me is worse than spamming ever was!!!

[Draken]

Quote digigrafbg:

You get me wrong... I didn't mean to take anyone's property... just want to refer to the photos posted to Panoramio.

Or, if you better like this way, I will help Panoramio to promote their service and advertise it.

The point is not taking a pictures, the point is to organize external voting.

Do I get you wrong or you fail to express yourself clearly in English?

With all due respect you are too new a user and with too little activity on this website to really understand what is going on here.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

Quote digigrafbg:

You get me wrong... I didn't mean to take anyone's property... just want to refer to the photos posted to Panoramio.

Or, if you better like this way, I will help Panoramio to promote their service and advertise it.

The point is not taking a pictures, the point is to organize external voting.

I can imagine this: you will use some photos from Panoramio using API on your web site and you will organize a contest for these photos. OK, so far so good.

But I don't understand this:
You don't want to give a prize for winner in your contest. You want to redirect winner of your contest to Panoramio - how? How can you ask and force all your contestants to give a vote to winning photo also on Panoramio? If you even manage it - how can you ensure that their power is strong enough to gain prize on Panoramio against other Panoramio contestants?

Anyway, idea of organizing contest with prize for winner when you don't own the one - stinks.

[digigrafbg]

Draken, I am sincerely sorry for misunderstanding. You are right. My English is not good enough to precisely express myself. I am working on it very hard since English is my 4th language in which I am trying to be literature. If its rally jeopardizes communication here, I will give up since I improve my English.

You are also right that I am still discovering what’s going on here. I tried to find out the answers, however so many things I tried here not working as I expected. Some basic things are missing and I am surprised that I am the only one confused.

It is not clear what is contest about. We don’t know what we are choosing, best friend, best photographer, best photo, best person or most beautiful person who is sending geotagged photos to Panoramio’s contest. We just know that the photo with the highest number of votes will get the prize...or I am missing something?

So, if you think that you know what is going on here please tells us. I will truly and without any cynicism appreciates and respect your answer.

Tomas K☼h☼ut, What really stinks here is that I asked question: “How to win the contest?” and everyone tried to explain to me that there are a lot of issues about contest and so many things going wrong. Then, when I tried to suggest constructive solution, same persons who didn’t like contest system, tried to blame me for just sharing the idea how to improve that system. I am sorry if my bad English is the only reason for that and if it is I do apologize.

About the price for the winners of suggested external voting system, you are right, I can’t promise anything and I can’t be absolutely sure that everyone who joins external voting system will vote to winning pictures in Panoramio. What I can do is to ask them to do that if they like the system. I can have pretty much control on this. For example, I can ask them to use link from my website to open wining photo in Panoramio and then guess that if they are open the photo from provided link that they will vote as well.

At the begging it will be hard to have enough power to win Panoramio’s price, however I can promise that external contest will increase chances to win for winning photos.
The fact is that there are much more contestants at Panoramio then winning photos has votes. You can easily conclude that if you put a look to the statistic of the recently wining photos. Numbers of views are even lower then number of contestants.

If this system lives, it will contribute to Panoramio for sure. It will surely reduce number of spam and promote good quality photos, photographers and Panoramio services generally.

At the end, if it works for Panoramio, it can work for many other photo contests on the web.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

digigrafbg,
you are right, I am not satisfied with current system. Fair competion should be "common sense of the month best photo", but some users vote for friends or spammers.

Any improvement should arise from site admins (they are aware of problems with contest and they promised some improvements, however it is not on top priority list).

What stinks here is your idea: "I will organize private contest for you promise a reward, but winner should also win Panoramio contest to receive the prize." Technically you have no great control over Panoramio contest and it's winners, so your contest looses one important thing: physical reward for winners, thus resulting in attractivity loose.

But if you are able to implement new better contest with more strictly enforced and more fair rules, you can offer some kind of cooperation to team!

Some my ideas about better contest organization are here:
http://www.panoramio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=466118#466118

[AustinMN]

Quote digigrafbg:

It is not clear what is contest about. We don’t know what we are choosing, best friend, best photographer, best photo, best person or most beautiful person who is sending geotagged photos to Panoramio’s contest. We just know that the photo with the highest number of votes will get the prize...or I am missing something?

You are not missing anything. The contest is about who can win the most votes. In the past, many methods were used to get votes. Some methods that many forum users consider unethical (not fair, or not welcome) were used to get more votes. A few of the worst methods now have rules against them, but the team seems reluctant to fix any more problems.

You hit on the biggest issue - the contest is not about who has the best photo, but about who gets the most votes. Until that is fixed, the contest itself is broken.

Austin

[digigrafbg]

Tomas K☼h☼ut, thank you for the reference. I read your ideas and I like it as well as ideas from other users. You are all analyzing very interesting approaches of existing contest and I mostly agree with everything says.

However, let me try again. Idea is to organize external contest for Panoramio’s photos. If it’s doable, prizes will come by itself, with or without Panoramio. My first thought was to try to win Panoramo’s prices and maybe I was wrong about that, however if you try to imagine external Panoramio’s contest working, you will see that you will be able to even get Panoramio’s prices very easy. I notice that fact more as a something doable than as something I want to do. If you look at the statistics of Novembers winners you will see that there are so much views form Panotamio’s API for winning photos, what makes me suspicious that someone already doing something similar width the idea.

If you run website with half number of visitors then Panoramio’s have contestants you will earn enough money (if you just integrate Google AdSense) to that site to buy good DSLR for winners, not Casio point and shot camera.

So, the new questions are:

Is it doable to create Panoramio’s external contest?

Does it fit to Panoramio’s rules and lows?

Would you like to use some other website for contest?

What do you think, is it attractive to other users?

As I mention before, lot of basic things are missing here. Some of very basics are that we don’t know what Panoramio is all about. We just know that we can use it to share geotagged photos and that we have discussion forum and contest.

They don’t have any mission or/and vision statements, so we can just guessing what’s going on here, and what the owners/authors wants. We don’t know in which direction they want (or not) to lead this website. I don’t think that owners/authors of Panoramio will necessarily dislike external voting website.

If there is general interest in external contest, I will surely ask Panoramio’s leaders for opinion and support.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

Quote digigrafbg:

...Idea is to organize external contest for Panoramio’s photos. If it’s doable, prizes will come by itself...

Now it sounds better, when you accept the idea that you (as any contest organizer) are responsibile for promised rewards.

At this point, I will only repeat general rule: external use of Panoramio photos is possible only via API.

Let me give some time to think if organizing "external" contests is etique and within other Panoramio rules.

Quote digigrafbg:

As I mention before, lot of basic things are missing here. Some of very basics are that we don’t know what Panoramio is all about. We just know that we can use it to share geotagged photos and that we have discussion forum and contest.

They don’t have any mission or/and vision statements, so we can just guessing what’s going on here, and what the owners/authors wants. We don’t know in which direction they want (or not) to lead this website. I don’t think that owners/authors of Panoramio will necessarily dislike external voting website.

I think basic goal (from users view) is defined pretty well.
"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" and a photo sharing site is a photo sharing site. Dou you expect some dramatic changes and new revolutionary vision of Flicker or Picasa?

What can be added to your definition? Maybe couple of things that make Panoramio unique: Panoramio photos can be used in various mashups via API (including popular Google Earth) and that Panoramio is also community and include more interaction then others photo sharing/hosting sites.

If you want to know more about the business vision, I am affraid, Panoramio Team would not dislclose it very much.

[digigrafbg]

I disagree with concludion on mission and vision... Things are not that simple. By the same line, Google is just search engine... Microsoft is software development company... etc. Following visions and missions are essential to industry leaders and they are doing that very well. Mission and vision can divide what companies do and what don't do.

It is easy for me, same as for you, to imagine what could be Panoramio's vision and mission. Vision could be to have organized photos of every meter on the earth not made by satellites. And mission we expect should be related on how they will get there. For example, making community attractive service for shearing photos. Anyway Panoramio didn't says what they are doing. Why they are different from Flicker or Picasa.

In this particular case, Panoramios mission and vision could decide is it external contest ethical or not. If they are planning to make contests in general, then it is completely unethical and ridiculous to use their own resources to compete with them on what they are doing. However, if the contest for Panoramio is just a tool to achieve some other goal, and someone else could improve that tool, then they will be the first one to support that one.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

I appreciate you are thinking of problem in wider context.

I gave you official mission from "ordinary user" point of view (and I forget to mention that Panoramio is focused, but not restricted to landscape and cityscape photography - so there is another difference from Flickr or Picasa).

What you said is very close to my feeling of internal, side mission of the Panoramio site. As Panoramio is part of Google, its important task is to sort and rank photos by location, topic covered (tags, titles, photo content), reliability of inforamtion provided with photo, day and season of aquire, quality, popularity (popularity is based on user interaction, contest etc.). In the future, I expect to see more detailed layer in GE then todays "flat" Photos layer. But this all is only my personal impression I've got by using Panoramio.

And of course, there are other different goals and missions based on viewpoint (viewpoint of Google, Panoramio Team, strategic partners = sponsors, basic users, advanced users). And of course, not all of them are public.

Well, your idea is interesting and I put it into internal disussion with other moderators (and perhaps also Team will join and give us some input). Wait for more words...

[jermanicajones]

Quote digigrafbg:

As we can see not always the best quality photos wins.

What do you think is important to win Panoramio's contest?

Maybe it is impotent number of friends you have to vote for photos, however how much impotent is location(popularity, number of photos around, etc.), tag lines, forum activities, caption of photo etc.

What are you doing to win contest? What are you doing to promote your photos?

What are your experience with this?

I am a new member, so new that I haven’t even placed a photo on yet but this bickering is putting me off.
Could not a competition selection committee be formed and changed every month with committee members not allowed to enter.
Better still could all voters be registered and shown on a map giving their proximity to the cameraman thus showing if it is their relatives and friends who have voted.
Could voters be limited to one vote given to a photo not taken by themselves and also must include a short description on the reason why they like it.
Just a few suggestions how o resolve the problem? JJ

[Hans Sterkendries]

First of all: welcome!

And don't let the bickering scare you off. The contest is the only thing we bicker about. Strangely enough the contest is the only thing the forum regulars agree on...

Quote jermanicajones:

Could not a competition selection committee be formed and changed every month with committee members not allowed to enter.

One of many possibilities. The only downside is that this way of working would not generate as much traffic on the site. I don't think the team will support this solution.

Quote jermanicajones:

Better still could all voters be registered and shown on a map giving their proximity to the cameraman thus showing if it is their relatives and friends who have voted.

On a worldwide website proximity is not always the defining factor for "friends". Also, there is nothing wrong about voting for pictures from your neighbourhood. And there are privacy issues involved.

Quote jermanicajones:

Could voters be limited to one vote given to a photo not taken by themselves and also must include a short description on the reason why they like it.

In my opinion limiting the number of votes is the only thing that will work...

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

jermanicajones:

You should also take into account how many photos are contesting every month. My wild guess is ~10.000 photos. Not nice job for small comitee... You need either split the work into smaller groups or use power of all users participating at the site.

Rest was said and explained by Hans.

digigrafbg:
After small discussion with other moderators and Panoramio community manager we find the consensus:

a) External contest is legal, as far as it uses API. Read API TOS carefully. Important implication: you cannot make contest anonymous with API (one of fundamental proposals and changes for making contest fair).

b) As far as there exists VOTE button on single photo pages, and contest is not anonymous, you have to face up to the same problem as Panoramio (contest spam, friendly votes), only in lesser extent. (your contestants can spam for themself and chase for votes on Panoramio)

c) You will not be allowed to promote your external contest site on Panoramio. Maybe one post about new voting machine could be posted to "User created tools" thread, but don't rely on massive campaign in comments, private messages or forum - it will be treated like spam.
Therefore you will have problem to collect enough participants for your contest, to get enough clicks and finally to make your site interesting for advertisers.

Conclusion:
you can try it, but I cannot see much sense here.

P.S. Panoramio development Team is awere of problems in current contest organization and there is promise of some improvements...

[pepeleyva]

I have been also disappointed with the Panoramio Contest as well.

1 One OBJECTIVE thing I can think of what we can do to have a better chance is to Post AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE IN THE CURRENT MONTH.

2 The other one is enter the max allow pictures in the least attended category.

I can't believe the most posts that instead of answering the question they minimize the contest: participate is the important, do not participate... well what a crap. Why bother answer any post if you ain't got nothing to aport? Are you into psicollogy as well as taking pictures?

[Draken]

Everybody is entitled to say whatever they want provided they do it in a respectful way. It doesn't seem to be your case throwing accusations and making assumptions.

[Galatas ©]

Everyone thinks that the competition is disappointing or unfair ... until they win.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

Quote pepeleyva:

1 One OBJECTIVE thing I can think of what we can do to have a better chance is to Post AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE IN THE CURRENT MONTH.

Objective? Are you sure? Any idea how the early posting affects your chance?
Photos posted at any time of the month are displayed in the contest gallery and can collect the votes during the whole following month!

[nattyb52]

Personally, is it really important who wins? I know that is the point of a contest, but it sounds like manipulating results is the only way to win, so does that really indicate anything of value about your photo's? I think it invalidates the contest entirely. I've entered a couple pic's in the past, but really what is the value?

I enjoy taking pictures and trying to get better at it. I also enjoy seeing the work of others. But I don't find any validity in a manipulated contest. That would certainly give me no pleasure.

Just my two cents for what ever that may be worth.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

nattyb52,
that's true.

P.S. This topic was established and active at the time, when the contest had a different, easy manipulated voting procedure. Take it as an ironic complain about it. Now the things are better.

[Hans Sterkendries]

Quote Tomas K☼h☼ut:

Now the things are better.

LIKE & VOTED!

[davidcmc58]

Quote:

How to win Panoramio's contest?

Judging from the recent winners, I would conclude that stunning photos with fantastic lighting and beautiful clouds are the big winners. My recommendation is to take tripod mounted shots at dawn or dusk with colorful sky + interesting clouds + illuminated structure. Much thanks to those great photographers for showing me what it takes to win.

[AustinMN]

Quote davidcmc58:

Quote:

How to win Panoramio's contest?

Judging from the recent winners, I would conclude that stunning photos with fantastic lighting and beautiful clouds are the big winners. My recommendation is to take tripod mounted shots at dawn or dusk with colorful sky + interesting clouds + illuminated structure. Much thanks to those great photographers for showing me what it takes to win.

A truly stunning animal shot has a chance as well.

Austin