See that down there. No, down there in the bottom right hand corner. Yes, the orange thing. That means that middledigit.net is taking part in ‘the world’s first internet balloon race’ - Balloonacy - a spectacular idea from Poke (yes them again, promise I’m not being bribed to write about them) for Orange which definitely needs a look in. Basically you create and name your very own balloon which then takes part in a race on June 23rd at midday. All the balloons taking part will fly across the interwebz, across sites taking part (including this one) using a bit of Javascript and a dose of Flash 9 movie goodness . Don’t really know what to expect, but given my experience of the site so far, I’m excited and fairly certain it will be super slick.
I named my balloon digit and for some reason decided to talk about pies in the blurb about him/her - first word that popped in my head that rhymed with skies blatantly. Here he/she is in all his/her orange glory, along with his/her tag:
More here from Iain (who explains the whole thing better). The only thing I’d maybe like is a little balloon based countdown timer to whack up on the blog to remind me (and people) when the big day is - as it’s a fairly long way off. There’s a nice one on the main site . . . though I guess it’s nice to ‘discover’ the little bobbing balloon and find out for yourself on the main site. Guess I could try to knock one up if I was really that bothered and do some of that co-created advertising stuff they talk about? Hmm.
So, wish digit all the best and prey for good weather on the interwebz on June 23rd, 2 days after Interesting 2008 BTW.
Spot the Bull is back. And it’s better. This time it’s not Derek, it’s Winston (Son of Derek). There’s more features and it’s still a great idea incredibly well executed where you bet on the location of a cow (calculated via GPS and plotted live on a grid overlay on a webcam feed) in a field in Glastonbury to win tickets. Since blogged about it last year it’s won awards. Come on Winston . . . number 67 tomorrow at 3pm son. Nicely done people of Poke and Orange.
Amazing interactive installation that scrapes data from dating sites. Really beautiful and tip of the iceberg when it comes to the web powering art. It’s all about human beings and we’re slowly but surely coming back to that. Being human on the web is something I am extremely passionate about.
The interactive installation “I Want You To Want Me”, by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition.
I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. It chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, using real data collected from Internet dating sites every few hours.
The piece is presented on a 56″ high-resolution touch-screen, hanging vertically on the wall, and was installed at MoMA on February 14, 2008, Valentine’s Day.
This looks really interesting. I’m right in the middle of lots of stuff right now so have only had a quick poke around. First stab at the holy grail . . . how to rate and rank people’s digital presences
“Be seen how you want to be seen
Up until now there has been no way to measure digital presence, to see where you fit in to the online world. At Garlik, we’ve analysed the digital profiles of the nation and have made available a QDOS score for every UK adult . Your QDOS score is made up of 4 different components:
Popularity
Who you know and the extent of your online network.
Impact
How much people listen to what you say online.
Activity
What you do online e.g. shop, chat, blog.
Individuality
How easy you are to find online according to your name, your age etc
Put simply, the more you are out there surfing, buying, selling and socialising online, the higher your QDOS score.
To find your QDOS simply enter your name and postcode in to the site - it’s as simple as that. Once you’ve found your QDOS you can also claim it, and from there you can tell us a little more about you that will help us refine your QDOS score and make it even more reflective of you. Your QDOS will also change over time according to what you do online. Take control of your online status with QDOS.”
Can’t wait until these things are connected live to the web, which I don’t think they are already - BUT THEY SHOULD BE. Much fun and interaction to be had. Especially if you go down the same lines of the laser grafitti - about which I blogged earlier. Also - maybe that would mean that brands could do up to the second relevant advertising. Bring it on.
Actually a quick idea too. There’s loads of content being generated by peoplefromPoke evey single day. Why don’t you just aggregrate all content from everyone on the main Poke site rather than having an “obligatory blog” that was last updated in March? Sure you’re all over it . . . . but it makes me sad to see that empty little blog.
A great article by Danny Bradbury published on the Guardian yesterday - “The growing number of websites that mix and match low-quality articles produced by amateurs in order to generate traffic is causing concern”. PR, SEO and online advertising are mixing quicker than ever before and we’re having to get even more technically literate to understand what that means for each of our industries. This is right where I’m at right now. And it’s complicated!
I love stuff like this where geekery makes its way into the real world. Here’s a lovely pair of curtains complete with ASCII tree graphic, found via the amazing We Make Money Not Art blog, ran by Regine Debatty who I had the pleasure of bumping into at PSFK London a while back. Um, how many links can I cram in one sentence?
So, tried logging onto Pandora just now and there it is - today is the Internet Radio Day of Silence.
Not sure what to say really, other than hope that everyone sorts it out and comes to a decision that both rewards artists and helps internet radio survive. I’ve really rather got used to being able to turn on Pandora at the flick of a switch . . .
