The Canada-e-Connect Entrepreneur Competition was launched to give online travel start-ups the opportunity to win a scholarship to participate in the conference.

The chosen start-up would be able to present their value proposition in 10 minutes in front of the coveted Canada-e-Connect audience.

Yesterday I received word from Jens Thraenhart that a winner was announced for the Entrepreneur Spotlight competition, and today it is my pleasure to announce the name of this really interesting organization.

The company is called PlanetEye.com, and the concept is very exciting.

PlanetEye is dedicated to inspiring travellers to discover captivating destinations around the world specifically through photographs, videos and valuable advice from independent travelers and locals.

So…what’s the buzz about PlanetEye?

We’ve all heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, right?

This is a concept that PlanetEye has really embraced as their core offering as they work to develop a truly different kind of travel guide featuring beautiful photographs and videos that immerse viewers in a destination.

Imagine looking at a photo that evokes the seductive aroma of a Parisian bakery, or a photo that captures the hustle, bustle and noise of Times Square in New York. These are the kinds of photos that will be featured on PlanetEye.

Butch Langlois, President & CEO of PlanetEye Inc., will be presenting PlanetEye during the Canada-e-Connect Entrepreneur Spotlight on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 12pm.

Butch had this to say about PlanetEye during a welcome message on his excellent company blog:

“While many Web sites provide incredible value to travel consumers, we believe there is an exciting opportunity for PlanetEye to leverage many of the emerging elements of the Web such as photo-sharing, geo-tagging and mapping to create something that will inspire travelers to discover the most captivating destinations around the world.

We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We see our core mission as helping people plan their trips by providing them with the essence of a destination through beautiful photographs, insider tips and innovative mapping technology that puts everything into context.”

As geotagging technology becomes increasingly popular and available, more people are realizing there is tremendous value in being able to accurately pinpoint the location of their photographs. Travellers, for example, are discovering that geotags are a great way to track their journeys, while businesses are learning there is huge value in being able to tag all kinds of data to provide consumers with an aggregated view of the world.

I’ve long been a huge fan and advocate for photography-sharing communities such as flickr, and I am delighted that PlanetEye is making waves in the travel space by converging photos, video, UGC and mapping/geotagging.

The concept of geotagging is fast moving beyond geek-ville, and it’s exciting to seeing all of these technologies brought together for the purpose of inspiring travellers to share their experiences so that other viewers may create new ones.

I can’t wait to hear more about PlanetEye.com.